Entertainment For Lively Minds
Jan Moir v The World
I'm sure most of you have read her article by now, but for those who haven't here it is:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troub...
Everything that needs to be said about that article is said by Charlie Brooker, who challenges Moir far better than I ever could:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-m...
What I don't understand is how The Daily Mail thought it was a good idea to publish the article, days after Gately's death; with not thought of the grief it will cause to his family. Is it more important for the media to sell their product, or does the "the opinions of this journalist may not correspond with the opinions of the newspaper" line come into place here?
(ps: if this had already been discussed, let me know)
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Can you imagine if she WASN'T a "gay rights champion"!
Hateful piece... Glad Charlie Brooker - and you - flagging it up.
The Daily Mail
was a good paper for one day only. The day it named Stephen Lawrence's killers.
Before and since that day it has been appalling, disgraceful, bigoted shite and a little piece of me dies every time someone on here praises or links to that diseased organ.
If newspapers are dying, I hope that one goes first. What a loathsome article. That woman clearly has a dried up dog dropping where her heart should be.
Spot-on, Badart. Apart from one thing.
You forgot that it's horribly mysogynistic as well.
But it won't go first. Too many idiots who read it, too cunning an editor.
Now if Paul Dacre were to be found one morning on his sofa, cold, in his pyjamas..
To be fair,
judging by the comments/responses under the article, a lot of Mail readers are as appalled and disgusted as we are.
Definitely
This also has to be noted fair play Mikhail
I'm not sure that...
Wishing the Mail's editor dead is really that much worse than what Moir is (rightfully) being castigated for
I think
though whilst Moir is deadly earnest,lenny is joking.Even though Dacre is supposedly an extremely unpleasant individual who is happy for his staff to write their hate filled tosh and earn a million+ for editing the crap,we wish him a long and happy come-uppance.
That was by chance
I've read that they were all set to run stories against Dwayne Brooks and the Lawrence family when Dacre realised that he knew Derek Lawrence, who had decorated his house.
Thank gawd for Charlie Brooker.
.
i read the article
it's not proper journalism in the sense that there's anything being reported or any great insights into the event... merely the musings of someone being misguided and more than a little insensitive.
steven gately never did anyone any harm, and he certainly didn't deserve the snidey remarks written in her article drawing conclusions of his "sleazy" lifestyle.
Scuzz
Unfortunately the Daily Mail seems to wallow in its perceived role as devil's advocate, and distasteful as Moir's piece is, it's not exactly a surprise.
I know nothing of Jan Moir, but she appears to be one of a growing number of columnists, as opposed to journalists, employed to fill newspaper pages.
It will be interesting to see
if anyone dares post a contrary view
Yes. And also I would hope
Boyzone never use the Mail or The Sun (who started plenty of rumours as well) in any future publicity.
The Mail
Is a vile pustule on the face of the British media. We've been here before - http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/the-daily-mail and if anything can be said in defence of this article it is that it isn't this one - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-526251/The-years-heartbreak-da... - where they couldn't wait to shit on Carole Barnes' grave so they squatted over her deathbed and their effuent loose.
The whole philosophy of the rag is vile beyond the comprehension of decent human beings.
I think
the most interesting thing about this story is not that a Daily Mail journalist wrote something breathtakingly contemptible, but the way in which Twitter was the instrument of her downfall.
That's twice in the same week now that Twitter has been significantly involved in big news stories; it also played a part in comprehensively knackering the suppression of the Trafigura question in the House of Commons, by ensuring theStreisland Effect
and the details were spread acrosss the entire Interweb. The furore led to further questions in Parliament and far greater publicity than the story would have had otherwise.In both cases, I feel that Twitter has been used to further the public good, but it does raise the question of how long it will be before Twitter is used for nefarious purposes?
Modern journalism
Going beyond the rights and wrongs of this case, which are pretty obvious, it is a symptom of the way newspaper journalism has evolved over the past few years.
Since newspapers stopped being people's main source of news, with the rise first of radio and TV and especially the Internet, they have had to find a role to survive commercially. As a result, news has to a large extent been replaced by opinion - whatever its detractors think, the Mail has been a very successful newspaper because it presents an absolutely certain view of the world, and an important part of that is its columnists. There's an adage that says a columnist should 'make em laugh, make em cry, or make em angry' and that's certainly happened in this case. I don't like it, but I bet a lot of people know Jan Moir's name tonight who didn't this time yesterday.
With all these voices trying to shout louder than each other, you will always get people going too far. I wish opinion hadn't become as powerful as it has - I'm a journalist and I'd much rather produce stories about thalidomide than The X Factor - but unfortunately the modern world doesn't work like that.
Hitchens is loving it
And unfortunately, David, the opinions that are produced are not clever or witty but mean spirited and vindictive. I'm all for the playful Heat magazine-style 'That's so not a good look' critique of modern culture. But the moralising of Phillips, Moir, Hitchins, Littlejohn etc just leaves a bad taste.
Mind one other thing is also good about this uproar: Hitchens is bound to have had to rewrite Sunday's column or someone had to redraw the page. Unfortunately it's now probably going to be about how the gay lefty mafia, who WE thought Thatcher had stamped out, but are again censoring freedom of speech for ordinary hard working folk.
The trouble is...
A lot of people like that taste - two and a bit million in the Mail's case. When opinion is king, any reaction is better than no reaction at all. Hitchens is probably the most extreme of all our national newspaper columnists, but much as you or I might not like it, in the current climate that's a strength.
Bravo Hitch
And to agree with you, David (and balance my ire below), the Mail is a superb newspaper for its market and deserves credit for knowing exactly what that readership wants.
It is a great example of how to do popular journalism and has been for most of its 120 odd year history. The Mail gave us our popular, national press, after all.
It's just that this column oversteps the moral line in the sand.
Hate Mail
...lives in a parallel universe, especially Hitchens Minor. I don't want to live there. Their front page can very rarely be compared with a ray of sunshine. The only one I foresee is when the Tories get in. When Orwell had in mind The Daily Hate it was surely this he had in mind. Though I look in vain there for horror stories from their side of the spectrum, like the 30 Republican senators supporting gang-rape this week.
Jan Moir was a fine restaurant critic. She should have stuck to it.
Meanwhile, for the second time in a week I see the point of Twitter.
Quote
Even as the target of this barb, I recognise it as an example of Wodehouse's genius. Quite brilliant.
Just for the purposes of clarity
I think it should be pointed out that it's Peter we're talking about here, not Christopher.
Just wanted to make that distinction as Christopher takes a bit of a kicking on here as well (although not from me), for different reasons.
Odious
She should be ashamed of herself. It was like someone nudging you in the ribs all the way through saying "them gays, you know what they are like...".
Then I hear on News At Ten that the Daily Snail is complaining that the people who complained hadn't even read the article. Isn't this the same shower that actively encouraged its readers to complain about the Jonathan Ross show even though they hadn't heard the show?
And how
could they possibly know whether people had read the article?
Besides which, it was so nakedly offensive that they can't possibly imagine that if people had read the article they wouldn't have complained. Can they?
And it didn't stop the Mail
when they were encouraging people to complain about Chris Morris' Paedo spoof Brasseye show in the 90s. The Mail couldn't give a hoot whether you had seen the show, or not. Pretty much every complaint about that programme began "I didn't see the show, but..." which was exactly the kind of people that Morris was taking the piss out of in the first place.
Well I tried to complain
and got this back from the PCC:
Dear Lee Rimmer
Thank you for sending us your complaint about the Daily Mail article on the subject of the death of Stephen Gately. We have received numerous complaints about this matter.
I should first make clear that the Commission generally requires the involvement of directly affected parties before it can begin an investigation into an article. On this occasion, it may be a matter for the family of Mr Gately to raise a complaint about how his death has been treated by the Daily Mail. I can inform you that we have made ourselves available to the family and Mr Gately's bandmates, in order that they can use our services if they wish.
We require the direct involvement of affected parties because the PCC process can have a public outcome and it would be discourteous for the Commission to publish information relating to individuals without their knowledge or consent. Indeed, doing so might unwittingly add to any intrusion. Additionally, one of the PCC's roles is dispute resolution, and we would need contact with the affected party in order to determine what would be an acceptable means of settling a complaint.
On initial examination, it would appear that you are, therefore, a third party to the complaint, and wemay not be able to pursue your concerns further. However, if you feel that your complaint touches on claims that do not relate directly to Mr Gately or his family, please let us know, making clear how they raise a breach of the Code of Practice. If you feel that the Commission should waive its third party rules, please make clear why you believe this.
I feel better for trying. Why a newspaper cannot just let people get on with their loss is beyond me. I wish their website had some arrows for voting.
Well done for trying Lee
If the only people whose complaints can be considered are those directly affected by a story then who can anyone else (those of us generally referred to as 'the general public') make an effective complaint against material as odious as the Moir article? How repulsive does a piece of published prose have to be before it can be considered to have crossed the line of accepibilty?
Flat Earth News.
Nick Davies spelt it all out; the worthless instrument which is the PCC. Dacre knows this. He laughs at it.
I would have responded...
"As a reasonably tolerant human being who strives not to hate people for what they choose to do with their genitals and with whom, not to sneer at people who choose not to go to bed at midnight, and not to assume that having a large collection of Cher records is a direct cause of sudden death, I am a directly affected party."
Got the same mail
I've mailed again asking that they waive the third party rules
Statutory newspaper regulation
I shudder to go back on previously strongly-held beliefs, but, surely in an age where commercial media companies with large newspaper interests are invidiously calling for greater regulation of the BBC, then the incidents this week make a fine counter case for statutory regulation of newspapers. Tired arguments for the market regulating itself don't play any more. Is it time to save newspapers from themselves in the long term?
Too late to save them
They're circling the hole and they know it. They're so desperate that if they enrage 90% of the population but strike a chord with the remainder, that's a good day in the office.
Dead tree publishing; it's gone, let it go.
Can't let it go
DTP isn't dead, it's being allowed to die by a) a short termist City driven mass media model which had no response to a changing environment and b) by this kind of vile ill-judged divisive nonsense which is beginning to wrongly define the whole market.
c) The blogosphere is so much better - isn't it?
Does that include monthly magazines
?
?
No. Monthly magazines are a different print market.
OK
It was a genuine question, btw.
I hadn't heard the expression dead tree publishing before.
Cant
OK, I'll be the Milwall supporter then. What utter cant. What utter precocious bollocks masquerading as moral outrage. What were half of you doing on the Mail website in the first place - do you read stuff just to be outraged? That's well weird if so. Somehow it's ok to act like Mary Whitehouse if you know you're being right on.
If you're a dyed-in-the-wool Guardian reader, then you're not really going to enjoy reading the Mail are you - regardless of its take on celebrity coverage. But please, spare us the moral superiority. Prurience sells papers, whether it's the Guardian, Mail, Telegraph or Sunday Times. Show me the paper that hasn't covered the death of this musically untalented dancer without mentioning his sex life and coming out, for instance.
I thought the article in fairly poor taste, but then I'm not a great fan of celebrity muck-raking. If you really think that Mail readers are idiots and indecent human beings, then maybe you've lost touch with the farty, messy, warts-and-all, non-PC reading majority of your fellow beings. It's not the job of newspapers to reflect the moral code we think readers should have - although with it's dodgy tax avoiding, cross-subsidised corporate structure, the Guardian is more insulated from the real world than other papers that have to survive by the profits they generate.
I was just off to bed
but I might stay up for this...
For some reason
I'm imagining Kashmir playing in the background...
Oh well, like a moth drawn to a flame
I object to any newspaper printing opinion in place of news. In particular, opinion that flies in the face of the expert findings (I believe these are called facts). I also object the invasion of privacy of families during the loss of a loved one. There is a time and a place. I read the article having read the opinion pieces on the article to see if it was that unpleasant. It was.
I don't think all readers of the Daily Mail are idiots and indecent human beings. That will be my Mum and my Mother in Law who are both exceptional human beings.
Thank you for pointing out my failings for finding the article unpleasant. Any other tips for my moral compass willingly received.
(No subject)
Idiots and indecency
Newspapers report far more opinion than news these days - and always have had comment and features to make up for the fact that what they're covering is largely a day old.
Invasion of privacy during the loss of a loved one - always a tricky one for newspapers, which all know that death sells. If there is a time and a place, it'd be great to define what that was, but to readers post-9/11 or following the death of Diana etc etc it tends to be 'now'.
I didn't point out any failings in you or your moral compass. As I said, I found the article - as I find many such articles - in fairly poor taste. But singling this one out and doubly-damning it because it's in the guilty until proven innocent Daily Mail struck me as cant.
Wherever possible, journalism should reflect life, real people, opinions, viewpoints and so forth for people to form their own viewpoints, regardless of whether we might approve. Many readers of this site seem to hate with a kind of visceral passion that suggests they rarely step outside of an Islington wine bar or subsidised canteen. Labelling people whose moral or political viewpoint you disagree with as 'homophobic' etc is just intellectually lazy - an accusation that can never be disproven, but one that once fired, brands an opponent as sub-human and morally inferior. Just seems bogus and dangerous to me.
"Idiots"
"Musically untalented dancer"
(I'm not branding you sub-human, by the way. Nice straw man)
Journalism should reflect real life?
Agreed but only if it meets the facts. The piece had no factual reference points and was designed to cause offence (or Ms Moir has very little going on inside her head that resembles empathy).
Death sells? Great. So do drugs, murder, corruption and a load of other stuff most people, when they consider it carefully, accept doesn't add a positive sheen to life. So why blithely accept it?
Right on?
Surely it isn't right on to object to gleefully and maliciously dancing on the grave of a poor fella before he is in the sod and to attack his grieving mother.
If so, then hand me my dungarees, Greenham Common t-shirt and the keys to the Steven Biko one-legged whale/lesbian drop in centre circa 1981. I'll be the chairperson sisters and brothers.
Can
I read neither the Daily Mail, nor The Guardian. The links I posted were in fact sent to me via Facebook by a friend who reads the Charlie Brooker column. However, why I read the story is not important. What I find offensive is how you can dismiss my opinion, and ask if I read the article just so I could be "outraged". I'm no saint by any means, I drink, I swear, I sometimes forget to say thank-you to my grandparents when they send me a birthday card; but you have no idea why I was offended by that article. I accept that a percentage of the complaints made were from people who weren't sure why they were offended, but that's not the point.
Should we accept that news like this sells? Perhaps. But that doesn't mean it's right. It's not even morbid curiousity, it's simply attention-seeking, purile garbage from a woman who has no justifiable evidence to back her opinions up.
I'd also like to add that I completely agree with what Paddy says a few posts down, in regards to "right and wrong". It's actually the argument I was trying to make.
Hi Tom
Just for the record, I wasn't referring to your post specifically or your viewpoint personally.
Say what?
'It's not the job of newspapers to reflect the moral code we think readers should have -'
Which is why the Mail does it tediously and in a method middle England fashion every day: working mothers, feckless scroungers, immigrants, women who wear the veil, gays, thieving politicians* ad nauseum, declining standards blah-de-feckin-tosspot-blah.
* actually I'll concede that one
PC minefield
Just one point Paddy. I take slight issue with your inclusion of 'women who wear the veil' as if (as Germaine Greer apparently agrees) this is a 'lifestyle choice' rather than what it transparently (an inappropriate word in this context) is - a manifestation of rampant misogyny.
Steady on, I'm agreeing with you, broadly
Jaysus, Doug, let's not open that one at this juncture - there's only one glass left in the bottom of a very good Cotes du Rhone and it's a 9am KO in the morning for our girl's fitba team.
I completely disagree with the misogyny of the imposition of the veil on women (where applicable), but dislike the use of the veil 'debate' as a synecdoche for Islamophobia in the Mail and particularly, The Express.
And that's bad because....
you disagree with it or disapprove of those opinions? That's the trouble with the liberal establishment - about as tolerant of dissent as the viewpoints they pillory and affect to despise.
Liberal establishment
Who are the liberal establishment?
No-one has ever been able to tell me this.
And, if they are so powerful, why have they achieved so little that Jan Moir can still spout this cack in the second biggest-selling national daily?
Who are the right on brigade? Have they got a uniform and regimental hat? Are they forgotten Spanish Civil War veterans?
Where do they parade? I bet you'll say Hackney.
Yawnsome.
I always read Brooker
and I read Moir for balance.
If you aren't outraged by this shit then you've lost touch with your humanity.
Get thee
to a nunnery? That's a fairly big accusation there Adman. No, I'm afraid not. I'm as unsurprised at sensationalist journalism as I am at the po faced reaction. Sorry and all that.
No need to apologise.
I know the line I walk.
Come on you ..Milwall
At last, was beginning to think I was the only one who was unimpressed but not morally outraged. Unlike Occam however, I don't have the eloquence to argue my case, especially when faced with a baying horde. Well done!
This whole episode reminds me of the TV censorship issues in the 70s. On the one hand you had the Mary Whitehouse camp who were full of moral outrage and on the other, the the 70s equivalent of the tofu munching sandal wearers, who's usual response included things like "its a free world" and "if you don't like it, watch something else".
Funny how people change.
Do you really think I give a...
...FUCK whether or not YOU were offended, or that I believe that your indifference somehow invalidates my objection?
This was NOT about the offense to which my sensibilities were subjected. If my sensibilities were that easily damaged, I certainly wouldn't wander off into the world of the internet without my dummy at hand. If the truth be told, I actually enjoy both having my sensibilities offended AND pricking the assumptions of others.
But my sensibilities and my sexuality are NOT the same thing. Moir didn't use her experience or her research to call into question the reliability of the coroner's findings (which was about the only relevant detail in the whole story which could have warranted anything approaching reasoned dissent), she used the story as a sounding board for her own clear hatred of homosexuality and homosexuals.
The not-very-sub text of her article was as follows: Regardless of the coroner's findings, Stephen Gateley's death was not natural, because HE was not natural; if he had not been in an establishment where he had been served alcohol (as a man of ingrained moral feebleness and sexual incontinence it clearly follows that he MUST also be a habitual substance abuser), if he had not invited a pretty young man home for sex (why else would he be going back?), and if he HAD been at home raising children with a pretty young wife instead of lying face down on the settee in a turgid miasma of intoxication, deviation, twisted cuckoldry and self-pity he would be ALIVE.
Furthermore, according to Moir, the findings of the coroner cannot be trusted, although she presents no evidence to dispute his claims, and she casually disregards his mother's judgement as an example of the preening and denying motherlove which presumably turned him into a deviant in the first place.
Lastly (and perhaps most bizarrely), the recent death of the former partner of Matt Lucas another famous homosexual can be linked to that of Mr Gately for the simple reason that both were homosexual despite no other similarity, and together constitute categoric proof that Civil Partnership has failed.
So: no actual dissent there, per se, just poorly presented invective and spleen which perpetuates the unseemly and very dangerous notion that people like Stephen Gateley and me have it coming to us because our compulsive deviation - by virtue of its repugnance - is the root cause of every bad thing (including discrimination, violence and death) that happens to us.
Most right-minded people will not tolerate - and regard as dangerous and irrational - the memes reinforced by say, the myth of The Protocol Of The Elders Of Zion, Holocaust Denial, the suggestion that Paedophilia is healthy for children (who initiate sexual advances anyway), the spurious findings of "The Bell Curve", or the lie presented as fact that women secretly desire unwanted sexual attention because by nature they harbour rape fantasies.
As a result, most of us respect those communities that stand tall and defend their liberty against such notions, notions that so far in history have been advocated by ideologies, organisations or individuals that have no regard for our freedom, particularly our freedom of speech.
So, please forgive me if I take a very definite stand against a woman that abuses her platform to paint me with THE LIE that I am by necessity an inferior, compulsive, pathetic, uncontrollably promiscuous and ultimately unhappy individual who will be held to be the sole author of his own suffering unless he recants his deviation.
I know to be true what she cannot, namely that I am a whole, usually happy, and complex person - a man, whereas she sees me as one of a "they" that only she can understand, one of the buggering herds of identikit cartoon he-men.
So; did I write to the PCC? Yes, I did. Do I want her to feel bullied? Yes, if that's how she sees it. Do I want her to feel inconvenienced, and to suffer even? Yes, if it makes her think twice. Do I want her to be sacked, even? In part, yes, if it changes anything, and if it reminds people that we're not all "Four Puffs & A Piano"-style gay Uncle Toms who'll smile through the tears, dye your roots and help choose your curtains while Rome burns.
Not because I want to the world to be nice to me and tolerate me, but because I want it to respect me. Niceness and tolerance are like buses you wait for but which never come, but respect is the vehicle you drive for yourself.
Please
There's no need to be so abusive. He's making his point, as are you.
I thought that at first but
I read the whole comment and I think he has every reason to be angry with the post (as I see it, I don't see it as abusive).
More Power to you markiechops
Eloquent and impassioned words, very well expressed - and I don't think they were abusive either.
Could it not be that they were both?
The opening seemed rude to me, the rest perfectly eloquent.
Not polite, I'd agree
But the rest of it is one of the best posts I've read on here for a while.
Exactly
He makes a lot of very good points, but they're undermined by his opening sentence. Passion is fine, but I don't see why it's ok to swear at someone just because you disagree with them.
And maybe abusive was the wrong word, for which I apologise, but it's certainly rude.
I thik its justified, given the context.
Nothing wrong with a bit of emotion when it's important. Accept that's my view and not one that everyone will share.
no and no
are the answers to your first sentence. Why would I? Did I miss something here?
If I committed the sin of not being suitably outraged, I'm sorry but I just find that kind of article a bit sad, but not really offensive. For me it went into the realm of nonsense and there it lost its power to shock. I wouldn't have read it at all if not for the media furore as I know what I'll get in the Mail and it's not what I want generally to read.
I was just showing my appreciation of Occam's well argued attempt to put a contrary view. I don't think there is any doubt that the article was homophobic but I don't think that was the point of his / her argument, it was rather the extraordinary bandwagon-jumping aspect which grated, as it did with me.
Isn't it a bit sad when someone is subjected to a diatribe like this for not agreeing with the party line? Still, glad I gave you the chance to vent, looks like you needed it.
There you go again...
...your solipsism is almost amusing. This is not about your or anybody's "sensibilities", it's about MY safety, and that of people like Police Trainee James Park, who was nearly murdered ten days ago for daring to frequent a gay club with his partner and a female friend.
When you're fearful of leaving your home for fear of being beaten half-to-death by homosexuals with baseball bats, then I'll ask you to consider how angry or defensive you might feel. Every time someone like Moir goes unchallenged, I feel a little less safe going about my business, and I'm about as mainstream and chartered-accountant-looking as they come (not that that makes me any more or less deserving of my safety).
I will man the barricades to protect your - and Jan Moir's - free speech, but if the history of the twentieth century has taught us one thing, it is that propaganda of the kind casually meted out by people like Ms Moir WORKS - from the anti-semitic beer mats dished out to bier kellers by Josef Goebbels, to the hysterical Rwandan newspaper articles and radio broadcasts which were used to turn the Hutus against the Tutsis.
She can say it, by all means, because I do not believe in the censorship of any opinion unless it is either libelous or unless it directly incites violence, but if we don't use what fire we have to dismantle any irrational invective which undermines our safety, then eventually our fire will either go out or be put out, and we will be left utterly defenseless.
For me there is no "party line" here, as you describe it, because my existence is more than a matter of opinion; there is no black to my white. The incitement of racial hatred, for example, is not some kind of healthy manechistic obverse to a coin which features tolerance and justice on the other side, and so it is with Moir's hatred of homosexuals.
You finish your reply by saying: "I don't think there is any doubt that the article was homophobic, but I don't think that was the point of his/her argument". Congratulations; you've reduced your own argument to contradictory rubble more concisely and efficiently than I ever could. Moir's intention (if we can be ever sure anyone's) would never be any guarantee of my security once what is said has been said. If anything a lack of apparent intent should be challenged even more vociferously.
This makes me sound like some kind of rabid 1980's-style PC monster, but I'm not; I'm very mundane, actually. I wear a tie, I ride my bike, I pleasantly pass the time of day with my neighbours, I drink beer, I support a sh*te football team, and I laugh at Jimmy Carr, just like you, no doubt. I just need to make sure that me, my partner, my dog, my house and my record collection (which contains slightly more Slayer and Fela Kuti than it does Judy Garland) stay SAFE.
Difficult to argue...
But I’ll give it a go anyway ;-)
The label of ‘hate crime’ bothers me somewhat, whether it relates to sexual orientation or race. Of the countless murders and violent incidents that take place in the UK each year, I hazard a guess that the vast majority will involve altercations between young heterosexual males of the same racial background. I further speculate that ‘hate’ would have been very much at the forefront of their minds at the time of the incident.
I fully accept that in today’s world of Graham Norton, Little Britain, Alan Carr et al, it might be easy to become complacent, and in fact, the scenario painted by Matt Lucas of nobody in a Welsh mining village batting an eyelid at a very high-profile homosexual is pretty far fetched. In Soho or Canal Street, yes, but elsewhere?
I just feel that by definition any crime where the victim is gay or of an ethnic minority background is automatically defined in a different way than boring old routine meaningless random violence. It may come as news, but believe it or not, people are often ‘beaten half to death with baseball bats’ for wearing the wrong clothes in the wrong estate at the wrong time, or spilling a drink, or getting into a taxi first or…
Hate crime
I don't think that you understand the nature of hate crime. While it is often characterised by violence it can take many other forms; criminal damage, harassment, robbery, burglary etc.
The other defining characteristic of hate crime is that the victims suffer repeatedly. They suffer because of their ethnicity, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, age or sexual identity. Not because they are lads out for a ruck, looking to defend the honour of their postcode.
Another marked characteristic of hate crime is over victimisation; by that I meant that while n% of the population can expect to suffer a particular crime in any one year, when those groups usually defined as being hate crime victims are surveyed they suffer at far greater rates than the rest of the population.
Which leads to another defing characteristic of hate crime. Not only do the victims suffer at a higher rate, they report even less. The British Crime Survey estimates that some 60%+ of crime goes unreported. When hate crime victims are surveyed under-reporting stands at 80%+, sometimes 90%+.
So when you talk about altercations between males and them hating each other, you are not talking about "hate crime" at all. If they don't report the crime it is more likely to be because they want to exercise their own version of justice not because they are terrified to their very core of making the situation even worse.
Fair enough
but your description 'lads out for a ruck' implies that in all non 'hate crime' cases the victim of crime was at least partly culpable. While this may be the case in gang disputes, I'm sure you'd agree that there are also a great many cases where someone is going about their business and suffers appalling consequences. As I say, a huge number of these will be between members of the same race, gender and sexual orientation.
But with respect
that is not hate crime. 'Hate' in this context is the specific targeting of certain sections of society because of a difference.
This is how the Home Office clarifies it:
Hatred is the targeting of individuals, groups and communities because of who they are.
A hate crime is any criminal offence that is motivated by hostility or prejudice based upon the victim’s:
* disability
* race
* religion or belief
* sexual orientation
* transgender
All hate crime is important. No hate crime is too minor to report to the police. Anyone can be the victim of a hate crime. We all have a racial identity, all have a sexual orientation, all have some sort of beliefs. Anyone of us could be targeted because of some aspect of our identity. Tackling hate crime supports each and every one of us.
Why do we need to act on hate crime?
Hate crime is different to other forms of crime:
* hate crime targets people because of their identity. It is a form of discrimination that infringes human rights and keeps people from enjoying the full benefits of our society
* research has shown that hate crimes cause greater psychological harm than similar crimes without a motivation of prejudice
* hate crime creates fear in victims, groups and communities and encourages communities to turn on each other.
So, whilst you rightly suggest that many people suffer the most appalling, heinous acts of violence in an arbitrary way, these cannot be described as 'hate crimes' unless there is an element of the victim's identity acting as the primary motivation behind such an attack.
I'm not suggesting
they can be classed as 'hate crimes'. I understand the classification. I'm saying that I feel 'ordinary' unclassifiable crime is too often down-played.
The comment above about 'lads out for a ruck defending their postcode' is a typical attitude, I find.
No it doesn't
My use of the term "lads out for a ruck" stems specifically from your previous posting.
I dont know what solopsism means
you're obviously very intelligent and write very well. Shame you can't read though, otherwise you'd see that the the "his/her argument" comment refers to Occam, not Jan Moir.
Millwall?
As a Millwall supporter can I object to your lazy stereotyping of us as right wing Mail readers? Rather negates any other point you were trying to make. Sounds like the sort of line the Mail would use actually.
Hi Doug
Just for the record, I invoked Milwall for the 'Nobody likes us and we don't care' attitude - I am wholly ignorant of any perceived Milwall fan political leanings. You need a bit of a thick skin to wade into a baying mob and whilst I don't particularly have one, I know of a team whose supporters allegedly and/or famously do. Although not apparently in this case, so maybe that stereotype is wrong too!
Fair Enough
I get it all the time though so it gets annoying sometimes.Maybe I'm in an over sensetive mood today.Must be my hormones.
The Guardian's organisation
The Guardian's organisation has nothing to do with this and is merely a squirrel in this debate.
It's not moral superiority, just a democratic protest we are allowed to indulge in in civil society against a piece of terrible, flimsy, mean spirited, vindictive and homophobic journalism.
Freedom of speech for journalists is not a carte blanche to produce this kind comment. It breaches both our codes of conduct/ practice, it causes outrage which reflects badly on a profession suffering both a massive crisis of self-identity and of public confidence.
And the argument that we didn't have to read it doesn't wash - when someone produces this kind of offensive rubbish it's not sufficient just to say 'Hey, don't read it' - any more so than we would with a piece of religiously offensive rubbish.
I'm afraid in this case there is no devil's advocate standpoint - it was wrong headed journalism on a number of levels.
Twaddle
As Andy Hamilton so rightly put it in the organ this month, people who are certain are the dangerous ones. Your opinion isn't 'correct' just because you believe it. Is it possible to be a decent human being and like celebrity gossip? Is there a democratic right to hold a different viewpoint from that sanctioned by the Islington chattering classes? Must journalism always reflect one worldview? Are some sections of society's right to take offence greater than others?
There is of course little point arguing with people who 'know' they're right and can work themselves up into a froth over what they imagine is in a writer's mind. Life of Brian, Jerry Springer and the reaction to this article prove that.
Loving the 'negs' by the way! You really just like agreeing with eachother? Well weird.
You seem certain about this
What does that mean?
Fair cop
[insert current form of getting coat line here]
Noticed this morning
when skimming the magazine that Andy Hamilton said p"people that were certain about everything". Lets you off the hook on a technicality. ;o)
It's not about 'rightness'
I didn't say I was right, I said I was right to protest against this kind of wrong headed, negative journalism which serves no purpose other than pure outrage. It was puerile in the truest sense of the word. (It also smacks of being written too closely to deadline for comfort.)
It does nothing for the profession and does little to advance the cause of deliberative democracy or the role of journalism in it.
And, it is within my rights to say so and try and take action against it.
I don't take offence lightly, I'm not even slightly right on (in fact I'm quite portly). It's not simply the homophobia I object to - jaysus we'd never be off our HHs if we complained against that - it's the mean spiritedness towards someone whose family hadn't even buried him yet.
Exactly
I'd never have seen this if not for the OP because I don't read the Mail.
Having now read its nasty snuffling invasive insinuations I feel soiled (why I don't usually read the Mail in the first place).
Have to add it probably serves the hopefully shrinking Mail readership whose opinions probably differ from mine.
But is still intrusive, insensitive, and old-fashioned rude. Horrid.
So you propose
some sort of moral relativism in which everyone just accepts all views are equally valid, even when they're a load of offensive bile that manifestly cannot proceed from the coronor's evidence; namely that Gately's death was by natural causes, i.e. his lifestyle and sexuality had no bearing upon it?
Now that's twaddle.
Moir wrote a nasty piece of journalism and was duly called on it, and given she works for the organ that previous brought Sachsgate to its readers' attention - even though very few people had found it offensive when actually broadcast - and encouraged them to complain, the Mail has no right to whinge if people do the same to them.
It's obvious isn't it?
People are obviously negging your posts because they're lily-livered liberal sheep incapable of independent thought. Not because a number of folk on this site disagree with your line strongly enough to use the down arrow.
One observation about a comment you make above: do you really think that there is not a strong homophobic slant to Jan Moir's article, or are you just being disingenuous? The latter, I think - or should I say, I'm "certain", as you accuse those who disagree with you of being.
Despite my often contrarian nature
I have to say I found the Jan Moir article (which I read for the first time via the above link) to be utterly nauseating and the Charlie Brooker piece (which I also read for the first time via the above link) to be brilliantly written.
On a side note, my admittedly non-scientifically rigorous observation tells me that female reaction to this news has been more innuendo-laden and spiteful ("well, he's a gayboy isn't he?") than male reaction, which has been pretty non-existent. Could be of course that he was a member of a boy-band, but still...
You what?
Haven't been reading the news on this, but as a girl talking to girls hav emet only sadness (where there is a reaction - myself not a boy band fan)
So I'd be interested to hear more about *your* female reactions...
Agreed
I haven't noticed any difference between the sexes when it comes to this story. What I have noticed though, is that a lot of people's first reaction was to feel there was something sordid about his death. Nothing to do with his sexuality, simply the fact that he died while his partner was next door in their bedroom with someone else.
This is the basis of Jan Moir's piece - the trouble is she's drawn a whole load of other conclusions with no justification.
It's probably because
I don't live in London or another metropolis.
Sadly, attitudes to these matters in the sticks are sometimes not what you might expect.
without the outrage ... (for those who haven't read the thing)
some analysis from first principles ...
Moir, article, just over 900 words not counting pics or captions
first 150-160 words: pop stars can be naughty
next bit: but not SG - he was such a sweetie! albeit untalented and had to be crowbarred out of the closet, she reckons
blah blah, civil union, blah blah, rich gay mates ... blah, holiday with partner, blah no suspicious circumstances, v sad
but wait! there is a media spin on this! surely fit & healthy 33 yr old blokes don't just peg out? cause of death cannot be 'natural' albeit he wasn't 'murdered'! and there were sleazy circumstances! OMG ... SG and his partner took a bulgarian bloke back to theirs, surely not for canasta!
Oo'er, SG's partner and the bulgar "went to to the bedroom" while SG stayed in the living room where he died of pulmonary oedema ... he smoked hash on the night he died!
his mum says it was a heart condition that has plagued the family! BUT...
in the last 167 words of the piece, Jan Moir says:
1. blow struck to "happy ever after myth" of civil partnerships
2. gays forever calling for tolerance
3. but what about that Little Britain bloke's boyfriend and the "dubious circumstances" surrounding SG? eh? eh? [what dubious circumstances? Ed]
4. "It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death," wrote Moir. [Er, it has]
5. "For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see," wrote Moir.
right ... so he was in a committed relationship where the sexual parameters were none of anyone else's business, his mum said there was a problem with heart conditions in the family, and the poor sod pegged out way too young ,,, Moir took all this and conflated it into a badly spun parable about the dangers of the hedonistic gay lifestyle (ie sitting on your settee, smoking a wee bit of hash, and being desperately unlucky by the look of things) ...
had he been mad for unprotected sex with 13 yr old Thai rent boys after several grammes of coke and a bottle of jack daniels then her conclusion may have had some relation to reality ,,, as it was, all SG seems to have done was go on holiday, maybe smoke a joint and be unfortunate ...
so Moir is twisting the facts (like a good German) to fit her preemptive moral conclusion that young gay dead people are a Warning To Us All ... strangely i don't believe her, and i'd like to think she can't sleep at night but i daresay she can ... anyway, isn't the prurient modern media full of this wilfully mendacious tosh?
I'm always surprised
when the Guardian is assigned such great influence I've been a reader all my life and I find my views to be the in the minority most of the time. The idea that there's a liberal conspiracy seems odd reactionary views seem more common even in the touchy feely liberal NGO world I work in.
Also the use of Islington as a short hand seems odd I was there last weekend and it seems full of loud wealthy types intent on eating olives and spending money on tat they seem closer to the Mails demographic than the archetypal yoghurt bothering Sandinista Guardian reader.
Anyway this time next year the Guardian mythical influence will be gone as the Tories will be back in and Mail etc can keep reflecting the real peoples views.
I agree
Chris, I think we are Guardian readers without being the mythical, sandal-wearing, Millie Tant Guardian readers the right wing establishment would have us be. Mind, I usually read three papers every day, so where do fit in? I think, ideologically, I am a Word Magazine reader - what does that make me politically?
The Guardian messageboards
make the Daily Mail look like Bunty. Have you seen them? Far worse than you could ever imagine in the Mail itself!
Are the people on Guardian messageboards
Guardian readers though? I think through it's knowingly controversial post attracts types from across the political spectrum, many who would never hand over their pound for the paper in meatworld. The same went for the Mail yesterday.
But that's my point
You're content to archetype people you see as 'loud wealthy types eating olives' as likely to be Mail sorts, yet any shorthand the other way indicates the user must be convinced there's a liberal conspiracy.
If the Tories get in, the Guardian will continue to have influence - it is after all Dave who's been sucking up to Polly these past years. He and wee George are desperate for a second term and know that the core vote won't get them over the line. Whatever party forms a government next year, it's likely to reflect a socially left-leaning worldview. We're all tofu munching, herbal tea sipping, sandal wearing, card carrying yurt dwellers these days and that includes me.
Where? How?
Where's the Guardian's influence felt? Less than 350,000 buyers daily, maybe 750,000 readers - demonstrate, empirically the Guardian's influence in society beyond the Tory quest for centrist pluralism by currying social enterprise favour with Polly Toynbee.
Thanks Occam
I agree with some of what you've said, disagree with other bits, but mainly I'm glad you stuck your head above the parapet and provoked an interesting discussion. If we all thought alike it would be like enjoying the same type of music. I mean, it's not as if we all like the Beatles and Richard Thompson. Oh, hang on...
Thanks David
Not worth posting here unless one believes there are a few open minds, original thinkers and constructive disagree-ers.
It won't left leaning
there's no left leaning parties left we all willingly or otherwise been signed up to the market.The Tories don't need the Guardian or it's supposed influence to get in it's the other wayround over the last few months the Guardian been sucking up to the Tories printing pieces by prominent righter wing politicos.
I shouldn't really complain having just seen BBC4 it will mean we'll get some decent music if more young people are on the dole shame the wave of increased intolerance and toss about "hard working families" we'll have to endure will be terrible.
But...
do you live in social yurting, do you have a mortgage, or do you wholly own your yurt?
private rented yurt for me
Time to bury bad news?
Jan Moir\Jo Moore have these two vacuous idiots been seen in the same room as thier MO is quite similar. Never mind feeling or emotion, just get the job done
And of course Charlie Brooker is right about everything
And people here think The Sun is bad
The Mail is hateful, vile, poisonous and bigoted. Boy, does it know its market. No wonder it's such a success.
It thinks nothing of dancing on graves, stitching people up or ultra-personal attacks. You only have to see the words 'Alison Boshoff' to know what you're going to get: a hatchet job like no other.
It provokes far more opinion, especially among the chattering classes, than The Sun or The Mirror could ever hope for.
(Before anyone accuses me of reading it - well, I do, because we get all the papers digested at work, so I see them all. I'm not actually a buyer).
Done my bit
Registered a complaint with the PPC - there is a seperate Jan Moir link! And added a comment to her page, although the last comment published was over twelve hours ago, so I doubt they're going to put anything up. Would be interesting to see if this reaches the heights of Sachsgate. Also, as well as the Gately Family, surely an official complaint could come from Williams, Winehouse, Moss, Spears and Houston, not to mention Elton and Matt Lucas. And as for calling the deaths of MJ and Heath 'shadowy', again I thought medical facts had proven they were simply accidental overdoses, something even 'normal' people die of. A joint class action from the above may even wipe The Mail off the publishing map for good. C'mon Whitney. C'mon Britney. This bitch just wished you dead.
I think you're being harsh on Ms. Moir...
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/if_god_had_wanted_me_to_be?utm_s...
What goes around comes around etc
Ordinarily The Mail would just ride out the objections and bask in the publicity. But they've had to strip the adverts off Moir's page, and that's going to cost them money.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir-comp...
I just love the complaints about how they are now on the receiving end of an organised ampagin of complaints. Biter bitten I think.
Wish I knew
how to organise an "ampagin" :-)
Hmmm no edit ubtton
Or maybe it's just me?
too late!
once someone has replied, you can't edit a post.
probably to prevent mischief.
A small ampaign victory
I know the PPC carries less authority than a cub scout leader but reading this cheered me up a little on an otherwise drab Monday
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8314577.stm
You
start a 'etition' , go on a 'mrach' and chain yourself to some 'ralinsg'
Ryve ogdo
:-)
Spot being uch a pendant
::)
Does the Grauniad still hire prof readers?
Job's a good 'un
You've tweeted the tweet
you've made a complaint now buy the Tshirt.
saw this today at the prince charles cinema ideal for anyone motivated to complain now you've done it once keep at 'em.
The movie of this scandal
'The ghost and mrs moir' coming to a screen near you soon.
On a double bill with
Heaven's Gately
To move things to a more musical direction
Who would the missive like to see behind this "heavily orchestrated campaign". I'm thinking Phil Spector, on day release. Or Ennio Morricone. Cut to a close up on Dacre's face with one lone bead of sweat running down...
The Hate Mail
When Lord Northcliffe conceived the Daily Mail, he specifically said it should give people their "daily hate" (his words). That tells you all you need to know, really. (That and the fact the paper came out in support of Hitler, of course.)
Well...
Actually it supported appeasement, with hindsight a mistaken policy but at the time perfectly mainstream and not morally questionable.
The real blot on its copybook, to which I think you're referring, was supporting Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists - the infamous 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' headline. Mosley was a deeply unpleasant man, but he wasn't Hitler.
Northcliffe pretty much invented popular journalism, because he had an unrivalled sense for what millions of people wanted to read. If part of that is hate, well I'm afraid that reflects on the British public as much as British newspapers.
It's not an agenda; it's quality control of a product
I've never understood the widespread assumption among the left-leaning that the Daily Mail exists to promote a particular sub-BNP, net-curtain agenda. It doesn't. Like any mainstream newspaper, it simply exists as an outlet for advertisers to target a specific demographic, and many people within that demographic happen to hold to that agenda. All the Mail does is shore up the readership base (the real product) that it can offer to advertisers (the real customers) by giving them what they want so they'll come back tomorrow.
And it's quite some readership base. It may not be a statistic people that here are comfortable with, but six times more Britons opt for Mr Dacre's bigoted bilge than for Mr Rusbridger's organ of tolerant reason.
Britain may well be broken, but not quite in the way the Mail makes out.
But
Its targeted market is the more right wing anti gay,anti immigration types otherwise they wouldn't employ the likes of Moir and the deeply unpleaseant Littlejohn. It may be cynical but they are promoting an agenda to keep those readers.
I think its a bit of both
they feed the market that exists but the very fact that they feed it encourages people to join in the feeding frenzy. But Archie's point (I think) is that the demand is there in the first place and that audience appeals to advertisers which is where the paper makes its money.
Exactly
The Mail's targeted readership - traditional, middle class, set in their ways and prejudices - is a big, juicy one. The Mail has captured it, at the expense of the Express. And they're not going to let it or its prejudices go unless the readers themselves change. The reaction to Moir's article, first by readers and then by scared-off advertisers, suggested that it actually is changing, which is probably why Dacre was quick to get Janet Street-Porter to nip over from the Indy to write a piece saying that Moir was wrong.
It's just about money and only money. The kerfuffle over Moir led to a 30% increase in the Mail website's hits on Friday. Even if the PCC end up slapping Dacre's wrist - i.e. if he slaps his own wrist, since he's the current chair of the PCC Code Committee - he'll be crying all the way to the bank, as Liberace once put it.
It's not just we Word types
that were appalled by the article - it's the most complained about article ever in PCC history.
http://bit.ly/29sFrH
Daily Mail denies itself
Unlike Slim Charles who said that if it's a lie, then we fight on a lie, the Irish Daily Mail has denied Moir's piece. Weasels http://bit.ly/1BwSgP
I loved the first comment
on the Grauniad story
"I wonder what she'll write about Ludovic Kennedy" :)
Aunt Sally?
I think we have to be careful we don't demonise the Mail or its sizeable readership. I'm not a fan of the paper and I felt the Jan Moir article was crass and mean-spirited. But we're making an assumption that everyone who buys a particular paper agrees with every word in it.
There could be several reasons why people buy the Mail that have nothing to do with Jan Moir or any other columnist. They may not like the wall-to-wall Jordan'n'Pete coverage of the red tops but not feel comfortable buying a broadsheet like the Telegraph. They may like the sports coverage, or the crossword, or the TV guide or the gardening tips...
Moir has written an unpleasant, tasteless piece about a celebrity. Haven't popular newspapers been doing this for ever? It's a genuine question - I wonder how different this piece is to countless other examples of heartless muck-raking.
Good point Dougie
While I loathe the Mail and all it stands for, I understand perfectly why my in-laws buy it every Saturday, as it serves their needs: good TV pull-out, reasonable news coverage, very little 'sleb' stuff, some readable articles, in a decent size paper. They're well aware of how odious it can be but put up with that - largely by ignoring the crasser elements - as the paper serves their needs.
Who am I to critise their choice (albeit that I still do!)?
Democracy in action
There's a vast constituency of not-nasty, not-fascist people who really aren't convinced that multicultural Britain is a good idea, or that single-parent homes and gay parenting are a healthy environment for kids to grow up in, or that a French tennis player doesn't look a bit like a toy they used to play with when they were kids, or that "women's libbers" shouldn't all just stay at home and scrub their doorsteps till they gleam.
Britain has changed dramatically in only 30 years - a single generation. And for many people from backgrounds and communities where very little had changed over the previous couple of centuries or so it has all come sweeping in as fast as the rug has been pulled out from under everything they thought they knew.
Only 30 years ago, The Black & White Minstrel Show used to be watched and enjoyed by tens of millions of people every week. Silly them, right? But instead of being respectfully persuaded that they were - in hindsight - misguided, they are hectored, pilloried and marginalised, resulting in a backlash that has polarised the country into the self-styled "enlightened" versus the small-c "conservatives".
When Daily Mail readers complain that weren't consulted about all the changes that have taken place in British society since the Seventies, to a certain extent they do have a point. And if a newspaper has opted for giving them a voice and pandering to their prejudices as a viable commercial strategy, then that's just - whether we like it or not - how the media works. After all, doesn't The Word pander to ours?
Not when
they put Flaming Lips on the cover.
Seriously, fair points well made.
Fair points Archie
But I still say that the editorial stance may have little to do with its popularity. That may simply be such mundane matters as the format of the TV pullout - as David points out.
The Sun supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A great many of its readers, perhaps the majority (even including White Van Man), may not share this view. Similarly, I do not believe that all Guardian readers are Islamofascist homeopathists ;-)
Brilliantly put
My parents are those people. No one's ever dared say it, so well done Archie.
Of course, Spain
as you know, Archie, is full of exactly the sort of people you outline who seek to recreate Morpeth in Mijas and Epping in Estepona - blisfully unaware of the irony of their position.
Having the full English, reading The Sun and the Mail. Playing golf and being appalled that you can't call a French tennis player a gollywog. In Britain. Anymore
"Country's gone to the dogs" says Vera sipping her first gin of the day.
"To the wogs, more like" says Ted her husband tucking into the San Miguel.
"Oh Ted" says Vera "You are a one".
"I'd get strung up for that back home nowadays" says Ted. "If they still had hangin' - which they don't - more's the pity. I can't stand them Muslims but they've got the right idea - chopping off people's hands what steal. 'Ere - did I tell you - I got an email off Bert - says 'is firm was undercut by another lot who've got a bunch of Poles doing the work for next to nothin'".
"Terrible" says Vera, watching the birds settle on the El Mirador apartments.
Why they're blissfully unaware of the irony
No, I never did learn the lingo. But you don't need to, do you? "Sir Veezer" and "Uno kebabo" is all you need to get by, let's face it. But I'm sure they're saying nice things about us. Course they are. And so they bloody should be, the money we're spreading around in this bloody country. You know what I had to shell out to get our sun deck revarnished?
It is primarily aimed at women
The old adage:
The Times is read by the people who run the country
The Telegraph is read by the people who used to run the country
The Guardian is read by the people who would like to run the country
and the Daily Mail is read by their wives
And The Sun
is read by the people who don't care who runs the country, just so long as they've got nice knockers.
although that's probably the Star now, isn't it?
The Star
isn't read by anyone, because its 'readers' can't read. Allegedly.
It is primarily aimed at women..
Provided they don't want to do naughty stuff like going out to work or thinking for themselves.
"New study shows working mothers 90% more likely to catch cancer if they allow their daughters to have the HPV jab.."
How did it get through?
The amazing thing is that it got published in the first place.
We're forever told how 'media-savvy' everyone is in 2009; I'm sorry, but increasingly I see evidence to the contrary even, in this case, with regards to journalists themselves.
Recently I saw on BBC Parliament a re-run of the BBC's coverage of the 1959 General Election and, whisper it but, journalists like Richard Dimbleby, Cliff Michelmore, Alan Whicker and Raymond Baxter were far, far more 'media-savvy' and relaxed in front of camera than their 2009 equivalents.
Crucially I also came to the conclusion that the various members of the general public interviewed during the five hours were also more 'media-savvy' than their 2009 equivalents............
I watched great chunks
of that as well and found it fascinating.
I agree, the presenters all seemed much more at home, perhaps because they acually had a grasp of their subject rather than being pushed in front of the camera because of the way they looked.
There was also the relaxed manner of people thinking, "At least if I make a mistake, I'm not going to get crucified by the press". And, above all, the sense that it was people presenting a story, not stroking their own egos.
As to Joe Public, they looked like people who read newspapers in the day when they were broadly that - NEWSpapers. Yes, there was still the fluffy stuff, gossip etc, but that was just a small percentage of the content, not their raison d'etre.
Back then, it seems as if people had less information available, but were better informed. Or, if not better informed, at least more engaged with what they did know. Maybe we have so much info these days that we just can't process it all and we absorb none of it.
Information Overload
With reference to your last point Molesworth, I heard a fascinating lecture by Dr Paul Redmond, Head of Careers & Employability Service at Liverpool University, last week during which he said that research* has shown that an average Saturday copy of The Times contains more information (as measure in 'exo-bytes') than the average mid-19th Briton would have learned in a lifetime. But that's only one possible source of information out of a plethora of others. We truly are in the 'Information Age' and we don't yet know what to do with it all.
----
* Having just read Ben Goldacre's Bad Science I'm rather ashamed that I can't give you the precise source of this reference, but I'm sure it will be available from all leading internet search engines.
That is
mind blowing. Almost literally.
No wonder
I have trouble writing assignments - it all makes sense now
Too much information!
But how much of any copy of 'The Sunday Times', 'The Observer' etc. actually gets read.
We simply have too much of everything, and most of it is unnecessary if we're honest with ourselves.
How many people on this site have too many records?
Probably 99%.......it would take me all years to get through all mine.
The people (journalists and public) on that 1959 General Election just seemed more streamlined, had more focus, were more 'in the now'.
Jan Moir's article wouldn't have got off first base.
Character Assasination
I think we all know what the Mail does best. Character assasination. That is the bread and butter and that is what pads out the pages, particulary at a weekend. There is an audience for it. I have read every word and then been disgusted, primarily with myself. The favourite is an ex wife/lover/husband explaining what a scumbag the other one was. Obviously in the most lurid tones this side of the liable laws.
The Gately piece is just another version of the same poisonouse plant. I wish they didn't print them but that won't make it stop. Only when the circulation drops will they have a think. Some one compared the Mail to the Wermacht, both cruely efficient
Here's an interesting piece
Here's an interesting piece on the probable outcome of a Press Complaints Commission investigation into Jan Moir's column http://www.journalism.co.uk/6/articles/536207.php
However inappropriate Moir's column might have been (and frankly, I couldn't get excited about it one way or the other), the Twitter storm unleashed in its wake was infinately more unseemly. A virtual, unthinking lynchmob that had nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with celebrity-fuelled knee jerk reactionism.
Some of things written about Moir on Twitter were appallingly offensive, but what course of redress does she have? While I'm unlikely to read the Daily Mail, I don't think that what appears in it should be determined by a baying, foul-mouthed mob.
So when did two wrongs make a right?
If the twitter comments were offensive (I didn't read them) then they are wrong too. It is unacceptable that people write things that are either wrong or not supported by facts when it relates to individuals (dead or alive).
And even though the response to her article wouldn't have happened if she hadn't written such a dunderhead column in the first place, it is still wrong that she should be abused for things that are not true.
I'm pretty even handed in my attitude to rudeness frankly.
A tweet too far
The Twitterstorm included people posting her home address, reportedly.
Cowardice plain and simple
Despite disliking much of it, I read the Mail every day, or at least most days and have stated my utmost respect for the paper above. I'm also a closet fan of Dacre an David English before him as brilliant, instinctive newspaper editors.
However, the Mail has taken an increasingly hysterical step to the right which has manifested itself in railing against right-on trendy leftism. Hey, some of it was on display here with mention of the liberal elite the Mail shakes its fist.
Ultimately Jan Moir committed the most vile of journalism's professional sins, taking a post shot at the softest target possible - a dead man. This story overstepped an implicit moral line, regardless of host publication or the content of the story.
It was cowardice plain and simple.
Bollocks
Utter, utter bollocks. 99% of this thread presents no intellectual argument for what Jan Moir is supposed to have done, it's just pure insinuation as to her motives, her supposed agenda, ignoring her words, her explanation, anything. From the sheer vituperation on show, you'd swear that at the very least she'd murdered someone. I watched the documentary on Bulgarian orphanages this week. I have to say, that's the kind of thing that makes me angry. When you contrast the heartless treatment of unwanted and often disabled children with a poor taste article that made a few insinuations about a dead sleb, you'd have to say that just possibly some people have gone a bit far. And I speak as someone who suffered YEARS of homophobic abuse - sometimes with violence attached.
Don't worry - I realise that it's me that's out of step with the rest of you, but honestly, what an hysterical bunch of reactionaries - you have far more in common with the characteristics you presume Mail readers have than you might care to imagine.
oh please
Spare us the moral superiority, as someone up there ^ says.
Oh, wait, it was you, wasn't it?
Why so binary?
You make some sound points but then lose it in the tarring everyone who felt that the article was unpleasant and unacceptable as a hysterical reactionary. Would sleb orphans deserve less interest and anger than a non sleb orphan? Everyone is equal surely (except for Richard Thompson - or so it seems round here anyway).
Ok, How about this?
Why did she write what she did? Simple, she was paid to. And, as for her only making comments about a 'dead sleb', well, he was just a gay bloke in his mid 30's with friends and family and a partner. All of them were no doubt overjoyed and heartened to have his name dragged through the mud by someone who knew not the first thing about him before he'd even been buried. Imagine what those closest to you would feel like if it were you that had happened to. But she was paid to, by a paper that is becoming increasingly notorious for writing poisonous vituperative bile about many, in the belief that that is what its readers want and enjoy. The problem is that it doesn't matter that much. The newspaper market is aging and shrinking and readerships are generally creatures of habit, sticking with what they've normally read. The Mail is increasingly hysterically preaching to the already converted.
One of the problems of the modern media landscape is that, as it proliferates, it has to become increasingly hysterical to grab (and sustain) the consumer's attention. This is why we have the press we do now; it's not nice but it's hrdly rocket science to see the bigger picture. It would be easy to say nothing and ignore it in the hope it will go away. But it won't, people need to complain and tackle such asininity head on, as I hope will happen when Nick Griffin pokes his head over the parapet on Question Time tomorrow.
Or is this too reactionary too?
Nothing to do with being out of step/ or offence
I've never broached the subject of the Mail readership as it is much too problematic methodologically to prove anything. So all the in-laws and parents, they're all right by me (including my own mother and father-in-law).
I'm also not so offended politically about what was said.
I'm taking offence in her tackling such a soft target in such a ludicrously irrational way.
But my argument, at heart, is an intellectual attempt at examining where we as journalists should draw the line in what is OK to say and when to say it. There is an ethical issue here and ethical arguments are essentially intellectual in their basis.
The increasingly hysterical nature of comment in our popular journalism; in print, on-line and some broadcast doesn't help any of us.
And the Mail's difficult squad standpoint on many issues is both pig headed and wrong.
Quentin Letts the MRI denier springs to mind. Only for the paper to perform a climb down two years later.
Hmm..
"Utter, utter bollocks. 99% of this thread presents no intellectual argument for what Jan Moir is supposed to have done"
It does, however, present a few arguments against what she HAS done. Which is write a column which was felt to be extremely offensive by a great many people who read it at the time or subsequently.
Some further questions. How many complaints to the PCC came from Mail readers who read the column, as compared to the Ross/Brand fiasco, which generated how many complaints from those who listened to the original show? Which was the greater shitstorm? Which was the most offensive original item? Would the Jan Moir column have generated the opprobum it has pre- Ross/Brand?
So, if I follow your argument correctly
if the Mail / Moir write an article about how the facts around Bulgarian orphans aren't really clear, what else can you expect from, you know, "former" eastern bloc nations, just how disabled are they really etc, etc, it would be nothing more than poor taste? Just a few insinuations after all ....
Daily demands
What no one seems to have taken into account is the mechanics of how Jan Moir's piece came to be printed. I don't want to patronise anyone here, but if you haven't been involved in producing a daily national newspaper, you probably don't realise the extent to which things are done at the last minute, without time for reflection or consideration of the consequences.
I think it's especially relevant in this case because Jan Moir isn't one of the Mail's headbangers - she's no Richard Littlejohn or Melanie Phillips. It seems most likely to me that under pressure of a deadline she's gone from reflecting the widely held belief that Steven Gately's death was somewhat less than straightforward, to the much wider and more contentious issue of civil partnerships and homosexual lifestyles.
I don't mean to excuse a word of what she wrote, but in this case, as in so many others, I believe in cock-up rather than conspiracy.
'Widely held belief'?
At the time of writing, the coroner's report had confirmed natural causes, so if she was aiming to 'reflect the widely held belief' of the death being 'something less than straightforward', a)said 'belief' had been summarily refuted by the evidence, and b) she could and should have pulled the insinuation accordingly, no matter how close it was to going to press. I don't work in the industry, but surely items can be edited/altered much quicker now than in the days of "Hold the front page"?
To be clear
I wasn't trying to excuse her words, as I said, just trying to explain how she could have come to write them in such a way. If she'd have just repeated what many people I've spoken to have said, that it seemed troubling he died while his partner was in their bedroom with someone else, well it would have been prurient and insensitive and intrusive, but it wouldn't have stirred up this kind of reaction.
The trouble is she went a hell of a lot further than that...
I agree
I made the same point above, David. It pangs of being produced too close to deadline.
Unlike those in the blogosphere, print journalists have not got the option of immediate correction. It is, in this instance, a case of publish and be damned - only writ large.
As to your last point, cock up, not conspiracy, (a phrase D Baker claims to have invented, BTW), she had to have at least believed that there was something seedy about the episode - but this was against the facts of the matter.
That was wrong and contravenes our professional codes. Without these codes, in a time of professional (identity) crisis, we're searching for a paddle up the proverbial tributary.
This piece should have been legalled by a managing editor regardless of whether you can libel the dead or not.
It may well have been legalled
Here is a clause-by-clause breakdown of the piece and the Code, citing precedents. I don't think the Mail have got much to worry about.
A variety of views
I've never believed that you can identify someone's political views on the basis of the paper they read. Partly because people can make up their own minds about what they read, and also because the papers hold a broader range of views than the caricatures might suggest. I read the Guardian but I am not A Guardian reader.
As an example of variety of views a paper can offer, this is a link to an article about Nick Griffin, which exposes him as much as anything I have read about the BNP. It is in the Daily Mail not the Guardian.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222045/DOMINIC-CARMAN-A-deeply-...
Interesting piece
Not just because of the content, but also the medium and timing. It suggests, together with Janet Street-Porter's slapdown of Jan Moir, that the Mail might be testing the waters for a "repositioning" of its editorial line. I bet they were genuinely shocked by the Comments box for the Moir piece. I sense hurriedly convened "strategy meetings" at Mail Towers.
Am I alone in finding it a
Am I alone in finding it a little depressing that so many of you seem keener to prove how media-savvy you are, to the extent that you seem to lose sight of the basic morality of the piece?
If it was wrong - and it bloody well was - to smear a recently-dead man's reputation on the basis of his sexuality, then is it too much to ask not to downplay this on the grounds that, weeellll, we all *know* this is what the Mail's like...?
Maybe we are in danger of becoming a little too blase in the face of this sort of homophobic crap? I hope to God none of you are going to affect this much cynicism in the face of Nick Griffin's impending appearance on "Question Time".
No
apathy is undoubtedly the best approach to that particular issue, as befits the utter insignificance of his party in the scheme of things.
I would imagine what he craves is to be able to present himself as the victim of liberal oppression and censorship. Ignorance and ridicule are the way to go, in my opinion.
When the 'super soaraway' S*n
headlined its venemous bile about Hillsborough - it was dealt with in a very appropriate way by the people of Liverpool. This, I think, sets a standard for others to aim at. Press freedom should never be an excuse for vile, corrosive nastiness (masquerading as journalism) and it is up to people who feel strongly about it to protest vigorously and also try and create pariah status for such rags which add little to our understanding of what is going on in the world. Personally I am sceptical about all newspapers as whenever I have been close to any major news story the details soon get lost in favour of the 'angle' being touted. I buy the Observer and Private Eye but not much else.