Daily Mail: Love or Hate?

[Jay_Benson]

Yes but they were just rolling with a story that had been all over the news for months if not years.

But even if it was their baby and theirs alone, how does a fixation with supermarket carrier bags equate with the word "hate". Unless you feel that there was a hate campaign against Tesco. In which case I wouldn't worry too much about them. They are big enough and ugly enough to look after them selves.

I would add that campaigning against plastic bags is no more a misguided diversion from the real environmental issues than is much of the pseudoscience being fed to the media and hapless politicians by the Global Warming Industry.

Paul

I don't hate the Mail - I merely dislike it. The thing is if the pseudoscience is correct, even partially, then we need to face up to our responsibilities fully. If the pseudoscience is wrong then we have not lost anything, have we?

[Paulus]

I don't hate the Mail - I merely dislike it. The thing is if the pseudoscience is correct, even partially, then we need to face up to our responsibilities fully. If the pseudoscience is wrong then we have not lost anything, have we?

The words Daily Hate Mail are yours from above. You then give the plastic bag story as an example of their failings. I just wondered why you attach the word "Hate" to the Mail??

As for the pseudoscience being spouted by the AGW industry, well, either it is science or it is supposition. Try asking a phsysist to go over all the details of the science that demonstates that CO2 causes atmospheric warming. You might be surprised.
As for the suposed cure(s) for AGW, that's a bit like the London Olympics. We are given wildly optimistic preliminary costs yet we know that in reality it will all but bankrupt us.

Paul

[Lazlo]

I avoided the Guardian for years because it was the lefty broadsheet. I started reading it occasionally last year and as much as I hate to say it, I'm now a Guardian reader. The quality of the writing is superb and as you point out, the news journalism is excellent and surprisingly unbiased. The much maligned Telegraph is on a par for news reporting as well. For anyone of any persuasion I'd recommend the Guardian for it's news content above any other paper.

I'd be careful about the Telegraph. While (hopefully) it will never match the Wail for mendacity, it does seem to be letting its jounalistic standards slip.

The Guardian is interesting. As you say, and despite the "Toynbee factor", it is remarkably unbiased. It's also got easily the best website of any of the major rags. Another thing I've noticed regards feedback, or "Have Your Say" as the BBC sickeningly terms it. On the Guardian's site you can comment all day on a wide range of subjects (though I really wouldn't recommend it). The moderation policy is similar to what you'd find on YD - just avoid personal insults, and stuff that would be illegal. However, head over to the Mail, or the Express and it's a totally different story. There the moderation will reject any comment which contradicts the article in question, whereas some astonishingly extreme comments apparently get through. Case in point - one of the links I posted above is a description of how the Mail (and other similar papers) reported on the "8 year-old suicide bomber". The fact that this is a lie has been known for a while now, yet the story is still there. Various bloggers have attempted to put this in the comments, yet none of those comments made it through "moderation".

The Daily Mail, is a paper that knows its audience, and that audience does not want to hear that not all brown-skinned people are suicide bombers.

[MarkP]

When I started working I used to get the Star because it had the nicest girls and thats all I really thought about when I was 16/17 (ok 43). When I got my own home I started having the Sun delivered but dumped that about 12 years ago when it had become a sorry rag full of stories about Gazza or some other naff celebrity.

I went on to the Mail and by contrast it was a breath of fresh air.

Going from the Star to the Mail is like going from "Janet and John" to "The Cat in the Hat". A vast improvement, but no real level to aim for. I wouldn't have mentioned it in public if I were you.

Actually, the Mail is a very good paper, especially if you compare it to its closest rival, the Express. The Express is assembled on a shoestring budget and gets the bulk of its copy off the wires, inventing many of "its" journalists' names to cover its lack of staff. The Express is terrifying in its zenophbia and is a badly designed, poorly laid out mess.

The Mail, on the other hand, is a nicely designed, well laid out paper. It commissions more articles than it has space to print, so only the "best" get printed. It knows its readership splendidly and caters for them in a way that the Express can only dream of.

But it is also getting ever more obsessed with celebrities and their love lives.

Don't fret yourself. EVERY 'king newspaper is these days. Most readerships are falling and there's a disconcerting rush for younger readers who, according to proprieters, are concerned with nowt but slebs. The Grauniad is getting as bad as the rest of them.

To recap: The Mail isn't the anti-Semitic rag it used to be, but it does supply a constant drip of cleverly biased stories which pander to the fearful and paranoid. I suspect its long term effect is corrosive, leading to a conviction amongst its readers that we're all going to hell in a handcart.

Because of people who aren't like us.

[JasonP]

To recap: The Mail isn't the anti-Semitic rag it used to be, but it does supply a constant drip of cleverly biased stories which pander to the fearful and paranoid. I suspect its long term effect is corrosive, leading to a conviction amongst its readers that we're all going to hell in a handcart.

Anti-semitic? You have got to be joking.

Melanie Philips, one of their columnists, who gets a full page every week is so pro-Israeli government it's untrue.

And wasn't it a Mail, or at least a Standard, reporter that took Livingstone to court over his concentration camp jibe?

Jason

[Lazlo]

Anti-semitic? You have got to be joking.

Melanie Philips, one of their columnists, who gets a full page every week is so pro-Israeli government it's untrue.

And wasn't it a Mail, or at least a Standard, reporter that took Livingstone to court over his concentration camp jibe?

Jason

I think we're harking back to the "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" days. It's not the same now. It's targets (scapegoats) have changed.

[Paulus]

Going from the Star to the Mail is like going from "Janet and John" to "The Cat in the Hat". A vast improvement, but no real level to aim for. I wouldn't have mentioned it in public if I were you.

Ah, but if you read my post again you will see that I went via the Sun

I don't get a newspaper for the news. I try quite hard to avoid much of the news nowdays. I used to watch the BBC evening news as a matter of routine. But it wore me down in the end. Mostly I have quick look at Ceefax and read any stories that vaguely interest me. If I want to know more then I go online. Most evenings I look a Google News to see the world head lines and follow any stories that catch my eye.

The news paper is just something to read over breakfast. It dosen't offend me but then it's only a newspaper, right?
The cartoon strips and Answers to Correspondents are about the only thing I read every day. Garfield is my favorite...

Paul

[MarkP]

I think we're harking back to the "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" days. It's not the same now.

Indeed.

[gerbil]

I was once offered the Daily Mail to use as bog roll...........i turned it down.

Very few newspapers seek to look beyond the headline and analyse a story but those that encourage us to fear the world and distrust all change after the 1950's go beyond neglecting that role to doing so with wilful perversion.

My parents get it and i read it when i'm there. It saddens me that my parents last days will have the soundtrack of it's all gone to hell in a handcart.

My general view is that its aimed at people who like being outraged with the world but are generally impotent where as most of the others are aimed at those of us who are just miffed and occasionally get wood.

That said i have learnt not to judge some one by the paper they read ( i wont tell you how i judge them cus that will just scare you)

[Jay_Benson]

The words Daily Hate Mail are yours from above. You then give the plastic bag story as an example of their failings. I just wondered why you attach the word "Hate" to the Mail??

The Daily Mail is often called the Daily Hate Mail due to its stances against many things - basically anything that is happening in society today such as today's rant about the abandonment of morality, religion and something else following the passing of the bill about the creation of chimera (part human part animal embryos). Last week it was the end of the world as we know it due to slightly cooler ice cream storage temperatures regulations from Europe (I know it wasn't but they manage to wail about the most insignificant event).

As for the pseudoscience being spouted by the AGW industry, well, either it is science or it is supposition. Try asking a phsysist to go over all the details of the science that demonstates that CO2 causes atmospheric warming. You might be surprised.
As for the suposed cure(s) for AGW, that's a bit like the London Olympics. We are given wildly optimistic preliminary costs yet we know that in reality it will all but bankrupt us.

Paul

Err, the science about global warming is pretty well accepted across all branches of science but I will go over it once more. The CO2 acts as an insulator - less heat lost to space - more heat retained - planet warms up. Quite simple really. Ask a physicist - they have difficulty communicating amongst themselves let alone with the general population (that was a joke for any physicists amongst YD).

The cures - not wasting what we resources have would be a start. I really cannot see what the problem people have about being more efficient with their use of energy and materials.

Bankrupt us? Unlikely as we generally find a way to get richer even in adversity. Part of the problem with many branches of the media is that they don't want to change their way of living regardless of the cost to others and to their children. many years ago there was a word for this viewpoint. It is not a fashionable word to say nowadays but it is selfish.