I have found the tragic passing of academic Jason Arday very disturbing. My condolences to his family. I have remained silent until now because I didn't know much about the circumstances, I retired from full-time academia about 8 years ago and am out of the loop.

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen (the director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge) made several public appeals and explicitly warned the press that their intense scrutiny of an autistic man created severe safeguarding risks. I heard Professor Baron-Cohen talking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme as a friend and an expert:

"What he [Arday] was saying to me was 'they've destroyed my life' - it's not clear who they were but I think he was referring to the media … The personal attacks on him have been so immense." (link 1)

Today I read the Will Self substack article "J'Accuse the British Media" (link 2). I was surprised by the passion and his call to arms. In an intense, articulate and well argued piece, Will Self put it like this:

"Baron-Cohen did not deny the necessity of investigating academic misconduct. That is why his intervention matters; he said, in effect: investigate the plagiarism, certainly—but stop kicking the autistic man who is already on the ground". (link 2) 

Self also goes into the race aspect of this tragedy, which is a strong factor. The Cambridge chancellor has criticised the 'racist feeding frenzy' around Jason Arday; University of Cambridge have an investigation under way. I also got behind the paywall and read Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times (link 3). He tells us that, through his sister, he knew Arday. It seems she had urged him to intervene, to call for the coverage to stop and to make a statement in Arday's support. Syed confesses that although he thought things had gone too far, he remained silent. Self also picks up on the Syed confession, writing:

"His own newspaper, however, in its institutional editorial voice, has completely failed to undertake the same exercise … Rather, it doubles down on the proposition that the public interest warranted the continuing investigation of Arday's alleged malfeasance, instead of turning that same investigative attention upon its own conduct. To reiterate a trope long established in British journalism for explaining just such snafus: you couldn't make it up. This is the devilish diplopia [double vision] of contemporary media: legacy media staring at social media while social media stares back at legacy media, each seeing its own reflection in the other's eye and mistaking that reflection for independent evidence of what matters. This is how the metric becomes an emotion; such that eventually nobody knows whether they are producing the crowd or merely joining it". (link 2) 

Indeed, Self goes on to set out his case against some in the British Media, to name names including the editor of The Guardian, and it makes frightening reading. When cruelty and carelessness can be such an effective combination for populist politicians and for some quarters of both traditional and social media, it’s clear that the era of rational discourse—the era of Jürgen Habermas—is well and truly over (link 4). Or is it? As a retired professor of technology enhanced learning, I have a responsibility here. I did my PhD on using computers and AI to assist (not replace) critical thinking and creativity. I ended my research career teaching the ethics of AI and building apps that help workers and students negotiate power structures and achieve agency (get things done). As a white working-class academic, I can't claim to know what Jason Arday has been through, but as I say, I was disturbed when I reflected on his life and death. Self (in the above quote) sums up the dangerous feedback loop that seems to have happened here: 'legacy media staring at social media, each seeing its own reflection in the other's eye and mistaking that reflection for independent evidence of what matters'. Rational discourse is needed, will we get it?