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Original poster

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

428 replies

missnamechange · 06/12/2011 11:18

I have name changed for this as i am a regular MNer and i know i really ought to know this Blush 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 - Blush ) and the womens section, and the problem pages

what's so bad about it?

OP posts:
PerryCombover · 06/12/2011 15:03

Some of the Sun headlines are clever and a friend works for them as an editor. He is v v v v v bright and incredibly well educated as are most of the staffers.
If you realise that it's tripe and some of it is very damaging tripe then I suppose you'll never read it except to glance at the headlines on the way past a shelf in the supermarket
The Mail is vile but I am obsessed with the sidebar of shame. It really is woman hating bilge

Nancy66 · 06/12/2011 15:04

Chazs - right of reply doesn't mean replying to reader's letters.
It means giving the subject of the story the right to make comment.

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 06/12/2011 15:13

Which will of course be quoted faithfully, accurately, and in context.

Right, nancy?!

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 06/12/2011 15:19

Nancy66

I was being facetious to make a point!

I assume you are being patronising to make one too.

I had thought you would have correctly pick up the tone of written materials if you write for a living. Wink

NeuromanticisedVisionsofXmas · 06/12/2011 15:26

I'm not the one equating non-intellectual with stupid, thats your bag MrsWifty. I'm equating reading the Sun and thinking its any kind of accurate reflection of anything with stupid.

Hullygully · 06/12/2011 15:28

I haven't RTFT, but I would just like to query th eidea of reading the Sun, reading what?

It's only got five short words in it and some large tits.

MrsWifty · 06/12/2011 15:32

Yep, that was WibblyBibble, sorry. Getting distracted while trying to stop DS chewing my newspaper (The Guardian, fwiw).

Flisspaps · 06/12/2011 15:36

I don't think it is unfair to judge a paper on an article written 22 years ago, when it was full of abhorrent lies, particularly when the families and friends of those who died and the supporters of Liverpool Football Club are still having to live with the fact that people believe the utter rubbish that was written about them at the time.

And why do people believe it? Because it was in the 'news'paper.

TheFeministsWife · 06/12/2011 15:37

BelfastRingingOutForXmasBloke
Like BOF, I shun the Sun because of Hillsborough, even though their footy coverage is good/extensive.

But if someone doesn't know why the Sun should be shunned in general, I bet they don't know what 'Hillsborough' means, in particular.

The Sun printed disgusting lies about the actions of Liverpool fans towards the dead after the fatal crush at the Hillsborough stadium in 1989.

Exactly this. As a scouser I never read The Sun!

As for the DM is a misogynistic, racist, facist, disablist, benefit banishing piece of shite that I wouldn't even wipe my arse with!

MrsWifty · 06/12/2011 15:55

Flisspaps I completely agree that The Sun's Hillsborough coverage was despicable. But we'll have to agree to differ in that I still feel it's not fair to judge the current paper on what it did 22 years ago.

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 06/12/2011 15:57

slug Grin

MildlyNarkyPuffin · 06/12/2011 15:58

If you've read them and can't see why people hate them then there's no point trying to explain it to you.

RockStockAndTwoOpenBottles · 06/12/2011 15:58

^ what she said.

MildlyNarkyPuffin · 06/12/2011 16:06

it's not fair to judge the current paper on what it did 22 years ago.

How about the countdown clock to Charlotte Church's 16th birthday they ran on their website? That would be about 9 years ago. Too long? How about the way they treated Christopher Jeffries? Is that recent enough?

Flisspaps · 06/12/2011 16:07

The current paper is the SAME paper.

It was The Sun then, it is The Sun now.

What's the difference between reading it then, and reading it now (apart from the fact that almost everyone knows that it's not even worth using to wipe your arse with because it's so full of crap that you'll end up messier than you started)

MrsWifty · 06/12/2011 16:44

MildlyNarkyPuffin yes, the Chris Jeffries stuff was shocking. Fair point there. Charlotte Church more difficult, as it's a joke in very poor taste - and the Guardian runs equally poor taste jokes such as the Modern Life cartoons or Charlie Brooker columns before he decided to stop being nasty to slebs.

Flisspaps - it's almost a completely different staff though. It's like blaming the current proprietors of a restaurant for a food poisoning outbreak two decades ago when there was a different chef. (I do realise the Kelvin McKenzie column makes this argument imperfect though.)

I'm no apologist for the worst excesses of the media - phone hacking, contempt of court etc. It just makes me really angry when people sneer at Sun and Mail readers as idiots who can't make their own minds up about stuff and are spoon fed their opinions by the papers. There's always an example about someone's mother-in-law or grandmother (always an older woman relative) only believing stuff because that's what The Mail tells her too, when in all probability she probably buys The Mail in the first place because it chimes with her world-view in exactly the same way Guardian readers choose their paper. I'm sure they're all quite (rightly) confident of their abilities to think for themselves.

JaneBirkin · 06/12/2011 16:51

Slug that is indeed brilliant Smile Thankyou

keSnowBi · 06/12/2011 17:08

Mrswifty, what about the Amanda Knox headline? You know we could go on... Grin

MrsWifty · 06/12/2011 17:18

The one MailOnline got wrong? I think FleetStreetFox explained that one quite well. Human error, not evil incarnate (I certainly thought there but for the grace of God when I saw it):

[http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/10/how-journalism-works-part-74.html]

And yes, of course we could go on Grin. But of the thousands of articles these papers publish every week, very few contain serious inaccuracies. And very, very few, if any, contain deliberate serious inaccuracies (I'd class Melanie Phillips' continued scaremongering of the MMR vaccine in the face of overwhelming evidence in this, and possibly, by virtue of not checking thoroughly enough, the Sun's asylum seekers eat swans story). A lot of the flak they get is for running angles or op-eds which people don't agree with, the most infamous example of which is the Jan Moir Stephen Gately column. And fwiw, even though I agree her article was in horrendously poor taste, I agree with the PCC that it was fair comment, and think it's important we have a free press in which that fair comment can be printed.

(I also find it interesting how the internet, and social media in particular, has helped elevate The Mail far higher in the list of public hate figures, as it's made it much easier for people to find articles to complain about and circulate them quickly - and a side effect is to skew the opinion of those who don't actually read the papers, which includes people who just skim read the front pages at a garage.)

Sidalee7 · 06/12/2011 17:21

Both are poor excuses for newspapers.

But in particular hate the Sun because of Hillsborough, and hate the Mail because friend of a friend was murdered in horrific circumstances.
They threatened his girlfriend and said if she didnt give them an interview they would paint a really bad picture of her and basically make out it was her that did it. She didnt and they did - scumbags!

keSnowBi · 06/12/2011 17:42

From my perspective, it wasn't the issue that they got it wrong so much as the amount of 'local colour' they invented - the reactions of Knox, of her family, of the Kerchers etc etc. I seem to remember they described her as 'stunned' and the Kerchers refusing to look at her. Which of course didn't happen.

Proof if you need it that the story was written without facts (and therefore leaves you to question how much else is). I know about deadlines, I know about holding the press etc etc, but gosh there was a lot of crap in the piece...

keSnowBi · 06/12/2011 17:45

re internet. Absolutely. Because as you stated earlier, people who buy the DM are self-selecting. People who wouldn't pay money for it are suddenly confronted with how malicious it can be as the features are right there for the reading.

I'm not sure this is the same as 'finding things to complain about'.

BTW have you been following the Leveson Inquiry? Does back up sidalee's anecdote, though obviously not aimed at DM in that situation...

bubbub · 06/12/2011 17:48

i dont buy newpapers because since becoming a mother, tragic news stories really seem to effect me, so i choose not to read it.
this thread however reminds me of a woman i used to work with how would grill the saturday sunday kids over what music they listened to, and if it wasnt exactly the same "intellectual" music of indie unheard of bands she loved she would bully them, calling anything that wasnt what she liked shit, and that the listener was ill informed, clearly stupid, and uneducated. i thought she was bonkers, self righteous and completely unable to see the fact that other people have different taste and hers wasnt the only"right" taste. eveyone else thought she was a bitch and hated her.
this thread just reminded me of her thats all.