Gordon in the morning: Bitch this, bitch that was the flavor of the month

Another one of those days when Gordon's lead story is, erm, transcribing Jay-Z lyrics. Apparently Mr Z has realised that throwing the word "bitch" around isn't on:

The ode, which is doing the rounds in the US, includes the lines: "Before I got in the game, made a change and got rich/I didn't think hard about using the word bitch/I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it."

It continues: "I never realised while on the fast track that I'd give riddance to the word bitch/To leave her innocence intact/No man will degrade her, or call her name/Forever young you may pass/Blue Ivy Carter, my angel."

Gordon, of course, stands up every single story he runs, ever - he told the Leveson enquiry so much while under oath. It makes it a little strange, then, that he adds this:

Last night some Jay-Z fans were questioning whether the poem was legit after refusing to believe he'd go that far.

Actually, more or less as soon the poem appeared people questioned if it was genuine. Which means that not only is Smart leading his column transcribing a poem, it's a poem that even he admits he has no idea if it's a real one or not.

This is, of course, a paper from the same stable that ran The Hitler Diaries with a little story going 'ooh, actually these might be made up'.

It is an interesting story if it is true, although the poem could be real without the emotions being genuine - unless Jay-Z intends to remove all the songs that use "bitch" and "woman" as synonym from his back catalogue, there's a big 'so what?'

More interesting still to see Smart try to explain why the story is worth our attention even if it isn't a real one:

Whether it is or not, Beyonce will be all for Jay cleaning up his language.

'It doesn't matter if this is a story based on a falsehood, as I suspect someone I don't know would want it to be true'. Classic.