Daily Mail

Mockney said:
To this end the tabloids are by far the worst at cherry picking what it's readership will be disposed to, and ignoring everything else. Whereas the broadsheets report the news primarily, and their own ideological bent in a far less intrusive way.
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Less intrusive can be more sinister, I think.

Many years ago I did a piece of academic work looking at the political bias of newspapers, based on their coverage of that year's Conservative Party conference. I found that every paper had a left-leaning stance (using a content analysis technique that involved coding), except the Sun. It didn't matter what words were actually used in the coverage or what political preferences were being expressed - when you actually analysed and coded it, some of the results were not what might have been expected. I'm not saying that those results would be the same now, by the way, but it did make me think about covert messages in the media.
 
Amanda Platell is an utter bitch.

And it pisses me off that the women who write for the Mail invariably slag off feminism. Yeah, if it wasn't for feminism you wouldn't even be allowed to write an article expressing your own opinion and get paid for it into your own bank account. Stupid cows.
 
Could you explain what these coded analysis techniques involved Pennared? And an example of what they believed to have found? I'd be very interested.

I'm not rubbishing them, but these kind of things can be confusing. They found biblical prophecies encoded in Moby Dick once.


ukbob said:
Now, this is what it is all about, expressing your views and having them sensibly debated. Unfortunately I cannot defend either media coverage as I only read the newspapers now and again so do not have a lengthy opinion as to who is the better.
Again I am neither left or right but base my judgement and political views on what I consider best.
I have to say that when I was younger my views were very left wing, this probably came about by working a lot in communist run countries.
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Fwiw, I'm not denying for a second that the Grauniad is biased. It's very openly a center left paper with certain very obvious agendas. But comparably, it's still a respectable newspaper. As the Telegraph is.

And yes MG, Platell is an awful, awful person. But then any editorial in the Mail should be tempered by the knowledge of how they're usually put together..

http://thecollectivereview.com/anna-blundy/no-need-to-hack-phones-we-stitch-ourselves-up.html

A few days after filing I got my copy back with massive edits in block capitals throughout the text. ‘HOW DID YOU FEEL?’ ‘HOW DOES YOUR HUSBAND FEEL?’ The capitals were things the person working on my piece wanted me to add. However, the rest of the text had been heavily cut and rewritten, but the changes were unmarked. If I’d been in a hurry I could easily have missed them. Lines like; ‘I strongly disagree with Janine di Giovanni,’ (I don’t) and ‘That made me sit bolt upright’ (it didn’t) had been inserted.

So, I reworked the piece as requested, hardly noticing that instead of reworking the piece I had written myself, I was now reworking the someone else’s reworking – restructured, heavily cut and angled as an attack on women leaving their children for war. Don’t get me wrong – I hate to see people macho-ing off to have fun in the basement bar of a war -torn hotel, feeling at the centre of life and death, important, endangered, living for the moment…adrenalin addiction blah blah blah. But I’m only jealous really, and feel left behind even by people to whom I’m not remotely related. The attack on Janine di Giovanni (a friend and a brilliant journalist who can live her life exactly as she chooses, without any input from me, obviously) kept reappearing and I kept deleting it.
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Though obvioulsy, Platell's been there for ages. So she's either fine with it, or has Stockholm syndrome
 
feck that shit... Anyone who buys the Mail should be lined up... and shot. I hope that's RW enough.
 
Erm, well I cannot get a copy of most English newspapers where I am currently out in the boonies, sort of. So, I went online and just looked at the Daily Mail, err, I will have to get a bit over it before I read any others and in any case there are 4th celebrations to go to. Happy 4th to you all by the way
 
The Mail Online is apparently much like the paper but with a massive amount of celebrity gossip added.
 
Wibble said:
The Mail Online is apparently much like the paper but with a massive amount of celebrity gossip added.
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It is. I like femail though, and the you magazine on Sunday


The Express is much the same. I suppose the Mail does go overboard a little on certain issues. It doesn't mean that we all go along with their sentiments though. However when they publish photographs like that awful family with all the breast implants, I can't help but agree with them. If that makes me a right wing snob, well that's unfortunate. I don't look down on them because they're different to me, but because of what they've done to themselves , and to what end? They just look hideous
 
Mockney said:
Could you explain what these coded analysis techniques involved Pennared? And an example of what they believed to have found? I'd be very interested.

I'm not rubbishing them, but these kind of things can be confusing. They found biblical prophecies encoded in Moby Dick once.
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I did a manual analysis at the time as believe it or not, it was pre-computers (over 30 years ago). Since then, I've done two other pieces of work using similar approaches. I've nothing left of my original work, but basically I concluded that with the exception of the Sun newspaper, if you analysed the structure of the text rather than just reading what was actually written on the page, several of the papers' coverage of the conference was directing the reader towards different conclusions.

More recently, I did a discourse analysis of the mission statement of the University I worked at, to see if it was actually saying what the words seemed to imply it was saying. It wasn't.

This explains it better than I can these days :

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/research/content/pop2a.cfm

Lancaster University has a strong tradition in this area :

http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/papers/techpaper/vol3.pdf
 
EricaNo7 said:
It is. I like femail though, and the you magazine on Sunday


The Express is much the same. I suppose the Mail does go overboard a little on certain issues. It doesn't mean that we all go along with their sentiments though. However when they publish photographs like that awful family with all the breast implants, I can't help but agree with them. If that makes me a right wing snob, well that's unfortunate. I don't look down on them because they're different to me, but because of what they've done to themselves , and to what end? They just look hideous
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Erica, you've brought up that story a few times, but you keep emphasising the appearance of the women involved, rather than on their behaviour. Does that seem right to you?
 
Wonder Pigeon said:
Erica, you've brought up that story a few times, but you keep emphasising the appearance of the women involved, rather than on their behaviour. Does that seem right to you?
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But surely that whole story was about the appearance of the women, and the fact that they wanted to look that way. Their behaviour was that they choose to mutilate themselves and pay for the privilege, which is something that many people do every day in order to (presumably) feel better about themselves. The story is bizarre because in this case, it was a whole family doing it.

The discussion should perhaps be more about why increasing numbers of both men and women feel they can't live their lives with the body they were born with, when that body is perfectly healthy and functions as it should. And then of course we get back to the tabloids and their obsession with youth and an unrealistic depiction of physical 'beauty' - and the concomitant disregard for things which matter more, such as kindness, courage and selflessness.
 
They look like their main motivation is to exaggerate their sexuality, which probably does make you look rough. At very best, completely uni-dimensional.
 
Well, yeah, but what's sad or unfortunate about what they're doing is the fact that they place appearance over everything else, the mother is encouraging the most simplistic and materialistic thinking in her children. If you're only comment on it is that they're all scruffy ugly looking poor people, do you not see that as perpetuating the skewed priorities of an image-obsessed society? Or something?
 
In the Metro the Mail had an advert where they had the headline which I am paraphrasing but essentially said: Women, Men are right, it is time to come to terms with the fact that we are irritating.

That's just insane.
 
Wonder Pigeon said:
Well, yeah, but what's sad or unfortunate about what they're doing is the fact that they place appearance over everything else, the mother is encouraging the most simplistic and materialistic thinking in her children. If you're only comment on it is that they're all scruffy ugly looking poor people, do you not see that as perpetuating the skewed priorities of an image-obsessed society? Or something?
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I understand what you're saying, WP, it's just that they leave themselves open to criticism, don't you think?
 
My elderly parents read the Mail on Sunday...... I hate it, they get so angry.
 
Has their film critic Chris Tookey ever watched a movie that he actually likes?
 
Eyepopper said:
My elderly parents read the Mail on Sunday...... I hate it, they get so angry.
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Mail readers have a great deal to be angry about. Just ask The Daily Mail.

My folks sucked up any old bollocks The Mail and Express spouted.

They used to read The Guardian and The Times when I was young but became firm Mail readers as they got older and couldn't be bothered to think any more.
 
Same, I think its a fear thing as you get older.....
 
Wonder Pigeon said:
Well, yeah, but what's sad or unfortunate about what they're doing is the fact that they place appearance over everything else, the mother is encouraging the most simplistic and materialistic thinking in her children. If you're only comment on it is that they're all scruffy ugly looking poor people, do you not see that as perpetuating the skewed priorities of an image-obsessed society? Or something?
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One thing they are not is poor. It's their money to spend as they wish and I'd defend anyone's right to do that, but if you can afford all that needless surgery you're not poor.

They are however self-obsessed, which is pathetic.
 
Although the last time they voted their judgment had gone so much that they voted Green because I jokingly said they should as they went in to the voting booth.
 
Does not this entire discussion rather assume that readers of a particular newspaper restrict themselves to a very limited range of sources and dont' follow a story itself, and this in the internet age of all things.

The Mail can be reactionary, sensationalist and plain out of order in what it does, eually the Guardian can be ridiculous and hypocritical. Where one has Moir the other has Toynbee.
 
Some blokes on another football forum have a yearly campaign to post made-up comments on Mail articles, like so:

I don't mind Britain taking asylum seekers in. These are people running for their lives, after all, they deserve a break in life. We should be generous with asylum, let the poor souls in... Just send one family of scroungers from this country back wherever the refugees came from at the same time. A straight swap, and we'll probably make a profit on the deal!

- Mr Winslow, GREAT Britain
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Anyway, Goal.com's comments sections are worse:

On RVP's statement:

siraaj
One swallow doesn't make a swallow as the saying goes.
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Suzon
I would not be surprised if we burnt his house down...
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Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Mail can be reactionary, sensationalist and plain out of order in what it does, eually the Guardian can be ridiculous and hypocritical. Where one has Moir the other has Toynbee.
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The Mail and the Guardian are not even remotely equatable. Re:basically the last 3 pages. You have to be very bent to the right to think that and grasping for a left leaning standard bearer.

I'm center left and would never equate the Telegraph or the Times with the Mail or Express just because they're right leaning.

The Mirror might have been it's leftie equivalent some time ago. But isn't now. A Socialist Party of Great Britain leaflet is probably as close as you'll get.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Mail can be reactionary, sensationalist and plain out of order in what it does, eually the Guardian can be ridiculous and hypocritical. Where one has Moir the other has Toynbee.
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I don't think the Guardian and Toynbee are anywhere near as bad as The Mail and Moir. With the former sure there is bias but there is clearly facts, in the same way you see bias and facts with the Telegraph. The Mail is clearly a lot more reactionary and sensationalist determined to twist to the truth to scare their demographic...like Fox News

I never really understand the criticism the Guardian and BBC get from the right. Sure there is bias but there is bias in most news these days. It's the ones who are clearly trying to twist what is happening that is creating the problem aka The Mail.
 
Brophs said:
I like the Football Ramble's feature "We read the Daily Mail so you don't have to" which looks at their comments sections on stories. It pretty much sums up their readership.

http://www.thefootballramble.com/latest/tags/Daily-Mail
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‘I’m a DIEHARD Man Utd fan but will not buy the United shirt, it reminds me of Burberry chav wear that they wear in Manchester and I like to dress better than that. I may consider the goalkeeper kit if it’s more trendy.
- Joseph, Kent, 10/6/2012 1:10’


This ‘DIEHARD’ Manchester United fan (from Kent) likes to stay on trend. Hence he is considering wearing the goalkeeper’s kit. There are no words.
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:lol:
 
What scares me about the Daily Mail, or probably just the media in general, is that some people actually take it to be quite literal, and are so easily swayed by it. My grandparents buy the Daily Mail every day, and one morning I came down to the see a headline which read "Children could be scarred for life by internet pornography", or something along those lines.

For the rest of the day, without me even prompting her, my grandma was then saying things like "Oh, yes, I think that internet's got a lot to answer for...yep", "It's bad news this internet", "the internet should be done away with"...etc.

This despite not actually ever having used it. It scares the shit out of me. These are nice people that have made it in life and done well for themselves, and there are bound to be millions more people in the country like them. It is astonishing the effect that articles in papers even like the Daily Mail have on people's perceptions and attitudes.
 
KingEric7 said:
What scares me about the Daily Mail, or probably just the media in general, is that some people actually take it to be quite literal, and are so easily swayed by it. My grandparents buy the Daily Mail every day, and one morning I came down to the see a headline which read "Children could be scarred for life by internet pornography", or something along those lines.

For the rest of the day, without me even prompting her, my grandma was then saying things like "Oh, yes, I think that internet's got a lot to answer for...yep", "It's bad news this internet", "the internet should be done away with"...etc.

This despite not actually ever having used it. It scares the shit out of me. These are nice people that have made it in life and done well for themselves, and there are bound to be millions more people in the country like them. It is astonishing the effect that articles in papers even like the Daily Mail have on people's perceptions and attitudes.
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A friend of mine has a similar, more extreme version of that anecdote. His grandad read a scare story about ecstacy and immediately decided that his grandson was a sitting duck for this dangerous drug which, and I quote, "makes you feel like the taoiseach"

Later that day, my friend went for a crap while listening to music on his iPod. His grandad knocked on the door a few times then decided that he had probably OD'd and promptly smashed the door down with an axe. Which was a memorable experience for my friend, believe me.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
A friend of mine has a similar, more extreme version of that anecdote. His grandad read a scare story about ecstacy and immediately decided that his grandson was a sitting duck for this dangerous drug which, and I quote, "makes you feel like the taoiseach"

Later that day, my friend went for a crap while listening to music on his iPod. His grandad knocked on the door a few times then decided that he had probably OD'd and promptly smashed the door down with an axe. Which was a memorable experience for my friend, believe me.
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:lol::lol:
 
The tabloid press reaction to Leah Betts had a huge impact (and still does) on the way the public, and the government views ecstasy.
 
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