to ask why the Sun and the Mail newspaper are so hated on here?

[missnamechange]

I have name changed for this as i am a regular MNer and i know i really ought to know this but i don't

i read the Sun every most days, i like the vacuous celeb gossip and their easy to understand way of writing (again - ) and the womens section, and the problem pages

what's so bad about it?

I was given plenty of good reasons to hate them, and they were backed up by life experiences. I have plenty of freedom of thought, thank-you.

Note - you were given- by whom, your award winning journalist father? So you were given his views, which you appear to have adopted.

I don't justify anyone, and have no point given my own preference for news coverage, so I'm not sure why you would assume such a position for me. Quite a lazy assumption in fact, though not surprising.

Lying in the sun.

For some, it's a holiday. For others, it's a career.

I never said he was award winning...I said respected, no need for sarcasm. He presented me with evidence and I made up my own mind based on that evidence. I have since had the view verified by personal experience, so it was obviously the right decision for me. If other people wish to hold a different view, that's their right.

limitedperiodonly - so glad someone else is bored of Brooker

I'd like to add hwjm1945 - If I'd had positive experiences that were contrary to what I'd been told (on good authority) while I was growing up, I'd be more than willing to change my view. I'm always open to having my view changed if I'm presented with a good enough argument

neuro you're the one who's being lazy. I haven't told you your position, I've just asked you questions, which is what all good journalists do.

I hold no brief for either tabloids or broadsheets. I've worked for both of them and I can see faults everywhere.

You, however, are ducking the argument. What papers do you like to read? Do you acknowledge bias or wrong-doing in them or do you not notice it?

There's plenty everywhere, just as there is good to be found everywhere. It's wise to be critical. It's foolish to lash out.

Feel free to come back when you want to present a coherent position rather than embarrassed blustering.

You do write like a journo, limited. A bad one that is. Im neither embarrassed nor blustering, but good try. I think if you look my position has been coherent all along, not to mention extremely simple, but perhaps you could ask an editor to help you find the point.

neuro it's not me that needs help or indeed, a critique.

I know other people have said similar things already, but this is an issue that?s close to my heart and I felt I had to contribute something. This isn?t aimed at anyone in particular ? if it sounds as though it is then that?s probably because I started thinking about this earlier in the day and the thread?s moved on now that I?ve actually got round to posting.

Of course there are many reasons why someone might not know about what happened at Hillsborough or the subsequent coverage. But for the people who are aware of these, surely they are a good enough reason not to buy the Sun. It doesn?t matter whether it happened 22 years ago or last week (I have to wonder sometimes how many other people campaigning for justice are told they should get over it because the injustice in question happened decades ago ? surely it only makes it worse that in all this time nothing has been done to put right the wrongs). Many things may have moved on at the paper since that time, but the fact that no-one was brought to account or that in so long no real apology was made surely goes to show that nothing in its ethos has really changed.

I grew up in London and know people who still believe the lies today. I have also lived in Liverpool, albeit briefly, and know people who are still affected by the lies today. If the effects of that story are still being felt and nothing has been done about it, then as far as I can see it is utterly irrelevant to use the time that has passed to try and acquit the Sun.

And dismissing newspapers like the Guardian by describing them as ?middle class? is spectacularly missing the point in this case. The Hillsborough story could be published without repercussions ? and believed by a significant number of people ? because it was about the working class, because a large part of the population didn?t need much convincing that working class football fans (and Liverpudlians) were scum who were perfectly capable of urinating on their own dead children, or any of the other disgusting lies that were printed about them. The Sun, and certain other tabloids for that matter, are hardly champions of the working class, however much they style themselves as being on the side of ?honest, hard-working Brits?. The truth is that they?re not on anyone?s side ? as the Leveson Inquiry is demonstrating they?re happy to strip any of us, no matter how unthinkably terrible our situation might already be, of our privacy and dignity for profit. The Hillsborough tragedy happened to be something that affected Liverpool fans decades ago, but something similar could happen to any of us at any time and the knowledge that a paper like the Sun might see fit to treat me or the people I love like scum because we were involved in a terrible accident is reason enough for me not to buy it.

FWIW I was born after 1989, I?m not from Liverpool and I frequently find myself rolling my eyes at some of the articles in the Guardian, but for me none of the unethical actions of the press we've learnt about in recent weeks can match the vile lies that were printed that day. So I can't speak for everyone else on here but those are my personal reasons for hating the Sun. (I never read the DM apart from occasional articles online so I can't comment on that other than to say that the fact that they employ Mackenzie as a columnist does little to endear them to me.)

All newspapers are shit not very good and people don't like them for their own reasons.
Considering the fact that the Sun and the Daily Mail are the two biggest selling national newspapers, I would say that they are probably the most popular.
Some people genuinely feel that they have a reason to hate the papers whilst others just follow the crowd in some middle class zombified state preaching their hatred of them without knowing why.
I am not tarring all middle class people with the same brush i'm just stating the obvious that the papers that are more popular are deemed to be working class papers.

What I dislike about the Mail is that it is consistently encouraging me (lower middle class) to feel hard done by, to be less generous, to blame other people rather than think about what I can do to improve society, to think people less fortunate than me are out to take advantage of me.

It's like one of those ghastly playground bullies-by-proxy who are forever urging you to pick at the new kid with glasses ("go on, say it to him"). I was about 7 when I realised that those people were hardly acting with my best interests at heart- I can still see that at 47.

Of course the broadsheets are going to be politically biased, but seeing that they don't all have the same politics I can easily get round that by reading the Telegraph and the Guardian, and the Independent for good measure. They all have this in common that they don't provide an easy way out by encouraging me to pick on whoever is below me in the social hierarchy.

Well said cory.

I like teh Daily Mail. Of course it has some biased content etc., all papers and media do, even teh BBC. The propaganda may be more subtle in other media, but it is still there.

However, the Mail is good because it offers a different perspective. It challenges things that other papers won't. It asks awkward questions.

I remember watching Jonathan Powell, a former chief of staff for Tony Blair, on 'This Week' talking aout the News International hacking and discussing the power of teh Murdoch media etc., and he said something like the paper that the politicians really fear is the Daily Mail.

It represents an opposition and asks questions many others brush under the carpet.

You need all sorts of competing views in a healthy democracy, and a paper that questions official policy is very necessary.

I thought that hwjm1945 made a fascinating point about the difference in slant of the Daily Mail and the Guardian about the home birth article.

The Daily Mail alway asks what are the risks. That is what many of its readers want to know.

On most subjects e.g. climate change etc., they are often sceptical of official advice and want to hear the other side.

Because these papers don't actually contain much proper news. It's mostly just gossip.

The Mail was the paper that named some of the suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder.

It's not partisan. It's against criminals.

Also not all Mail readers vote Tory. Lots of them vote Labour, but they still want to hear the other side of the story, they don't all believe teh offical stories, and they want to see what it is that Jonathan Powell said makes it the most feared paper of the political elite.

'Circulation figures according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in July 2011 show gross daily sales of 2,050,132 for the Daily Mail.[1] According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of Daily Mail readers voted for the Conservative Party, compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail

The feminist, Suzanne Moore, is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday.

The Mail used to have Julie Burchill as one of their columnists. She is generally left wing and doesn't particularly supports toffs or Tories, but also is not a supporter of greens.

So I say
Long live truth, long live freedom, long live the Daily Mail

Well, I couldn't disagree more to be honest, but variety is the spice of life! I feel myself being actively more angry when having read The Mail, angry at benefit cheats, angry at immigrants etc etc etc, looking for someone to blame, feeling fearful about life... but then I give myself a metaphorical also round the chops and wake up!

On the Hillsborough point, I think it is unfair to be so hard on those who don't know the ins and outs. I was 8 at the time, and whilst I was aware vaguely of what happened (found out more as an adult) I certainly wasn't aware of The Sun's behaviour. It isn't widely discussed now, and I didn't read the papers at the time. Doesn't surprise me though.

Oh, Cory made my point so much better!

The Mail will be rubbing its hand today at that new report showing how much less sympathetic we are towards those worse off, benefits etc. On phone otherwise would go into more detail!

Sun is a big boys comic.

Mail is ruddy depressing.

So is most new these days though

claig I don't think the Daily Mail are asking "what are the risks", they're asking "what can we get our readers in a froth about". By turning their readership into a bunch of neurotic worriers (a la my mother), they guarantee repeat readership, because those same neurotic worriers keep coming back for more bad news. They thrive on it. My mother is convinced everything is going to give me cancer/ every man is going to sexually abuse my daughters/ every Muslim is going to blow me up/ every gay man is going to act in a depraved manner at the school gates...etc, etc, etc. She has been fed this drivel by the Daily Mail day in and day out, and now believes all the shit she reads.