MIA v New York Times journo over posh meal of designer chips

A higher percentage of rock music journalism than you might think is straight-up advertorial. Somebody with something to shill meets somebody with space to fill and everyone's a winner. It's all fine and dandy if you play by the rules. But cross the line between advertorial and robust, independent-minded criticism and you'll be run out of celebrityville and never eat junket lunch again, writes BRIAN BOYD

There’s a malign PR grip on the entertainment industry that operates as a dead hand on reportage. Go off-message (ask the wrong question, dispute a “fact”, give an informed opinion that doesn’t quite fit with the theme of the promotional campaign) and feel the wrath. It’s just easier to allow some numpty to wang on about “getting out of my comfort zone” on his/her “most challenging and rewarding album so far”.

When the rapper and activist MIA (best known for the excellent Paper Planes) agreed to an in-depth profile in the New York Timeslast month, she was probably hoping for a gentle puff piece ahead of the release of her latest album. MIA (real name Maya Arulpragasam),

a Londoner of Tamil Sri Lankan origin, is a political songwriter who references the PLO and Tamil liberation movements in her lyrics.

The lengthy profile was undercut with snide references to MIA’s political stances and deprived background, juxtaposed with her celebrity lifestyle. Much was made of MIA eating truffle-flavoured French fries in a posh Beverly Hills hotel during the interview.

If the article was intended to be a sequel to Tom Wolfe's famous Radical Chicessay, it failed. But it does work by challenging, however clumsily, some of MIA's claims about her upbringing and the level of her support for liberation movements.

MIA, more used to slavering media coverage, took to her Twitter account the day after publication. "CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE NYT TRUTH ISSUE, I'll b taking calls all day bitches", she tweeted. But instead of including her own phone number, she put in that of the Timesjournalist, Lynn Hirschberg (who also fell foul of Courtney Love a number of years ago).

MIA gave it the “my words were taken out of context” defence (always the last refuge of the challenged celebrity) and posted clips of the audio of the interview on her label’s website. (Yes, some big names do make their own tape recordings of press interviews.)

MIA was upset that Hirschberg reported that she ate truffle-flavoured French fries while talking about her enmity to wealthy lifestyles. The audio clip MIA posted has Hirschberg ordering the embarrassing foodstuff – far from the full “unedited” version of the interview that MIA promised.

Hirschberg was also criticised for combining quotes from different parts of the interview for dramatic effect. MIA apparently had no problem with the quotes, just that they are out of chronological order in the published interview. This practice (lumping quotes together as if delivered as one) is unfair to the interviewee, particularly if done in a tendentious manner. But if MIA is using this to attack the whole piece, she’s just plain daft.

Going into full-on hissy fit mode, MIA has now posted a new song on her website called I'm a Singer, which contains the lyrics "And the story's always fucked up by the time it hits/Why the hell would journalists be thick as shit/Cuz lies equals power equals politics". How Transition Year student of her.

There’s a parity of stupidity here: from the journalist who suggests that MIA living in “very white, very wealthy . . . an isolated and bucolic section of the city with a minimal history of trauma and violent uprisings” and giving birth to her child in a private ward of a hospital undermines her political beliefs, to the singer, who could have taken the oppurtunity to fill in the blanks of her life, career and political activism but instead overreacted like a petulant diva.

When it gets to a squabble over truffle-flavoured French Fries, you realise just how off-focus this unseemly debacle has become. There are big issues in MIA vs Hirschberg, but both parties have scorned the chance to address them and instead reverted to finger- pointing – and a “taken out of context” smokescreen.