To read the Daily Mail if it's free?

[LaMarschallin]

There are no DM readers here.

I realise that.

However, I regularly sully my poor, defenseless eyeballs by getting stuck into a free DM. Usually in a Waitrose cafe*.

I like the gossip. I like criticising the right-wing bias. I like, very occasionally, the writing (Craig Brown mostly).

I wouldn't dream of buying it.
I buy the Times and the Guardian and add in the Sunday Telegraph. Totally based on good cryptic crosswords and quizzes.

I think the DM is a rag and I wouldn't pay for it on principle (and the crossword is rubbish).

But - like the occasional Gregg's chicken bake, trashy television, blue waterline eyeliner - it is strangely addictive.

And, for all that nobody here reads it, it's often quoted.

I suppose my AIBU is:

Am I wrong to read the DM without buying it, even though I realise it's an awful right-wing rag that is, occasionally, funny and to believe it's read by more Mumsnetters than would own up to it?

I look at the website several times a day for my trashy celeb goss fill and have a weird tradition of only ever buying a paper copy to read if I'm travelling on a plane. Or getting a ridiculous thrill if I see BA are offering them for free- even better. Weird I know.

It's free to you but someone is paying for it. In this circumstance it's Waitrose. So DM are still getting paid.
Read what you want. I read anything, shock horror

You do realise that reading the Daily Mail gives you cancer?

www.anorak.co.uk/288298/tabloids/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html

It's racist, misogynistic, judgemental crap.

I absolutely love reading it - read on the daily mail app every day. I do it for entertainment purposes and log relief from everyday drudgery (commuting).

Got no shame in this - everyone in the office I work in is pompous and would never ever read it. I kind of like seeing their faces when I admit to loving reading it 🤣

It is one of the most read newspapers in the UK, I think you would be ignorant to ignore it.

@LaMarschallin, my mother revealed an absolutely fascinating (to me) account of London life in the 1930s which she'd never mentioned before. Her father and brothers had been anti fascist activists up to wartime and she and her sister also rallied to the cause by leafleting and soapboxing against the Tommy Robinsons of the day. It absolutely astonished me. She was a quiet and peaceful soul but hated injustice. So, better or worse, I can't say, although I would feel I'd betrayed her if I started putting money in the pockets of the Rothermeres. And the Murdochs, the Barclay brothers and Conrad Black although they are personal choices. Media barons eh? Gotta love em. Or something.

longwayoff

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to me.
And I totally see your choice.

I've been quite flippant - as is my way - through this thread. But I did ask AIBU and I did want to inform myself.

And although I'm sure that I will avail myself of a free DM in the future, I will remember your words and read it in the light of them.

is least reliable (dishonest?) 'paper

Sackcloth and ashes not required LaMarschalin, it's clear you see it for what it is, no harm will come to you. Gregg's Chicken Bakes, on the other hand . . . Watch yourself.

Me to op

I read it. I am a bad Mumsnetter flagellates oneself with shame

In my defence I dont actually buy it (read it online) and I like pictures of celebrities cos I am totally shallow too

I have the app 🙈🙈🙈

It’s one of the queens favourite newspapers . I have that on good authority.

I wonder if she knows she can read it on Brave and avoid a lot of the pop ups..😉
Saves getting print on her hands too

I read my mum's copy when I see her, had to stop during the election campaign though , just couldn't bare the propaganda

I hate to admit it as an SNP, anti-independence, anti-Brexit, woman mother of 2 who has had to rely on government assistance for a year on maternity leave (oh how current!)... but I have the app...and I need it at night to fall asleep. I read it dry plus the comments 😂

Their reporting is shit... their spelling and grammar is worse if that's possible... but they have some sort of easy reading / easy commenting with an "agree or disagree" Brucey Bonus that a lot of others should be doing!

Their reporting is shit... their spelling and grammar is worse if that's possible

Oh yes.

And also people seem to write differently for them from when they write for other papers.
Obviously they have to toe the party line, but Quentin Letts (who normally writes reasonably in, say, the Times), writing in the DM, penned one of the most childish pieces of journalism I've ever read.

In article about an encounter between John Major and Boris Johnson in 2016 he described how JM waggled a sausagey forefinger* at BJ. Like it matters what JM's fingers are like?
Then went on to say:

'Squalid!' cried Major. 'Lies! Frankly fatuous! Frankly untrue! Socking great hole in our accounts! A deceit! A pig in a poke!'
...
Readers, it really did happen: Johnny Major, the man who bonked Edwina Currie and later presided helplessly over the Tory Sleaze Era, said the word 'poke'. And he did so in roaring, raging, self-blinding anger. Magnificent!

Basically it was the school would-be smart arse, on being told he'd come into school late, sniggering, "You said 'come' , Miss. That's rude!".

I always remind myself of that if I'm ever tempted to take it seriously.

And yet I still pounce on a free copy if I find one.

*I know, right? Years ago. Such swivel-eyed obsessiveness does make me fear I'm just the type the Mail want to convert and lure into their clutches.

Quentin Letts writes like Nigel Molesworth, chiz. Can't read him.

I read it free in Waitrose and it beggars belief how right wing it is. There is never a balanced article.
I buy The Guardian but at least there is real journalism, critical thinking and analysis.

I read lots of papers, DM included. I read a variety of magazines as well. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t have any loyalty to any of them and don’t buy any.

I read it online.

The comments are often foul but an insight into the minds of people who you meet on the street on a day to day basis. Its what a lot of real people actually think. That said there is interestingly a lot of cross over on trans issues between the DM and the MN feminism pages.

I also read the guardian, that is full of bollocks too.

Most media/ social media is just an echo chamber really, as is mumsnet.

Yes they get money for clicks but not a lot, that's why the Guardian are always trying to get me to pay for it. Yeah right.

Yanbu OP.

I used to read it in the kitchen at work. I knew it was time to stop when it stopped making me cross.

My in- laws always have it lying around and I am very welcome to read it when I stay over. I refuse to, but that's me making a point as a liberal EU citizen in a household of Brexit/ Tory voters. Just like the know I will not set foot in a Whetherspoons even if they pay for the meal. I'm awkward like that.

I also read the guardian, that is full of bollocks too.

I must be missing something. Can you elaborate?