Daily Fail at least offers some balance

[filthgoblin]

Yesterday, sweetsyren pointed me to this article yesterday, pointing out that Jan Moir, author of the article I ranted about here on Friday, was being investigated by the Metropolitan Police after they received a complaint about the article. The PCC also received over 1,000 complaints in one afternoon, which to put it in context is over a quarter of the complaints they received in the whole of 2006.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think that a lot of hits on a website means that represents overwhelming agreement amongst members of the public. The internet is such that any person who is motivated so to do can raise an army to complain for whatever cause they see fit. Jerry Springer: The Opera garnered 55,000 complaints following an orchestrated campaign by the Christian Right in the UK in 2005, and more recently a prank call by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to the actor Andrew Sachs on Radio 2 brought in 42,000 complaints in a campaign fronted by the Daily Mail. However, it will be interesting to see what the outcome is of the furore. Not least because, as I've just illustrated, the Daily Mail quite likes to whip up a shitstorm over stuff it thinks is reprehensible and it would be fascinating to see if it abides by its own apparent view that a lot of people complaining means that they are in the moral majority.

As far as the police complaint goes, as I said to sweetsyren yesterday, I don't think that anything will come of it. Whilst the piece she wrote was hateful and dispicable, she didn't actually incite anyone to anything [apart from complaint, it seems] and thankfully this country has yet to pass any laws on thought crime.

I hope that in the post I made on Friday didn't suggest anything other than that her article treads a very fine line for me. I dislike it very much and don't agree with any of it but she's entitled to her opinions and it she thinks that being gay somehow leads to misery and doom, she's quite entitled to her point of view. I don't particularly want to read it, and that's why I mostly don't read the Daily Mail. What I object to is her using salacious innuendo and broad-brush judgmentalism to back up her opinion and, in so doing, making her article wildly inaccurate.

There's a whole bunch of stuff published that I don't agree with and I choose not to read that. However, I do think that her article breaches the PCC Code of Practice [and I've sent my complaint to them, which read almost like an essay] but I don't think what she's done is criminal. And even though I am saddened by her article, I would still stand by her right to think what she thinks and write about her views as long as she sticks to the facts and I'm free not to read it.

Following on from Friday's article, the Mail today published this article by Janet Street Porter which, interestingly, linked Jan Moir's article with this article that i posted about on Thursday about a gay man in London who was severely beaten in Trafalgar Square and later died of his injuries. Street Porter's headline sums it up for me. Being gay killed a man last week - but it wasn't Stephen Gately.

Indeed.

Comments

[sweetsyren.livejournal.com]

I agree that she's unlikely to be prosecuted unless they've found a pretty chuffing old precedent. I do hope that the PCC come down on her and the rag though.

It's wrong to think that she deserves it but perhaps she might think again before publishing a piece about a group she so obviously knows nothing about.

[filthgoblin.livejournal.com]

Not having a clue about one's subject matter doesn't stop a lot of so-called journalists mouthing off. The one thing that really pisses me off in the news these days is the reliance on opinion rather than factual journalism. It happens on the news too. Rather than actually putting together a package on what's happening in a given situation with reference to research, interviews and, y'know, facts and stuff, they will get some pundit in to tell us all what they think. I don't care what they think. I want to know the facts not what half-baked spin they want to put on the matter.

I think it's probably a product of the age of instant news in which we live that demands we have instant reaction rather than thoughtful, well constructed reports. The general public doesn't seem to have the patience for it any more, so news organisations instead pull in people to tell us what they think [and sometimes by implication what we should think] instead of presenting the issues and letting us decide.

I'm not naive enough to think that there was ever a time where news journalism was completely unbiased, but it's very hard to form one's own opinion if all you have to base yours on is the opinion of others.