Dacre speaks!

[claig]

Great article full of great points. Too many to list, but this is just a sample.

"our crime is more heinous than that.

It is that the Mail constantly dares to stand up to the liberal-Left consensus that dominates so many areas of British life, and instead represents the views of the ordinary people who are our readers and who don’t have a voice in today’s political landscape — and are too often ignored by today’s ruling elite.

The metropolitan classes, of course, despise our readers with their dreams (mostly unfulfilled) of a decent education and health service they can trust, their belief in the family, patriotism, self-reliance, and their over-riding suspicion of the State and the People Who Know Best."


...


"No other newspaper campaigns as vigorously as the Mail and I am proud of the ability of the paper’s 400 journalists (the BBC has 8,000) to continually set the national agenda on a whole host of issues.

I am proud that for years, while most of Fleet Street were in thrall to it, the Mail was the only paper to stand up to the malign propaganda machine of Tony Blair and his appalling henchman, Campbell."

.....


"The BBC is controlled, through the licence fee, by the politicians. ITV has to answer to Ofcom, a Government quango.

Newspapers are the only mass media left in Britain free from the control of the State."

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2455256/PAUL-DACRE-Editor-Mail-answers-papers-critics.html

[claig]

I don't think the Express really counts anymore, although I think it still gets quite a high readership.

[PetiteRaleuse]

The Express still has the Di-hards....

[claig]

Yes,

Although, I saw the Express's political editor on Question Time, and he is a UKIP parliamentary candidate and was quite good against the green taxes etc, so it is possible that with the rise of UKIP, maybe the Express can become more relevant again.

[PetiteRaleuse]

You can dream claig

UKIP won.t go anywhere except stealing the Tory vote.

Sorry. Their policies have no foundation but we have already argued that elsewhere. And you know I am a committed European. British, but european...

[claig]

Petite, you're probably right on that. However, it is possible that the Tories, whatever they are saying now, will have to do a deal with UKIP, in which case together they will win the election hands down.

Alternatively, they think it is enough to try and scare ex-Tories that Miliband will get in if they don't vote Tory. But I think that is the road to ruin, because people are so fed up and don't think that the progressive Tories are much different from the progressive One Nation Labourites anyway, so they will probably vote UKIP anyway and that will allow Miliband in. But the election after tht may see the rise of UKIP as a force.

In France it seems that the discredited parties who are similar have led to the rise of the Front National.

[claig]

All our main parties are for green taxes on our energy bills and they are all for this state regulation of teh free press.

UKIP are aginst teh regulation of teh free press and if they were to promise to scrap all teh green taxes, then I think it might cause an earthquake in British politics as the people rush to abandon the "metropolitan classes" and their green obsessions.

[PetiteRaleuse]

Yes, they have led to the rise of the FN. I can't blame a French newspaper for that, the press has far less influence here but grass roots politics otoh is much more powerful.

If ukip is anything like the fn (and their policies are very similar) you should be afraid. Very. But as we discussed on another thread, the Mail was pro FN. Marine Le Pen is very similar to your Nigel. Plays on the fears of the little people. It is very VERY frightening. My village voted FN into second place last elections. Do you want something similar for the UK? The bastion of free speech?

[claig]

No, UKIP is not like the FN.
The Mail was not pro FN, it was the view of one of their commentators.

We won't get the FN in Britain. UKIP is nothing like the FN.

[claig]

'Plays on the fears of the little people'

The "metropolitan class" must listen to the people, the little people, the ordinary people and the Mail readers if they wish to remain relevant.

[moondog]

'Plays on the fears of the little people.'
What an extraordinarily arrogant comment.
So neither fears nor the 'little people' count eh?

I assume they need to be told how to think by their betters eh?

[PetiteRaleuse]

Yes, it is an arrogant comment. Well a comment about an arrogant attitude more like it. But that is how you, and me, are considered by our leaders and wannabe leaders. They don't see us as individuals with feelings. They see us as a mass, a herd if you like. Yes, who need to be told what to think, what to worry about. Marine Le Pen twists facts to suit her agenda (as do others but I was talking about her in this context) and manipulates people into following her.

Yes claig the metropolitan classes, for want of a better word, do need to listen to the little people. But they and various parts of the media need to stop manipulating them.

[moondog]

And you have only just realised this...?
Blimey.

[claig]

I have just finished reading the interesting article about the Mail in the New Yorker. Thanks for that link, Petite

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/02/120402fa_fact_collins?currentPage=1

A lot of the Mail Online stuff appeals to a younger worldwide celebrity interested audience than the more traditional paper. I personally think that there are too many stories in its online version about killers and murderers and distressing, depressing stuff like that.

I hope that Dacre is right in his answer to people who say that newspapers are on their way out, when he says "bullshit.com"

We are lucky that we have a vibrant press in our country, even if it is beginning to become dumbed down just like our education system and much else nowadays.

In a world with hundreds of TV stations, thousands of radio stations and internet sites, and spinners cynically selling us lies, we still retain one thing that unites millions of us - somewhere where the spinners' lies are revealed before our very eyes. We can read about the 'Man With No Shame' and we can read about the Liverpool Care Pathway, and we can unite and so we don't accept it - no way!

For all its faults, and there are one or two, we are lucky to have such a hallowed paper as the Daily Mail, and that is why Dacre, renowned for his legendary understatement, did not go far enough when he said

“I have six million readers who love the Mail and go out every day, often in the rain, and pay fifty-five pence for their copy.”

We don't just go out in the rain or in the hail and the snow to get a copy of the Mail, we go out in a bloody blizzard or a howling hurricane too, for if you are a seeker of the truth, that is what you have to do.

[PetiteRaleuse]

moondog No. Why would you think I have only just realised this? And why are you generally being so rude to me and others on the thread? There really is no need so shrug that chip off your shoulder, be a dear.

[moondog]

It riles you that you have inadvertently made a very patronising comment which shows your true colours.
As it should.

[PetiteRaleuse]

Which comment? The 'little people' ? That shows my true colours? You really misunderstood my tone, which is easy on an online forum I guess.

Should have just said plebs

[claig]

Do they deliver? I shall have to look into that. Thank you, kim147.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

So. What should someone be able to do if a newspaper just makes up stuff about them? Is that OK? Because at the moment, this kind of collateral damage for the sake of a free press (which in the case of the Mail, proudly self-censors at the behest of the security services on stories that actually matter) happens all the time. See, for example, nosleeptilbrooklands.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/true-story-of-daily-mail-lies-guest.html

I'm laying a bet at at least one response will be some kind of victim-blaming...

[claig]

'I'm laying a bet at at least one response will be some kind of victim-blaming...'

Please do not prejudge ttosca

[claig]

Yes, that is not good. I think there should be tighter self-regulation, but no state regulation at all.

[PetiteRaleuse]

But they won't/don't self regulate. That's the problem.

[EldritchCleavage]

Well the answer was, you sue the newspaper on a no win no fee deal with your lawyers. But the press lobbied government to take no win no fee away...

[Nancy66]

It really isn't true that newspapers are untouchable and take advantage of ordinary people knowing they can get away with it.

An ordinary person could go to the PCC. If the PCC adjudicated in their favour then they would be approached by lawyers offering to take on their case on a 'no win/no fee' basis.

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

Nice strawmen, Nancy. Newspapers are not untouchable, no. They can get an unfavourable adjudication from the PCC. But there are no meaningful sanctions attached to such an adjudication. No-one loses their job, for instance. Libel is a rich man's game, and notoriously risky.

Pretending that victims have ample means for redress is only one teeny tiny step up from pretending it's their fault.