Am I being a sanctimonious nobber re: Daily Mail?

[Undertone]

OK - so I know I shouldn't have but I read Liz Jones' latest piece of trash in the Mail on Sunday website today. I won't link, but to paraphrase: she feels entitled to use the emergency services (a&e, fire brigade) for trivial reasons (removing an earring, a stuck kitten) because she 'pays her taxes' and goes private for most things anyway. The piece ended on a note saying she admired Stephen Fry's bravery - NOT for talking about his suicide attempt but for the fact that he tried to do it with pills. I know - WTF?!

Anyway - she's a sadly limited woman used as a troll to drive DM traffic. But something in me snapped today.

Casual acceptance of the bigoted, chauvinistic, entitled and sometimes downright dangerous opinions she and other DM columnists get published is toxic. Yes there are lots of people that protest, and the DM editors rub their scaly hands with glee at all the attention it gains them, but outside of the Twitter and outraged lefty bubble there are millions of people who read it and go "oh - that's a published opinion. Must be legit." And by tiny increments flawed, lazy and insular patterns of thought become ever more embedded.

Anyway - (I AM getting to the point) I don't have many friends on Facebook - quite a tight group really - and I posted a status about how I'd had it with the DM and the next time somebody admitted to reading it I would challenge them about it (meaning, really, someone in a pub or at work).

So who should bloody pop up and comment on this status but one of my good female friends (she and I are going on hol together in a few weeks, just the 2 of us) saying "I am a DM reader and proud - sorry!"

A bit of context - I love her to pieces and I have known her for about 13 years now. She and I have clashed on issues before (she doesn't believe in feminism, and thinks it is unfair to men - I have had to start avoiding the subject with her now because she doesn't accept my beliefs and won't let it go when an argument has run its course).

I want to challenge her about it, I want to explain to her why (from an outsider POV as a non-DM reader) I find it such an offensive newspaper and feel so strongly about it. It would be best if I just picked up the phone to her now and had a discussion - but is that weird? I mean - posting a flippant FB remark and then someone ringing you up to argue about it? Should I send her an email?

Crucially I want to explain myself without insulting her so that the holiday isn't awkward. But it was a surprise that she reads the DM and I do unfortunately think a bit less of her. This is what I am worried will come out in a spat.

Help - AIBU to challenge her? Maybe she missed all the terrible stories I've seen Can you help me with some links to send her?

But undertone you are assuming that people who read the DM only read that, I am pretty sure it is not the case and most people nowadays source information from a variety of support : TV news, radio, internet, and newspapers even the DM readers.

undertone that book looks interesting. Have added it to my to-read list.

It's not about what newspaper is 'best'!! FFS. I make no claims to taking the intellectual high ground. This isn't an intellectual protest. It's a protest against the DM being able to publish articles which press bigoted, badly informed or vindictive content.

Remember the Philpott front cover? The DM intimated that because he was on benefits he murdered his family. Because everyone on benefits is basically a criminal.

What about the Stephen Gately Jan Moir piece? She said that he died as a result of a gay lifestyle, when in fact it was natural causes. She actually sounded pleased that he had died.

What about that Liz Jones piece that said women in the workplace who were harassed should blame themselves?

gorionine - now that newspapers' budgets are tumbling due to a splintered revenue from advertising (newspapers get I think about 70% of revenue from advertising, not cover price sales) - they are in a mad battle to sustain circulation figures and secure the highest amount of web traffic to their sites. This acts as an incentive to brands wanting to place an ad - they will pay premium for the largest number of people to be exposed to it.

Newspapers are having to change the way they operate in order to secure a loyal, high-volume readership, switching from factual reporting (which lots of people can get from a number of sources - BBC, online, etc for free) to more opinion-led journalism which can be 'owned' by that newspaper as a brand property that exerts a point of differentiation over their competitors.

So while yes the DM's news coverage can be challenged by opposing news sources, and it's highly unlikely that someone will ONLY get the news from the DM, you can ONLY get the DM opinion pieces from the DM. These are the things that cause me such an issue.

They are opinions, yes, and everyone is entitled to an opinion, yes, and no-one should ever be gagged, no. But I can challenge people on supporting a publication which peddles bigotry and hatred as part of their ongoing subjective soapbox.

My DM has read the Daily Mail all her life and is certainly not a bigoted, racist or any of the other things levelled at mail readers.

She is, like me, a very liberal conservative. She'd say the unthinking sheep are well off South Eastern Guardian readers.

"So first of all you are assuming that people who real the Daily Mail simply read what is written and automatically take this as valid and have no critical capacity to weigh up the stories and decide whether or not it's a valid view point."

The problem with this, 'give the people credit for their intelligence' argument; is that it all falls apart when you actually talk to a DM reader.

Reading the headline and think "I disagree with this article!,I will not buy this newspaper!" is totally fine. It is also fine to read it and comment directly that you totally disagree with the article and try to also get your, possibly more balanced, possibly more extreme opinion through is fine too. Reading it and agreeing with every word in it, i havre never been able to myself but everyone is entitled an opinion, even if differs from yours or mine.

In the case of your friend, changing your opinion about her because she reads the DM, without knowing what she actually thinks when she reads it is a bit silly.

BTW how do you manage to know so much about the DM's content without reading it yourself?

Personally I loathe the DM web site for the soft pore, women in bikinis, weight obsessed side bar.

So while yes the DM's news coverage can be challenged by opposing news sources, and it's highly unlikely that someone will ONLY get the news from the DM, you can ONLY get the DM opinion pieces from the DM. These are the things that cause me such an issue.
Yes but you are allowed to challenge those opinions, no one is stopping you to do so.

gorionine - I know it's silly isn't it? But as soon as a really offensive piece gets published I hear from several sources that it's something that would really boil my piss and off I toddle to go and have a look and a fume.

I don't know what bits of it she reads. That doesn't matter. The newspaper as a whole is tainted by the opinions that they allow to run in it. A totally neutral story about sport will have nothing to do with Liz Jones or whatever. My friend could be a closet tennis nut and the DM has the best tennis reporter for all I know. But it's the same thinking behind all calls for boycotting - the factory that makes Shreddies has nothing to do with the Nestle formula scandal, but some people feel it is important to point the blame at the over-arching entity in control.

Same with me and the DM. And maybe my friend has no idea about all this shit in the opinion columns. If she does, but just doesn't care, then that's... worrying and I want to somehow try to understand why she feels that way.

sorry x posted gorionine. What is there to challenge about an opinion piece which says that women bring sexual harassment upon themselves? No caveat for certain cases. Nothing.

An opinion like that is offensive - not 'just' wrong.

Well the spin on articles position doesn't stand because every newspaper puts some sort of political spin which backs up their particular viewpoint in the stories they print. Again, it comes back to the fact that you disagree with the particular viewpoint they are wishing to spin.

And I'm not quite certain where you get off on berating me for prejudice when you're having your own micro-moral panic based on the fact that some people might choose different reading matter from you or not share your own political convictions. Narrow mindedness comes in many forms and inability to accept that anybody might not wholeheartedly embrace the same political stripe as you is certainly one of them.

Crikey if you were my friend I'd be getting out of that holiday asap!
Judgemental, ignorant, argumentative...

But Bridget it's not political! Homphobia is not political. Chauvinism is not political. I frankly don't know where I am on the political spectrum, but can't we just all agree that this stuff is hateful?

To be honest if I saw a status like that on my newsfeed I would probably think sanctimonious nobber.
I'm a vegetarian, is it acceptable for me to write on my newsfeed "next time I see someone eating meat I'm going to challenge them"? It's very goading. I long ago accepted that other people have different opinions to me, live and let live. That's not to say I don't enjoy a healthy debate, but judgemental status updates aren't the way IMO.

I do agree with you about the daily mail though.

Holidaysarenice... ignorant? Blimey where did that come from?

The DM is a disgusting rag, carefully calculated to make a certain type of reader froth at the mouth with its ill-founded semi-literate pseudo-journalism. Also, your friend sounds fatally dim. (Do point out at some point that feminism is not the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, it's not a matter of 'believing' in it. Also ask her how she feels about the right to vote, access to contraception, legislation on equal pay etc etc.)

On the other hand, you have only just had your anti- DM epiphany, and you clearly read it in the past, so YANBU a bit to expect someone else to have an equivalent road to Damascus moment, just because you're now enlightened. I mean, you are right, obviously, but someone who Doesn't Believe in Feminism is quite possibly not going to see the light just because you say so. Especially if she thinks that photos of some Z-list celeb 'displaying her curves' in a bikini is journalism.

I used to read the DM (hangs head in shame) - we bought it out of habit - but I stopped several years ago when I was fed up of reading the same vile bigoted bilge (oh and I am the scum of the earth as I am an NHS worker - constantly slated in DM. I finally gave up after that disgusting article by Jan Moir and happily admit to not reading a paper anymore (and my recycling box is much lighter.

However I was filling my car at petrol station on Thursday and glanced at the various headlines.

We must stop the migrant invasion

Corrie Kev dumped by lover

Stephen Fry in pills suicide attempt

Child porn teacher is back in the classroom

Jacko girl cuts her wrists in suicide bid

It struck me then what an all time low our journalists have sunk to - peddling bigotry and thriving from someone else's misery.

The bloody Guardian is far more annoying than the Daily Mail.
Full of Mr. And Ms.Smuggy McSmugg from Smugville, Smugland.

Nope. Because these issues are political when you have issues like gay marriage, whether or not those accused of rape should be publicly identified or even issues like maternity leave and pay being decided in the political arena.

Yes some opinions are not particularly pleasant to read but that doesn't mean that they should be censored and not allowed to be aired in public. We have strict laws in place about not inciting racial hatred etc so their is a limit to what can be printed and beyond that then it does just become a matter of people like you insisting that viewpoints they don't like should be silenced, not allowed. It's an incredibly oppressive authoritarian way of dealing with dissenting viewpoints.

You can't just limit what people read and what is printed to conform to one particular political viewpoint. Society would be a bit shit if you did. And yes, as others have said - it's the old chestnut that the 'masses' need to be dictated to be the chosen few who know what's best for them. That's all a bit 1540s really isn't it?

Yes, because Rachael Effing Johnson (MoS) is so devoid of smugness isn't she?

I don't read the Guardian so can't really comment.
But being irrtiatingly smug is damaging no-one. It's just... irritating.

Whereas the crap printed by the DM is used to justify the bedroom tax, ATOS etc, which are really harming people.

They love a story about someone signed off work with a bad back who went parachuting or whatever, but never quite find room in the article to mention how tiny a % of disability benefit is claimed fraudulently.
'More than 1,700 disability hate crimes were recorded by police in England and Wales in 2011-12.' bbc link. Entirely unrelated I'm sure.

Never mind hounding transsexuals to suicide.

It's not just opinions; it's actually causing real pain and suffering in the real world.

"We have strict laws in place about not inciting racial hatred etc"

Yeah, we also have strict laws about libel, but luckily you can only afford to enforce them if you're rich, hence the DM and its lawyers can piss all over them as long as they're only lying about the common people.

They print controversial headlines like '13 year old actress shows off her womanly curves', and articles by smug middle class women who commit the cardinal sin of appearing to have too much confidence, merely to enrage both sides of their readership and bring more traffic to the site.

I think saying 'I'm a DM reader and proud of it' is cringey, on a par with saying 'I'm a Jeremy Kyle viewer and proud of it.'

But I do visit the site daily. If everyone who was disgusted by the Daily Mail avoided it, the comments section would be horrifying. It's already a seething hotbed of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and intolerance. But on the other hand I suppose if that did happen they might be embarrassed into tryign to drag their awful site out of the gutter.

Bridget - None of those issues you just mentioned were the subjects of articles that I have brought out as examples of why I feel the DM is malign.

This is why I feel we are at cross-purposes - I'm talking about something quite different.