The only thing that needs cancelling is cancel culture | Rebecca Jane

As someone who is trained in law, I personally stand by the phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

It would appear in today’s society it is decided that we the general public are now judge, jury and executioner.

I will never condone bullying, harassment, sexual harassment or any form of inappropriate behaviour.

Where I lose the train of thought is at the point where we believe we have the right to cancel a person's career without knowing full facts or seeing evidence.

We have a legal system in place for a reason, and we should trust in that until a time comes when a judge pronounces the words ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’.

I’m not saying I stand by Noel. I don’t. If he is found guilty, the nation is fully entitled to ‘cancel’ him, and they certainly should do.

My point is that we’re all too quick to be jumping on the ‘cancel culture bandwagon’ in the first place.

Another fine example from this week... I watched TV presenter Laura Whitmore try to single handedly bring down a young Irish journalists career over the weekend, too.

The journalist in question, Niamh Walsh had emailed Laura’s agent to clarify a source of information about the name of Laura’s newborn baby.

Laura took offence to this, and tweeted: ‘Vile. My agent received the below email... Niamh Walsh I’m sure you have better and more pressing things to write about than guessing a child’s name and pressuring someone to talk about it either way! I’ll talk about my child on my terms when I choose.’

Such a tweet could cause public outrage, and cause the journalist's career to be ‘cancelled’. Laura has over 1.7 million followers across social channels, and she has branded a journalist ‘vile’ for doing her job. Setting a pack of wolves upon the poor woman.

Thankfully, most people saw common sense. A journalist, doing her job, checking her facts, politely asking for verification (which not all journalists do!)... it baffles me why this should cause such outrage and a call for the ‘cancel culture committee’ to descend on the poor woman!

The problem with social media and today’s society, we forget that everyone is human.

Just because they have a blue tick, just because they work in front of a camera or they feature in the public eye does not make them void of feeling.

One minute we’re championing the phrase ‘be kind’ and the next we’re cancelling careers with no proof, evidence or even a right of reply.

In my opinion. The only thing that requires cancelling is ‘cancel culture’ itself!