No More Page 3 petition

MrsCLown, I think I love you.

Whatever my opinions are on exploitation of women is one matter. To bring another issue in I do not want to purchase or knowingly support an organisation who knowingly employed people who hacked into a murdered young girl's phone so that her poor frantic parents thought that she must be alive. How disgusting does the press have to get before people stop trading with them buy buying the disgusting rag. Thats just one example. When it is a celebrity some people would argue that they have to put up with it but what justifies trading with these 'people'.

By the way, I think page 3 is outdated and objectifies women. It does not just include page 3, it includes the Star and Sport. I cant believe they get away with it. I went to my local shop the other day to be confronted with a woman's arse and almost vulva in my face on front of the Spa. Anyone who thinks that is ok needs their heads examined IMO.

Yawn....

Extract from the Ironbridge Institute 2011/2012 Reading and Readabilty Module 5, Interpretation:

"It is important to recognise that reading age is not related to physical age or mental age. The method above is simply a measure of how complex the word and sentence structure is, and, therefore, of how easy it is to read. A recent test on a copy of The Sun and on a feature in the Independent?s colour supplement magazine gave reading ages of 11/12 and 15/16 respectively. The Sun is not written for people who are stupid, just for those who prefer something easy to read. See: www.harrymclaughlin.com/SMOG_Readability_Formula_G.Harry_McLaughlin(1969).pdf"

Unfortunately the source link at the end of the par does not work.

Clearly though you don't have to be the sharpest knife in the box to read the Sun

it's NOT a fact. it's an urban myth. You saying it's a fact doesn't make it one.

sigh I am not insulting them, sausage, so can you stop with the strawman arguments? I am saying it like it is. The Sun IS written for people with reading abilities of seven year olds. Like it or not, that is a fact. Why do YOU think that is an insult? You might read that rag and feel I am insulting you but facts are facts. Sorry and all that. And I am also sorry that women have to suffer sexism because some people want their kicks or do not/can not understand the full impact of this disgusting objectification. It really is that simple.

In what way is it a "good" newspaper?

The tits?

The sexism?

The dodgy reporting?

The blatant xenophobia and racism?

The only redeeming quality it has is that you can finish it on your lunch break. And the SUNDOKU

Some people just can't help themselves, they feel that they are intelligent enough to decide for others what they should read. Sorry you may not agree with page 3 but the only way you could convince the paper is if you could get signatures in the order of at least a third. People buy it knowing what it contains. They have chosen and unlike China we in the UK have freedom of choice. It is amusing to see people insult people they have never met and make judgements on them. The issue with a democracy is that sometimes you have to put up with what over people want, especially if they are a majority. When minorities start deciding for the majority we run the risk of losing democracy.

I also don't like page 3 - but it's hardly on a par with the right to vote and race equality.

The campaign may indeed fizzle out, at this stage. But that doesn't make the campaign wrong IMO. It was only after WWI that women got the vote - getting equal suffrage with men in 1928. Almost 70 years after the first groups were formed in the 19th Century.

The same can be said of the civil rights movement, disability rights etc. These things take time. Attitudes can take generations to change.

I don't care what the readership is of The Sun - or the average IQ / class. I just care about what I believe is right and I believe a newspaper is no place for demeaning sexual images. Just like someone, somewhere turned round and questioned whether people being blacked up for light entertainment was appropriate.

Page 3 belongs in to a different era - and we need to move away from it. It's all part of denigration of women in our modern society and I'm happy to be a minority (at this stage) voice against it. I just can't see it any other way and pointing out I'm in a minority doesn't stop me thinking or believing the things I do.

www.mediauk.com/newspapers/13707/the-sun/readership-figures

Estimated number who read The Sun in 2012.

"Reach:
It was read by 7,244,000 adults.

Percentage reach:
It was read by 14.4% of the adult population."

~60,000 want to ban it but there are ~7.2 million who read it and probably tens of millions who don't care either way.

When the people who want to ban it reach a majority come back and try again.

"I read every newspaper. "
I assume you work in the media. The alternative is too horrific to contemplate.

"Sausageeggbacon Sat 08-Dec-12 09:00:11
Sorry the point is why should a minority decide for a majority. Bottom line even if the petition gets to 300,000 that would be 10% the size of the female readership of the Sun. A vocal minority is still a MINORITY."

Good point. If the majority of people were against Page 3 then no ban would be necessary- sales of The Sun would dwindle and they would go out of business and disappear by themselves.

"Nancy66 Sat 08-Dec-12 11:26:04
The petition has been around for a long time and has had a lot of publicity on MN and Twitter and FB, yet it's stalled at around 60,000 signatures. "

A number of news articles have also linked to the petition so most likely millions upon millions know the petition is there. But the best they can do after all this time and publicity is 60k signatures which when you look at the bigger picture it's like a small splash in a big swimming pool.

Nick Clegg has even declined to back the campaign to ban page 3.

Face it your campaign will fizzle out.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/12/clegg-banning-sun-page-3-illiberal

Illuminating...

I read every newspaper.

I think The Express is terrible - run on a shoe-string, badly edited and dull

I think The Star is grubby and also badly edited and written

I think The Mirror is a shadow of its former self and mostly boring with some occasional sparkle when in campaigning mode

I think The Sun is slick, professional, well-edited and punchy

I think The Daily Mail is polished, professional, well-written and well-edited

I think The Telegraph is good on news, weak on features

I think The Times is hit and miss but i think the T2 section can be excellent

I think the Independent is a waste of space

I think The Guardian is mostly good, occasionally too worthy

Do you read any other newspapers? If so, how do you think they compare?

Well, 'thinking' is good. Keep doing it.

I read it.

I think it's a good paper.

The working class people who read The Sun are undoubtedly not the sharpest tools in the box. Just like the middle class people who read it, and even the aristocratic people who read it.

Come on. you cannot pick up a copy of The Sun, peruse its pages, and come to any other conclusion.

I was being facetious as SamuraiCindy had made such a pompous (and factually incorrect) posting.

Dismissing those that hold different views to you/favour different newspapers/watch different TV shows as stupid is such an easy and pointless argument. Bit like me saying all feminists are ugly.

I know plenty of highly intelligent people who read The Sun.

Of course there are many working-class people who don't buy The Sun but the readership IS largely working-class.

Most working class people don't read the Sun, so saying Sun readers are mostly stupid - which is the only possible conclusion one can draw having looked at the rag - is not at all the same thing as saying working class people are stupid. The working class people I know wouldn't soil their hands with it.

I'm not sure if it is true but I always assumed Daily Mail readers were mostly middle class. I think Daily Mail readers are mostly stupid. I don't assume that the middle class are mostly stupid.

You can say Sun readers are stupid and most Sun readers happen to be working class does not mean that most working class people are stupid.

It's not true that The Sun has a 7 year old reading age.

It's also very sneery to suggest its readers are stupid. Its readers are mostly working class. Do you think that working class people are thick, is that what you're saying?

Just because people don't sign a petition doesn't mean anything, and it certainly doesn't mean they have to like page 3.

The Sun is written for people with the reading ability of seven year olds...that isn't something I am making up - it is true. The readership therefore is hardly representative of the people in society who think more deeply about the impact of things like this. So are we supposed to just forget about these people, who DO mind that women are objectified and who want MORE for our daughters, just because some people find that rag suits their reading or intellectual ability along with looking at naked pictures??