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Mail: a truly despicable article ("nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death")

agnesdavies said:
It's one of those unintended consequences of an almost-totally free market economy - suddenly, speech - or its absence - has a price.
Click to expand...

He who pays the piper calls the tune.
If you can afford to pay for people's time, then you can afford to kick off an outraged campaign.
This kind of co-option is an interesting problem for the new 'disintermediated' forms of communication.
Tech PR types are already well up on it, from the little I have read.
 
temper_tantrum said:
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
If you can afford to pay for people's time, then you can afford to kick off an outraged campaign.
This kind of co-option is an interesting problem for the new 'disintermediated' forms of communication.
Tech PR types are already well up on it, from the little I have read.
Click to expand...

They're not really IMO; they're still messing about with it and don't understand what they're messing with, they just have the time and money to do basic stuff which other people don't. The people at the moment who *do* understand what they're doing the most - and note that's not "completely", just "the most" - are in US political PR, and their understanding is quite specialised to the US market.
 
temper_tantrum said:
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
If you can afford to pay for people's time, then you can afford to kick off an outraged campaign.
This kind of co-option is an interesting problem for the new 'disintermediated' forms of communication.
Tech PR types are already well up on it, from the little I have read.
Click to expand...

But it's also that in reverse. If that were all it was, you'd find altruism would fill in a lot of the gaps. The real problem is, somewhat ironically in view of the subject of this thread, the chilling effect that potential withdrawal of advertising revenue had.

For decades, the US's freedom of speech laws have decreed that pretty much anything could be broadcast on TV, for example...but the risk of losing advertising revenue for "unpopular" themes, and rather lax rules on advertiser interference in programme content meant that US TV (and all the other media) has ended up being far more restricted and conservative (small 'c') than in countries where freedom of speech was nowhere near so carefully protected.

I'd hate to think we'd get there, but we're always wobbling along on that curve somewhere, just because.
 
But surely for the ''please pull this ad, anyone can see the content it is next to is awful'' to wash, the content it is next to has to be seen to be awful by most reasonable people. Hence it is society's prevailing views that ''win''

i.e. in the Moir case, a reasonable person - or an advertiser media buying department can look at the article and think, yeah, pretty hideous.

Whereas Christian Voice can whinge about an article about, say, mini-skirts, and a media buyer/PR person will think ''wtf? you're in a minority of one there son''
 
Badger Kitten said:
Hence it is society's prevailing views that ''win''
Click to expand...

It's not quite as simple as that. Advertisers are targeting Daily Mail readers when they advertise in the Mail and it is those readers' prevailing views that "win" in that case and those views are largely sympathetic to Moir's article. Society's prevailing views only win when attention is drawn to the wider market, that the advertiser is trying to sell its wares in some pretty unsavoury places.

Given that what happened last week was the exception rather than the rule, I can see most advertisers taking the chance of not being 'found out' so as not to lose the lucrative 'Mail market'.

That is why it is important that this needs following up.

john x
 
Badger Kitten said:
But surely for the ''please pull this ad, anyone can see the content it is next to is awful'' to wash, the content it is next to has to be seen to be awful by most reasonable people. Hence it is society's prevailing views that ''win''
Click to expand...


There is a logical fallacy here though. The number of people complaining doesn't necessarily correlate to the proportion of people in wider society who find the article offensive. How is the publisher to know the extent to which the majority of society - who haven't written in to complain - feel about it?

In this case, 22,000 complaints tell us that 22,000 people found it objectionable, and we infer that a lot of other people support that view too. If Christian Voice managed to get 22,000 people to complain about an article about miniskirts, it wouldn't reflect the majority of people who might think they were wackjobs.
 
The Mail comments on the Mail site are almost universally negative, starting with Audrey from Scotland at 1.59am, well before all the tweeting etc started - from which I infer that it is Mail readers who were put off just as much as liberals, gays, twitterers...

There's no shortage of Mail readers posting typically Mail-reader-like opinions on the rest of the site, so it is reasonable to think that many of the commenters were genuine Mail readers, who were genuinely repelled.
 
Badger Kitten said:
The Mail comments on the Mail site are almost universally negative, ........ so it is reasonable to think that many of the commenters were genuine Mail readers, who were genuinely repelled.
Click to expand...

I wasn't using the complaints as evidence of how Mail readers viewed the article. I was using the fact that there has been no apology, no retraction and the article (though edited and re-headlined) is still on the Mail's website.

That says to me that Paul Dacre is quite confident that the article reflects his readers' views.

john x
 
Have had a reply to my letter to the Mail:

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the Jan Moir article. We
welcome feedback-whether positive or negative - about the paper and our
writers.
Our Columnist's views have prompted a widespread response and debate, and
as formal complaints have now been taken up by the PCC, we will be
responding to them directly.

However, thank you for taking the trouble to send us your own point of
view.

Yours sincerely,
Managing Editor's Office
Click to expand...
 
:facepalm::rolleyes:
the wriggling jan Moir said:
Last week, I wrote in this column about the death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately.

To my horror, it has been widely condemned as 'homophobic' and 'hateful'. Obviously, a great deal of offence has been taken and I regret any affront caused. This was never my intention.

To be the focus of such depth of feeling has been an interesting experience, but I do not complain. After all, I am not - unlike those close to Stephen Gately - mourning for the loss of a much-loved partner, son, family member and close friend.

To them, I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral.

The point of my article was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, Stephen Gately's death raised many unanswered questions. What had really gone on?

After all, Stephen was a role model for the young and if drugs were somehow involved in his death, as news reports suggested, should that not be a matter of public interest?

We were told that Stephen died of 'natural causes' even before toxicology results had been released. This struck me as bizarre, given the circumstances.

Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality. If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article.

Yet despite this, many have interpreted my words as a 'bigoted rant' and suggested that my motive was to insinuate that Stephen died 'because he was gay'.

Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views.

It is worth stressing that the version of events I recounted in my column had already been in the public domain, having been described in detail in several newspapers.

What had been reported about that night is that Stephen and his civil partner Andrew Cowles went to a nightclub and brought back a Bulgarian man to their apartment.

There were also reports of drug-taking. Following this, it was reported that Cowles went to the bedroom with the Bulgarian, while Stephen remained on the sofa. I have never thought, or suggested, that what happened that night represented a so-called gay lifestyle; this is not how most gay people live.

Rather, I thought it a louche lifestyle; one that raised questions about health and personal safety.

There have been complaints about my use of the word 'sleazy' to describe this incident, but I still maintain that to die on a sofa while your partner is sleeping with someone else in the next room is, indeed, sleazy, no matter who you are or what your sexual orientation might be.

My assertion that there was 'nothing natural' about Stephen's death has been wildly misinterpreted.

What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary. Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved.

As for Stephen's civil partnership, I am on the record as supporting same-sex marriages.

The point of my observation that there was a 'happy ever after myth' surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages.

Indeed, I would stress that there was nothing in my article that could not be applied to a heterosexual couple as well as to a homosexual one.

This brings me back to the bile, the fury, the inflammatory hate mail and the repeated posting of my home address on the internet.

To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly, though clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own.

However, I accept that many people - on Twitter and elsewhere - were merely expressing their own personal and heartfelt opinions or grievances. This said, I can't help wondering: is there a compulsion today to see bigotry and social intolerance where none exists by people who are determined to be outraged? Or was it a failure of communication on my part?

Certainly, something terrible went wrong as my column ricocheted through cyberspace, unread by many who complained, yet somehow generally and gleefully accepted into folklore as a homophobic rant.

It lit a spark, then a flame and turned into a roaring ball of hate fire, blazing unchecked and unmediated across the internet.

Yet as the torrent of abuse continued, most of it anonymous, I also had thousands of supportive emails from readers and well-wishers, many of whom described themselves as 'the silent majority'. The outcry was not as one-sided as many imagine.

Their view, and mine, was that it was perfectly reasonable of me to comment upon the manner of Stephen Gately's death, even if there are those who think that his celebrity and sexuality make him untouchable.

Can it really be that we are becoming a society where no one can dare to question the circumstances or behaviour of a person who happens to be gay without being labelled a homophobe? If so, that is deeply troubling.

Finally, I would just like to say that whatever did or did not happen in Majorca, a talented young man died before his time. This, of course, is a matter of regret and sadness for us all.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...ragic-death-Stephen-Gately.html#ixzz0UiE2nGK9
Click to expand...
 
new article from jan moir... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1222246/The-truth-views-tragic-death-Stephen-Gately.html

Last week, I wrote in this column about the death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately.

To my horror, it has been widely condemned as 'homophobic' and 'hateful'. Obviously, a great deal of offence has been taken and I regret any affront caused. This was never my intention.

To be the focus of such depth of feeling has been an interesting experience, but I do not complain. After all, I am not - unlike those close to Stephen Gately - mourning for the loss of a much-loved partner, son, family member and close friend.

To them, I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral.

The point of my article was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, Stephen Gately's death raised many unanswered questions. What had really gone on?

After all, Stephen was a role model for the young and if drugs were somehow involved in his death, as news reports suggested, should that not be a matter of public interest?

We were told that Stephen died of 'natural causes' even before toxicology results had been released. This struck me as bizarre, given the circumstances.

Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality. If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article.

Yet despite this, many have interpreted my words as a 'bigoted rant' and suggested that my motive was to insinuate that Stephen died 'because he was gay'.

Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views.

It is worth stressing that the version of events I recounted in my column had already been in the public domain, having been described in detail in several newspapers.

What had been reported about that night is that Stephen and his civil partner Andrew Cowles went to a nightclub and brought back a Bulgarian man to their apartment.

There were also reports of drug-taking. Following this, it was reported that Cowles went to the bedroom with the Bulgarian, while Stephen remained on the sofa. I have never thought, or suggested, that what happened that night represented a so-called gay lifestyle; this is not how most gay people live.

Rather, I thought it a louche lifestyle; one that raised questions about health and personal safety.

There have been complaints about my use of the word 'sleazy' to describe this incident, but I still maintain that to die on a sofa while your partner is sleeping with someone else in the next room is, indeed, sleazy, no matter who you are or what your sexual orientation might be.

My assertion that there was 'nothing natural' about Stephen's death has been wildly misinterpreted.

What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary. Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved.

As for Stephen's civil partnership, I am on the record as supporting same-sex marriages.

The point of my observation that there was a 'happy ever after myth' surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages.

Indeed, I would stress that there was nothing in my article that could not be applied to a heterosexual couple as well as to a homosexual one.

This brings me back to the bile, the fury, the inflammatory hate mail and the repeated posting of my home address on the internet.

To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly, though clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own.

However, I accept that many people - on Twitter and elsewhere - were merely expressing their own personal and heartfelt opinions or grievances. This said, I can't help wondering: is there a compulsion today to see bigotry and social intolerance where none exists by people who are determined to be outraged? Or was it a failure of communication on my part?

Certainly, something terrible went wrong as my column ricocheted through cyberspace, unread by many who complained, yet somehow generally and gleefully accepted into folklore as a homophobic rant.

It lit a spark, then a flame and turned into a roaring ball of hate fire, blazing unchecked and unmediated across the internet.

Yet as the torrent of abuse continued, most of it anonymous, I also had thousands of supportive emails from readers and well-wishers, many of whom described themselves as 'the silent majority'. The outcry was not as one-sided as many imagine.

Their view, and mine, was that it was perfectly reasonable of me to comment upon the manner of Stephen Gately's death, even if there are those who think that his celebrity and sexuality make him untouchable.

Can it really be that we are becoming a society where no one can dare to question the circumstances or behaviour of a person who happens to be gay without being labelled a homophobe? If so, that is deeply troubling.

Finally, I would just like to say that whatever did or did not happen in Majorca, a talented young man died before his time. This, of course, is a matter of regret and sadness for us all.
Click to expand...
 
Last week, I wrote in this column about the death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately.

To my horror,(Good, glad it caused her to feel horror) it has been widely condemned as 'homophobic' and 'hateful'. Obviously, a great deal of offence has been taken and I regret any affront caused (good, so you should). This was never my intention.

To be the focus of such depth of feeling has been an interesting ( heh) experience, but I do not complain
(Oh how saintly you are). After all, I am not - unlike those close to Stephen Gately - mourning for the loss of a much-loved partner, son, family member and close friend.(No, you aren't. So why did you write it and have it published the eve of his funeral?)

To them, I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing (The core DM readership are angry at the 'speaking ill of the dead; she gambles that this is what she needs to address, and what she fucked up on) of the column, published so close to the funeral.

The point of my article was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, Stephen Gately's death raised many unanswered questions (what business of yours were they, after an autopsy/post-mortem, a family statement and with a cremation the next day?. What had really gone on?

After all, Stephen was a role model for the young (oh, interestingly you said 'young men' in the last column - yet his fans were mostly female - so now it's the 'young' is it - and who is a 'role mode'l on a night out on holiday? and if drugs were somehow involved
(they weren't, as the coroner said 3 days before your first article ran) in his death, as news reports suggested, should that not be a matter of public interest?

We were told that Stephen died of 'natural causes' even before toxicology results had been released. This struck me as bizarre (but it didn't strike the coroner or family as bizarre, and they knew quite a bit more, eh Jan?), given the circumstances.

Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality ( Bollocks: I can't be bothered to go through it all again, see Charlie Brooker and others) . If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article.

Yet despite this, many have interpreted my words as a 'bigoted rant' and suggested that my motive was to insinuate that Stephen died 'because he was gay'.

Anyone who knows me (well we can only go on your writing and your previous column, love, and if you need to have personal contact with you to understand your views you shouldn't be a national columnist as there's rather a lot of us ) will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views ('I can't be a racist, my friend is black' argument).

It is worth stressing that [tI]he version of events I recounted (no, the 'natural causes verdict was known on 13th, you wrote your column on 13th/15th, do you have subs or fact-checkers?) [/I] in my column had already been in the public domain, having been described in detail in several newspapers.

What had been reported about that night is that Stephen and his civil partner Andrew Cowles went to a nightclub and brought back a Bulgarian man to their apartment.

There were also reports of drug-taking. Following this, it was reported that Cowles went to the bedroom with the Bulgarian, while Stephen remained on the sofa. I have never thought, or suggested, that what happened that night represented a so-called gay lifestyle; (why talk about the myth of civil partnership and not all gay people being like George Michael, then? this is not how most gay people live.

Rather, I thought it a louche lifestyle (why? He spent 5 hours out on holiday, spoke to his family at midnight, went to sleep at 4am - is that so 'louche'? ; one that raised questions about health and personal safety. (What, going to clubs means you might die?)

There have been complaints about my use of the word 'sleazy' to describe this incident, but I still maintain that to die on a sofa while your partner is sleeping with someone else in the next room is, indeed, sleazy (actually the police statement is that the other man was in the spare room, had known the couple in their island home for years, and in any case, what is 'sleazy' about dying? If anyone is to be called 'sleazy', by her morality, it is the partner, not the man alone on the sofa. Not that I am saying it was sleazy ), no matter who you are or what your sexual orientation might be.

My assertion that there was 'nothing natural' about Stephen's death has been wildly misinterpreted.

What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary. Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved * wriggle, wriggle, read up on how Sudden Adult Death Syndrome works and why it is not ''sleaze'', or what people are doing in the next room that causes it./I]

As for Stephen's civil partnership, I am on the record as supporting same-sex marriages. (only in so far as you ''thought there might be great gossip ensuing''

The point of my observation that there was a 'happy ever after myth' surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages.

Indeed, I would stress that there was nothing in my article that could not be applied to a heterosexual couple as well as to a homosexual one. ( Utter rubbish.

This brings me back to the bile, the fury, the inflammatory hate mail and the repeated posting of my home address on the internet.

To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly, though clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own. (In a month where a man was kicked to death for being gay, pointing out a gay-bashing article in the msm is ''hysterical')'

However, I accept that many people - on Twitter and elsewhere - were merely expressing their own personal and heartfelt opinions or grievances. This said, I can't help wondering: is there a compulsion today to see bigotry and social intolerance where none exists by people who are determined to be outraged? Or was it a failure of communication on my part?(Oh, I can't wait to see Private Eye)

Certainly, something terrible went wrong as my column ricocheted through cyberspace, unread by many who complained (canard: to complain you have to point out exactly where the code is breached, which 25,000 did, traffic to her page went up 22%, PCC confirmed most letters were 'individually written'/I], yet somehow generally and gleefully ( little glee, Jan, little bloody glee) accepted into folklore as a homophobic rant.

It lit a spark, then a flame and turned into a roaring ball of hate fire, blazing unchecked and unmediated across the internet.

Yet as the torrent of abuse continued, most of it anonymous, I also had thousands of supportive emails from readers and well-wishers (oh, the classic, classic bully/troll defence of ''I've had loads of PMs agreeing with me , many of whom described themselves as 'the silent majority'. The outcry was not as one-sided as many imagine.

Their view, and mine, was that it was perfectly reasonable of me to comment upon the manner of Stephen Gately's death( she thinks she is reasonable, even when 25,000 pointed out she wasn't, as well as dozens of her peers, the whole Question Time Panel, including Nick Griffin, even if there are those who think that his celebrity and sexuality make him untouchable. (canard: nobody has said any such thin, only that misinformation is wrong and speculation should be backed up with more than personal conspiracy theories)

Can it really be that we are becoming a society where no one can dare to question the circumstances or behaviour of a person who happens to be gay without being labelled a homophobe? If so, that is deeply troubling.

Finally, I would just like to say that whatever did or did not happen in Majorca, a talented ('Talented'? Last week he 'couldn' t carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk[/I]' ) young man died before his time. This, of course, is a matter of regret and sadness for us all. ( back-pedal, career horizon in sight....sheesh.
 
Have they changed their comment rules? I don't think I left one last time. If I did they've defo changed them.
 
"Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved":confused:
jeeze she really is an imbicle,its a pefectly common place and routine procedure ffs!!!!
 
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