Daily Mail fail

[Gooseberrybushes]

Have just done the usual check around the papers and wanted mners to respond to a query if you can.

Re Daily Mail: the most important story of the day is not the lead, unsurprisingly, nor anywhere near it. It seems an average day for the Mail. There is the usual celebrity bilge down the right column.

So I was wondering, in terms of news choices and news coverage, what kind of thing is being objected to and on what grounds.

For eg: there's a story about school heads being paid over 100,000 a year. If you really hate the Mail, can you explain why in terms of specific stories.

Thanks. I'm neutral, I read all the papers (well not cover to cover but I get across them all online to get a rounded view.

In case this counts: my chosen paper would be the Telegraph, favoured media the BBC and out of the Guardian and the Indie, I'd take the Indie.

I wonder if anyone will respond!

Generally I can't stand the Mail as they have a very right-wing slant on general news. However, I do visit their website as they have lots of fun, flaky, celeb gossip on there!

I wondered about OP's agenda too, Hazel... curious, eh?

'Actually yes - good point - the DM is very good on big corporate/political shenanigans in the continuing vaccine story. It published the secret vested pharmaceutical interests of the MP members of the vaccine approval committee.'

Gooseberry, you are exactly right. I am sure they know a lot more than they can publish. But they do let the people see a glimpse of the truth, stuff that the other papers keep hidden. They aren't great, but by God they are better than the others. They are prepared to stick the occasional two fingers up and lets us proles know what is really going on. That is why they are the paper of the people, bought by millions.

TethersEnd - very curious; rather feels like we've been asked to do someone's homework...
Although of course I could not resist piling in with my two penn'orth!

But how do you know with such certainty what ordinary people care about and why, in particular, when the DM has such a high readership and these great yards of comments in agreement, do you think they do not care about these stories?

It seems quite a superior attitude to "ordinary people" to be honest.

For example people do care about how their tax money is spent and the DM gives it to them in spades. You are wrong to simply say "they *don't" write stories that ordinary people care about".

This is what I don't understand to be honest. When it comes to public money they don't care what political position the wasters are: if they are wasters, they may be exposed.

The extractor fan story is a good example of a certain type of slant. I think you can criticise them for the slant, but not putting a slant on a story, as all newspapers do that.

Sorry, what I don't understand is: eg on the public money, these stories are true and they are good stories, and it is the only newspaper doing this. So I don't understand why the hostility to its slant is not tempered by some respect for its journalism.

I too am wondering why you are asking this question.

Here's another classic.... .Swimming Pool Plunged Into Darkness 'To Protect Muslim Women's Modesty' Yet more rubbish designed to satisfy prejudice.

True story was as follows. Like a lot of swimming pools the windows are at ground level and, after some complaints , to protect the modesty of all bathers, they were covered by an opaque film. An opaque film -as anyone with frosted bathroom windows can testify - doesn not mean a room is 'plunged into dark'. That's the first exaggeration. And it was not done in response to complaints specifically from muslim women swimmers but merely several users.

Again..... the DM takes the opportunity to turn a really run-of-the-mill story about nothing at all into a cry of 'political correctness gone mad' with an anti-islamic angle.

These are just the anti-islamic stories the DM cooks up out of nothing at all. So when you see a headling claiming a council official has done X or a benefit claimant has done Y... what's to say it is one iota more accurate? Crying wolf...

The Sun has almost 1m more readers than The Mail.

Hi, I don't have an agenda. I am interested. I'm interested to see exactly where the virulence comes from. I don't work for them far from it.

I didn't say you worked for them

Can I just say freudian, runner, exotic and others, thank you, I am reading your comments with great interest.

oh ok, I thought that was the implication.

Hazel: it's just because, you know, average day. Am not doing a media studies course either. The very idea.

Also, the DM are very good at Photoshop

".....do you think they do not care about these stories?" I'm sure they do care. I'm sure people would care greatly if I published a story in a newspaper that there would be a catastrophic hurricane next week. But if it's a complete fabrication or if my hurricane prediction is based on poor judgement and turns out to be a light breeze then my alarmist story would have been irresponsible.

My own mother, sad to say, is a DM reader. Every other week, she says she's going to give up eating a particular food because it causes cancer or Alzheimers. Frequently she tells me how frightened she is of the muslims or gay people and how they're going to take over Britain because we've all stopped going to church. She scathingly refers to 'single parents scrounging benefits', conveniently forgetting I am a single parent and don't receive any benefits. I think it's sad that such people are being made to care, to get upset and angry about things that are almost certainly not true, or at least not as true as the DM would have them believe.

I agree with Chil that the story is using the muslim angle to attack the politically correct council policies [PC gorn mad' which many Mail readers believe is happening up and down the land. This shop seems to have been in operation for about 9 years with an extractor fan. It is a family business and the woman's husband is a Turkish Muslim. It appears that teh next dorr neighbour who complained about the smell of bacon is not a Muslim but used the argument that his Muslim friends refused to visit him because they didn't like the smell of bacon coming from the shop. According to the Mail, the council made its decision partly on that basisi The woman did say that environmental health had visited many times and said everything was OK. But due to bureaucracy (PC gorn mad) etc. she had to reapply for a licence since an official compaint had been made. And her appeal was then turned down by the council, for reasons that we are not fully aware of. The neighbour seems to have used a number of arguments to state his case, one of which was about Muslim friends refusing to visit. this family's livelihood may now suffer.

The Daily Mail is very often against officialdom and bureaucrats making laws and regulations that change the way of life of the people. I read it as one of those stories showing us the power of teh councils and regulators. I don't think it is blaming Muslims; the woman's husband is Muslim. It is really against loony councils and their regulations. But it does use teh Muslim angle because many Mail readers are worried that their traditions are being changed by councils and regulators, not by Muslims such as the woman's husband.

We know that no Muslim ever objects to the word Christmas etc., because Muslims revere christ as a great prophet. Muslims aren't anti-Christian. It is always councils and officials that spend budgets promoting Winterval rather than Christmas.

The Daily Mail is always against PC officialdom and too much regulation and change of customs and traditions, because it is a conservative paper, and sees itself as against unnecesary change by bureaucrats.

I am really not very articulate, but I will try...

So - the head teachers story today. They publish opinion and not facts. They do not give two sides to the story. Some head teachers are paid a lot of money - it could be 700 or it could be 1600. But this is not put in to context. how many head teachers are there in the country? What is the average head teacher paid? Why are some heads paid more? Because they work in tough schools maybe? What hours do these heads work?
Like someone else said up thread - could they compare this to a comparable job in the private sector? But it doesn't do any of this. It simply states (like it is the only possible opinion to have) that there are people paid too much money from the public purse (i.e. your money Daily Mail reader).

There is another story today 'Can't read or write English? You can still serve on a jury under new rules designed to help immigrants'. Sounds bad doesn't it? People sitting on juries who don't know what's going on and it's being done for the benefit of immigrants too! But actually it is simply rules stating that people who can understand English can sit on Juries, but that if they can't read or write English it doesn't matter. And there is no suggestion that this is done to benefit immigrants at all. Could it possibly be that people are needed on juries and that quite rightly as long as (as with everyone) they are shown to be capable of being on a jury they can be.

It is a nasty, divisive, mean spirited paper.

"I agree with Chil that the story is using the muslim angle to attack the politically correct council policies "

Wrong. The DM is using the muslim angle to perpetuate prejudice. The story 'according to the DM' is not a noble attack on officialdom or loony councils but an example of very bad journalism with an anti-islamic objective.

More here from Tabloid Watch and the story was also covered on the R4 'Face the Facts' programme in an episode about media bias and islamophobia

This is worth looking at too to give a flavour of the sort of nonsense the DM purveys.
The Daily Mail song
www.dananddan.com/?p=68

once again I agree entirely with Chil.

Nasty, women hating, racist little rag. With a particular brand of venom saved especially for Eastern Europeans.

And they pay Jan Moir a working wage.

Do you read Tabloid Watch regularly? Is it left wing?

I agree with much of what Tabloid Watch says, but not their predicatble conclusion. I said the same. The neighbour complained and the neighbour is not Muslim. He used lots of arguments to make his case. The woman's husband is a Muslim and he prepares the bacon and his Muslim friends visit the shop. So the Mail is not saying that all Muslims object.

I think the story is anti the council's regulators.

I think your friend Jack Straw was far more anti-Muslim when he made those statements about women wearing burqas.

I bet the Mail has Muslims working for it. This left wing knee jerk reaction against the Mail is often inspired by its political opponents, who are miffed that millions of citizens buy it, and don't buy their spin.

Did the Mail buy Jack Straw's spin?

An example from today's paper:

Headline: Taxpayer funds £400 guided tours of the supermarket for fat families
Story then goes on to be wonderfully imprecise. Is the council being charged £400 for the people to do this course or £400 for each person - or being given it for free. They just leave the insinuation there, so that all the vile morons can spill their bile in the comments section below (opinions that I never ever hear expressed by people I meet, so I really wonder about them).

The article assumes we will be outraged (and its commenting readers mainly are - as if they only read the headline and take their stance from there) but why - it is actually some sensible food education for people, adults and children, in a deprived area, who are clearly lacking it and prepared to find out more. Why is that so outrageous? This is not journalism, it is alarmist crap presented as journalism (and sourced from the Daily Mirror).

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1380594/Taxpayer-funds-400-guided-tours-supermarket-fat-families.html#ixzz1KdJeb0Xd

I didn't realise the DM had principles-I thought they were interested in what sells the newspaper!

I think the scaremongering is the worst, and it is especially frightening to elderly people who live alone and have no one to discuss stories with to get a balanced view.

I wouldn't mind so much if they tried to get a balance and showed the other side.

"So the Mail is not saying that all Muslims object"

The headline says very clearly "Cafe owner ordered to remove extractor fan because neighbour claimed 'smell of frying bacon offends Muslims'". Straight cause and effect. Muslims caused the fan to be removed. The intention is clear... skim the headline and have your islamophobic suspicions confirmed. Read the story for more confirmation that they're out to get 'hard working cafe owners'. You yourself, claig, are arguing about who was muslim and who wasn't when it was, in fact, religion is completely irrelevant to the outcome of this very straightforward case. You've fallen right into the trap.

The council acted totally normally i.e. removing an extractor fan that had been erected without planning permission and to which the occupiers of a neighbouring house objected. No 'loony council' there either.