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?

The Sun is for thick working class people

The Mail is for thick middle class people.

What about The Daily Sport, The People or The Mirror? Why are they better than The Sun? Why don't they attract the same opinions?

Generally interested btw.

Nancy You're not the only writer on this thead!

See Pandemonia's comment.

The OP specifically asked in her thread title about the Sun and the Mail.

I don't hate the Daily Mail because it's fashionable on MN - I find it a hilarious concept people think I worry about the reading preferences of one of many websites I frequent anonymously.

My MAJOR issue is that pretends it's a broadsheet when it's a tabloid, ie it expects to be taken seriously as a news organ when in fact it peddles opinion dressed up as fact. Broadsheets tend to check their facts and give right of reply. Tabloids couldn't give a monkey fuck, and nor could the DM. However because it pretends that it's a broadsheet, many otherwise intelligent people take stories like "muslim-only loos" as fact.

It lies and lies and lies again. It ruins lives. It bludgeons into the ground anyone who attempts to correct factual inaccuracies, with the use of lawyers.

If you really want to know why I (and many people) think that the DM, Sun, Star etc etc are scum, just read the revelations of the Leveson inquiry. In fact I'm amazed more people aren't interested - it's actual under-oath proof that truth is completely irrelevant when tabloids are searching for a story, that the only thing that matters is whether or not it will sell papers.

I will give it two things. 1) it's stunningly readable. 2) it is absolutely brilliant at what it does, which is to wind people up, frighten them, and set them off to make Britain a tiny bit more racist, misogynist and hateful.

Well done OP for being brave enough to ask the question. Not everyone remembers Hillsborough and not everyone realises the focus of newspapers - hope that the less vitriolic comments on here have helped you.

I volunteered in a homeless hostel for a while and our residents refused to buy the Sun on the grounds that its stories often set out to demean their subjects. The language is simplified, and the stories - as Hillsborough so awfully illustrated - often take an oversimplified/poorly researched/sensationalist attitude in order to sell. V. patronising to the readers -even before you get onto P3 - though some of the headlines are epic!

I read the DM just twice a year, as my dentist subscribes to it! When read occasionally it really highlights how sensationalist its attitudes are, and how it sets out to spread fear. Perhaps its journalists really believe they are surrounded by danger in every stranger they pass. I can only imagine how it affects your view of the world if you read it every day

The Daily Mail, incidentally, has a long and dishonourable political history. In the 1930s, the proprietor, Lord Rothermere was editorially supportive of Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, as well as being friendly towards Hitler and Mussolini. The paper also supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

I realise that I am a Very Old Lefty about things like this, but, to me, these remain valid reasons never to let a copy of the Mail sully my house.

Akiram because they don't pretend that they are respectable in same way. And probably because their circulations are lower.

Nancy is a DM reporter I think. I do remember her getting cross with us for slagging Jiz Loans.

I read the Guardian. Torygraph or Independent online sometimes and gawp at the DM sleb pages in XF season. Mostly to point and larf because I am childish, either at the nonsense written or at the XF contestant's stage outfit pictures. The Guardian fails on that front, miserably.

I also use the papers mentioned to talk to students about media bias, manipulation and hate. .

Agree, keSnowBi. I worry for my dad's health when he reads the Daily Mail. He sends me cuttings from it FFS. I've never seen a single article that bore any resemblance to 'checked facts with right of reply.'

Nancy, my friend went to work for the Daily Mail because he thought he might be able to make a difference. He really is very well known and while he doesn't play the big "I Am", he assumed they had offered him a job because they wanted to see his values reflected in the Mail.

Very quickly he realised this was not the case and left the paper without a job to go to such was his distaste for the regime and the effect it had on his conscience.

The DM does keep these chaps busy though here

Adding to my previous post...

This will probably get deleted (I've said it before and it was) but according to the NOTW's Paul McMullan and various other sources, that previously to 2006, the DM used more underhand methods for gaining information than ANY OTHER tabloid.

Of course those are just opinions not facts and the word allegedly should pop in somewhere here, but interesting, non?

I wonder why women read the Sun myself. I cant understand it. It actually amazes me how women think it acceptable in this day and age. When my son was small and I breast fed him I did it in public. My husband and I decided that if anyone said anything we would say 'What paper do you read?'. It makes me sick. It is perfectly acceptable for women's breasts to be sexual in public and for men to look at soft porn where ever they feel like it but not for women to breast feed babies wherever they feel like it.

By the way, this is just my opinion.

I'd be interested in the link to the reading age comparisons though, unless that was estimated?

I think people on here are unreasonably scathing about others who read tabloid newspapers, though. My very lovely, left wing lifelong union member Grandad always read the Sun, it didn't make him an evil bigot, he just liked the footy and the racing (caveat, that was before Hillsborough as he died mid 80s).

Just because people choose to read a certain paper doesn't mean they agree with its editorial line necessarily.

I would never ever buy the sun newspaper, nor it seems do other people in the area I live. Even when every single paper has been sold out there are still a stack of the sun left. The dispicable lies printed after Hillsbourough have never been forgotten.
The Mail I did used to buy but have not bought for a good while, the stories are sensationalist nonsence designed to promote hatred, anything appears to be fair game.
Now buy the cheapo independant at least it has proper news!

I read the Guardian and loathe the DM as it pretends to be serious. The Sun is OK as no one really thinks anything in it is news..........or do they?

Last but not least, you only need to look at what happened to Christopher Jeffries (totally innocent landlord of Jo Yeates) to see how tabloids can ruin someone's life.

Oh and the genius moment they jumped the gun on the result of Amanda Knox's retrial, describing her stunned face as the guilty verdict was read out... which was a marvellous piece of fiction, seeing as the verdict was that sge was innocent.

I wouldn't be scathing of anyone who reads the Sun. Surely they have enough problems.

I've never read the mail, I have read the sun occasionally though, I am able to form my own opinions I can't say I was ever influenced by it. I certainly don't have a problem with mothers bf where ever they like.

I do remember hillsborough, i was 11 that day and my dad was there. I didn't read the papers though.

Takver I couldn't agree more (though I would probably judge a woman who read the Daily Star ) but the issue is that for the more sophisticated tabloids it's impossible to disentangle the editorial line from the story.

For example my very lovely MiL reads the DM. Then she gets all upset and worried about a story that's been in the newspapers about a huge wave of crime engulfing Surrey or whatnot and gets all upset when it's not even SLIGHTLY true - it's a deliberate manipulation of statistics.

The DM are also pretty frequently accused of plagiarism by freelancers and magazines too.
One of the journalists at Rolling Stone magazine recently published an exclusive article with pictures of Frances Bean Cobain which the DM re-published almost word for word and didn't link back to the original article. The journalist contacted them for a retraction/apology/credit and as far as I'm aware she never heard back from them. They did eventually link to the photographer's website and credit his pictures though.
Original
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Colleen Nika's Twitter

When I was researching a blog post the other day I went looking for the original source for a particular quote and found that the DM had reproduced the article word for word with the name of one of their journalists about 2-3 hours after the original article came out. I tried to contact the DM to let them know but never heard anything back.

I miss 'Today' and 'The Sunday Correspondant'. But then I am old

And don't forget the legendary Amanda Knox appeal article where the DM published the wrong article complete with made up quotes and descriptions!