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

[leftistangel]

Of course what she wrote was ignorant, crude and stupid. But I think any wise person should be disturbed by the prospect of an 'investigation' of someone's opinion. In free societies, opinions aren't investigated.

As for being for her being more 'careful', I wonder again what people mean, or intend to mean, or whether they realise the implication of what they are saying. Do you want a society in which people are afraid to say what they really think? Or just a society in which people whose views you don't share are afraid to say what they really think? You will find that if you seek the latter, you will get the former as well.

 

[gosub]

Somewhere in all this there is a nth level integrity problem.

 

[gosub]

You can do anything you want in this life provided you accept responsibility!

 

[Badger Kitten]

Suzanne Moore gives Moir a kicking in the Mail on Sunday in a remarkable article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/c...-I-know-Im-culture-wars--silent-majority.html

predictably, the pro-BNP astroturfers are out in force.

 

[yardbird]

As I type - facebook has 34,992 members!

 

[danny la rouge]

from coaches@nationalexpress.com

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

I note your concern about an article that appeared in the Daily Mail,
concerning the death of Stephen Gately.

We advertise with nearly every national and regional newspaper in the
country and we choose the newspapers that our customers tell us they read.

The views expressed in the article are those of an individual and are not
ours. We don't have a say in the editorial content of any newspaper, and
this is something you would need to take up with the Daily Mail directly.

Yours sincerely

Samantha Wolanski
Customer Relations Executive

Tel: 0844 844 2304

 

[nick h.]

The Jan Moir Twitterstorm will be debated on the Moral Maze on Radio 4 at 8 pm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nkcfk

When does a popular and spontaneous protest become mob rule? Fans of Twitter, the micro-blogging site, have chalked up a couple of notable victories of late. Followers helped to expose a legal injunction against The Guardian and Twitter-led protests generated tens of thousands of complaints against Jan Moir when she wrote a column using the death of Stephen Gately to criticise gay marriage. Is this net-based protest a valuable tool to demonstrate popular opinion or are we sacrificing traditional political engagement for the instant gratification direct action?

Witnesses:

Professor Andrew Chadwick of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of the book Internet Politics

Brendan O'Neill, journalist, writer and editor of Spiked Online

Nick Cohen, author and Observer kournalist

Ben Locker, 'Twitterer'.

And on this page it says Melanie Phillips will be on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm

Moral Maze
04/11/2009
Michael Buerk chairs. With Kenan Malik, Melanie Phillips, James Panton, Clifford Longley.

 

[Frankie Jack]

Oh... Thanks for that link nick. I was just wondering what if anything was happening with this..

Will listen in..

 

[kyser_soze]

The Jan Moir Twitterstorm will be debated on the Moral Maze on Radio 4 at 8 pm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nkcfk

When does a popular and spontaneous protest become mob rule? Fans of Twitter, the micro-blogging site, have chalked up a couple of notable victories of late. Followers helped to expose a legal injunction against The Guardian and Twitter-led protests generated tens of thousands of complaints against Jan Moir when she wrote a column using the death of Stephen Gately to criticise gay marriage. Is this net-based protest a valuable tool to demonstrate popular opinion or are we sacrificing traditional political engagement for the instant gratification direct action?

Witnesses:

Professor Andrew Chadwick of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of the book Internet Politics

Brendan O'Neill, journalist, writer and editor of Spiked Online

Nick Cohen, author and Observer kournalist

Ben Locker, 'Twitterer'.

And on this page it says Melanie Phillips will be on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm

Moral Maze
04/11/2009
Michael Buerk chairs. With Kenan Malik, Melanie Phillips, James Panton, Clifford Longley.

So it's creating a false dichtomy (implying that longer term and 'instant gratification DA' are incompatible with each other), and have a panel who, from the look of it (especially if Mad Mel is there) have little or no real idea of how contemporary media works. And Nick Cohen.

 

[William of Walworth]

Apols if this has already been cited, but did anyone read this Guiardian article by Jon Henley on Saturday 31st?

Article caption :

The power of tweets

What have Jan Moir, AA Gill and Jimmy Carr got in common? They have all provoked storms of protest on microblogging website Twitter. But is this a new age of democracy, or a danger to free speech?

IMO he cocked up to quote an article appearing on Spiked Online with approval. Given Spiked's fairly well known predeliction for deliberate 'contrarianism' ...

 

[danny la rouge]

a danger to free speech?

Yes. Lots of muggles having their say is Bad For Free Speech. Only Special People may have Free Speech.

 

[William of Walworth]

Henley was covering broader ground than that tbf ...

 

[danny la rouge]

Henley was covering broader ground than that tbf ...

Aye, I didn't read it. I'm just railing against a view I've seen & heard.

 

[gosub]

PCC is both effective and genuinely independent ; when even Jan Moir thought she may have intruded into grief : " I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral."; will be interesting to see how those record complaints get on.


Read an disappointing anti Fry twitter rant in the Times last week as well, apparently whole episode generated "over 1000 compaints to the PCC", personally think keeping head of PCC code in place is not worth debasing truth by a factor of 20.

 

[gosub]

There is something truely wrong here,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...Jan-Moir-wrote-Stephen-Gatelys-sad-death.html,

Rusbridger resigns from the Code Committee because he can't prove journalistic standards aren't being met, whilst Dacre publishes another article where this time, HIS breach of PCC code over "intrusion into grief" is merely insensitive. This on top of the R4 Media show last week where it was also painted as purely homobophia, but in an interesting addition by Baroness Buscombe, she said PRIOR to the article Gateley family had been contacted by PCC to say that they would attempt to assist sensitive handling.

So much as I like standards being a base, and to be as reliable as a bloke down the pub, is pretty base, the Chair of the Code now finds it hard to find fault in ignoring his own committee's standards.

 

[paolo]

That latest mail article is verrrry devious, trying to distract from the core nudge-nudge "young men don't just die" thing.

Some of the first few reader comments are very good though. Hope the writer has the integrity to read them.

 

[temper_tantrum]

Stephen Gateley's partner has made a formal complaint about the original Moir column:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/17/stephen-gately-pcc-jan-moir

So the PCC is now going to investigate it.

 

[5t3IIa]

Stephen Gateley's partner has made a formal complaint about the original Moir column:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/17/stephen-gately-pcc-jan-moir

So the PCC is now going to investigate it.

 

[5t3IIa]

Updated FB group

 

[gosub]

program on radio 4 on relationship between press and pcc: episode 3 internet(not unrelated)
worth listening to becasue the whole thing is up for consultation at the moment. Dig back through the links in this thread (may do later) there is open invite to give evidence, I seriously think urb editorial should give that some thought, coz not only has u75 had more to do with this story than is publicly portrayed, as a communication model it brings stuff to the table even if there is some ethical baggage

 

[Badgers]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8521105.stm

 

[shagnasty]

No surprises there then

 

[Voley]

Interested to hear people's views on the CPS decision, particularly those that were involved in the campaign.

 

[TAE]

Important to note this was a legal ruling, not a 'I agree with the sentiments' ruling.

"It recognised there were flaws in the article but the price of freedom of expression was that columnists said things which other people might find offensive or inappropriate."

Hard to argue against that.

I wonder if she had a layer go through the article before she published it to make sure there were no actual 'claims' which could be challeneged.

 

[trashpony]

Important to note this was a legal ruling, not a 'I agree with the sentiments' ruling.

"It recognised there were flaws in the article but the price of freedom of expression was that columnists said things which other people might find offensive or inappropriate."

Hard to argue against that.

I wonder if she had a layer go through the article before she published it to make sure there were no actual 'claims' which could be challeneged.

There were some bits which were a bit dubious in terms of breach of the PCC code but I'm not at all surprised that they ruled in her favour - there is not much precedent for them doing otherwise.

I don't think this is a legal ruling as such is it?

 

[gosub]

I don't think this is a legal ruling as such is it?

Gately report did not break the law


from the Mail's reportage : "The Commission said this showed a ‘healthy system’ for challenging a columnist’s opinions.",

 

[gosub]

Full adjudication

 

[Kanda]

Probably helps that the Daily Mail's Editor is on the PCC.

 

[8den]

Oh for fucks sake...

 

[butchersapron]

OK, what were the other options open to the PCC? What the hell did you actually want in real life?

From what i can see this is an entirely right judgment by a bunch of arseholes defending themselves thoughn a weak body.