According to a Facebook friend, the Daily Mail has rewritten the article about Stephen Gately that has caused an outpouring of offence across social networking sites. This will have been a direct response to the fact that the Mail, and the journalist Jan Moir, were suddenly trending on Twitter, with the vast bulk of comments negative about them.
Of course the paper causes offence every day. It is vile. But some days, they misjudge their own vileness and get themselves in hotter water than they anticipated. Of course people are angry with Moir, but let everyone understand that every word in the paper is the work of Obergruppenfuhrer Paul Dacre. It is his paper. His writers write what he wants. It is one of the scandals of our time that he manages to invade the privacy of everyone else in public life, while keeping himself under a stone.
But what the rewrite shows is that they only really care about money, and they only really respond to commercial pressure. So I am grateful to another FB friend for pointing out that the ads around the article are from L’Oreal, M and S, and BT.
Cheryl Cole is the face of L’Oreal, is she not? Her fellow X-Factor judge Louis Walsh was a close associate of Gately was he not? Surely Cheryl can insist L’Oreal withdraw the ad, and refuse to pay up? Likewise do M and S and BT want to be associated with the Mail and this particular Mail muck? Just a thought. Hope they think the same.
The ads have already been removed….
No remind me, is not the selfsame Paul Dacre the godparent to one of Gordon Brown’s children (he being a very very close friend of GB)? Given your views of Mr Dacre and the Mail (“Vile”),presumably you find Mr Brown to be beyond the pale (or is being bamned by friendship just for Conservatives who leave the EPP…
Take every last penny of today’s advertising revenue from The Mail and give it to Children In Need. I posted my comment on The Mail’s website. If The Mail really wants to take debasement of journalism to an even newer level so beit.
Rest in Peace Stephen.
The headline appears to have been changed to “A sad, lonely, troubling death…” from the more inflammatory “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gateley’s death” but the text of the article appears to remain the same.
Interestingly, the copy of the Mail in my office (we have to get all the newspapers, I hasten to add… we don’t get the Mail from choice) has the ‘sad, lonely, troubling’ headline, but the ‘nothing ‘natural” headline stayed on the web until about 2.30pm today.
This is in the same week that a Ugandan politician called for the death sentence for gay sex. Dacre and Moir carry a dreadful burden of responsibility for demonising an entire section of society. I don’t think action belongs to the Ad companies; well I do but there’s more.. action belongs to all of us. We should tell our newsagents that, much as we like them, we will unfortunately be no longer able to shop with them if they stock the Daily Mail. Look what happened to the Scum in Liverpool after Hillsborough – use your personal power to take the Daily Mail off the shelves.
@I hate that newspaper. And I can’t think of anyone or anything else in the world that I would say that about.
Oh get off your high horse, Campbell. You’re such a hypocrite. You have cause far more damage to British society than the Daily Mail has.
I preferred it when you were just the plain old nasty piece of work, not this ridiculous re-invention.
People on the Left spend their whole existence being offended. The Mail is their new bogeyman.
Grow up.
They have issued the most two-faced snivelling statement imaginable.
Ooooh they are my pet hates, the Hateful Mail. Have you seen the Anti Daily Mail Coalition group on Facebook? They have mock-ups of their front pages that I am not sure are real or not most of the time. They employ THE most vile people, Littlejohn being a good example. If I started now and went on for 1000 years without eating or sleeping I STILL wouldn’t be able to say enough bad things about them.