To think that the MN In The News section is more tabloid than the Sun these days?

[Callisto]

I'm thinking in particular of the latest Victoria Beckham thread which is really quite awful, but there is the Britney thread, plus a Jade Goody thread and a Charlotte Church thread. This stuff isn't news it is gossip of the worst kind and it just seems to be posted so that everyone can be really bitchy and nasty.

I know that there have always been threads like these in the news section, but they seem so much more common these days and there are less and less real news threads. It is very sad that even MN has dumbed down to such an extent.

thats ahy we alsop have current affairs

Does anyone post on current affairs now? I gave up looking as there was never anything new.

And where has current affairs gone?

Nah, they've always been there.

It's just that there haven't been any other heated threads to balance them out recently. You could start one!

I think they might have done away with current affairs because there's toomuch overlap with in the news

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Im sure its my job to start "heated" threads seems to be my forte`

I like when people post items relating to Middle East etc- as I genuinely do not have a clue about issues there and find such posts really educating.

Couldnt really give a toss what Charlotte Church et al are up to.

you are right Cal- its hardly 'news' more 'gossip'

I don't think you're unreasonable - I notice how different society has become even in the last ten years - huge explosion of Z list 'celebrity' magazines - masses of 'reality' tv.

I can honestly say even though I never buy trashy magazines, watch reality tv or listen to mtv I STILL know who most of these people are by ACCIDENT!

Which really pisses me off - I want to keep 'real' stuff, 'real' people, 'real' relationships in my head - I haven't room for endless crap about people who do nothing and whom I don't know !

Sometimes the world seems to have gone tabloid - and mumsnet is a microcosm of that - you have to really search for news these days.

why not start a thread on a more interesting news story then? You don't have to read the tabloids and you don't have to look at the gossipy threads. i can't bear all the bitchiness on those threads either but have just decided to skip them from now on!
Besides, I don't think its for anybody else to police what others say, think or read and these threads get hundreds of posts so obviously interesting topics to lots of people

I did think when I started the thread that I might need some protective head-gear .

To me, it seems to have coincided with the (dare I say it?) obsessive Madeleine McCann threads. I wonder if it is the same people?

I'm not really policing what other people say. Maybe there should be a Celebrity Slagging-Off section so that these threads don't clog up the news section anymore?

"these days"

its always been like it

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why are they 'clogging up' the news section? How hard is is it to scroll down through the threads and ignore the ones that don't interest you?

I don't think the threads are any more bitchy that real life. People like/dislike famous people. And they talk about them.
I thought the arguments on MN for not discussing the MC case were , not reflective of RL, becasue everywhere I went, it was all that anyone was talking about.

Before comments were made about the .... Beckham's/ Church's etc within everyday threads. Now its congregated in one area. I think that is the only difference. Maybe we need a "celebrity" section.

yes- I vote a 'sleb' section.

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we have too many topics as it is

LOL at Sleb Tittle-Tattle.
I will add the suggestion to separate celebrities from proper news to our list of things to discusss at the next meeting but make no promises!

But what if you get proper news involving slebs?

(Am trying to think of a proper sleb news story now)

ah littlebellatraix, that could take you some time . I think that is the point

agree foxinsoks - too many categories