The Guardian is on the case.

Daily Telegraph readers have woken up this week to successive front-page headlines alleging a grave threat to free speech, triggered by a star columnist’s “Kafkaesque” encounter with police. The rightwing broadsheet described how Essex police had told Allison Pearson on her doorstep last weekend that she was under investigation for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a tweet last year.

The Telegraph and Pearson say they are unaware which post caused two officers to knock on her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday.

But the Guardian thinks it has found the tweet in question.

Note the peculiar wording though – the tweet that “caused two officers to knock on her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday.” No it didn’t. It didn’t bodily pick them up and hurl them at her front door. It prompted them maybe, or motivated them, but it didn’t cause them to pay her a surprise visit early on a weekend morning.

There’s a lot of that kind of thing in the piece, because of course there is. Manipulative wording is essential for manipulative journalism.

It is a retweet by Pearson of a photograph posted several months ago amid heightened tensions over the policing of Gaza protests. It shows a group of people of colour posing with a flag on a British street, flanked by three police officers. The photograph angered Pearson, who wrote a tweet condemning the Metropolitan police: “How dare they. Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”

That’s harsh, certainly, but is it police level harsh? In the context of all the harshness on the subject that’s all over TwitterX?

The Guardian says the photo is actually of a Manchester protest so the police are not from the London force.

The implication that the Muslims pictured are antisemitic and supporting Hamas is undermined by the green and maroon flag they are holding. The flag is used by supporters of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). It also, rather clearly, has the word “Pakistan” written on it.

A reasonable point, but is it a point the police need to make? By terrorizing someone early on a weekend morning?

The person who complained to the police is not Muslim nor one of those pictured. They are a former public servant with training in criminal law. They wish to stay anonymous, fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements, but told the Guardian the post by Pearson was “racist and inflammatory” – which she denies.

It may have been, but is it really the job of the police to knock on the doors of people over arguably racist and inflammatory tweets? Are there no intermediate steps?

The row has led Essex police to report the Telegraph to a media standards body, claiming some of its reporting has been false. The force has also set up a “gold group”, used by police to deal with a critical incident.

There! That’s an intermediate step right there.

How many “gold groups” do the police set up when a woman reports a rape? Any? Any at all?

The Telegraph and Pearson castigated police and said the visit was an affront to free speech and freedom of the press. Their disbelief was shared by senior lawyers, the former Telegraph journalist Boris Johnson and other leading Conservatives, as well as Elon Musk.

Yeah yeah yeah, but I despise Boris Johnson and especially Elon Musk, but I too think the police action is grotesque.

The complainant first went to a different force, in April, which passed it on. Essex police initially did not wish to investigate, but then reviewed their decision and decided they should.

The complainant said: “As a former public servant, I was concerned about the tweet that Pearson put out last year so much so that I reported it to the police … I have no political affiliation and will call out racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia when I see it.”

Oh will you, you’ll call it out will you. Well come and get me, because I despise Islam. If you wonder why, start with three words: women in Afghanistan.

“This is not a debate about free speech; this is about a journalist who tweeted something false during the height of the tensions in London following the 7 October atrocities.

“She could have tweeted an apology stating she was wrong. She didn’t.”

But it’s not a police matter when someone fails to apologize.

H/t Dave Ricks