It’s like you can see me through the screen! :eek:
That was funny.
Ah, the good old Daily Outrage. It’s the best place to go for the obligatory Saturday nazi story!
“Sex change vicar in wife swap mercy dash” was a Daily Mail headline I memorized once.
Actually it was Sex Change Bishop In Mercy Dash To Palace, noted by the late Fritz Spiegel in ‘Keep Taking The Tabloids’ as the ideal arresting headline.
Mk VII That’s really odd. I remember the article. A vicar who’d become a woman sorting out some lusty parishioners, yet not finding it in the DM archives, which only go back to '94. I see your reference, but I’m pretty certain what I quoted was a real headline - nothing to do with bishops or palaces.
I’m aware of it. I’m American. The first time I’d heard of it was in “Paperback Writer” by The Beatles. “Working for the Daily Mail, it’s a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer.” I always thought the guy just had a job working for the British post office and didn’t like his daily grind job. It wasn’t until I started following soccer/football and read about the transfer gossip that the tabloids put out that I realized what the song was referring to.
I use them to keep up on Coronation Street backlot gossip but they have far too many pictures of unsuspecting public figure’s children for my taste. And their obvious misogynistic conservative bent is nauseating.
This is odd. I totally agree with your first paragraph but scratch my head at this one.
Regarding seriousness, all the broadsheets: the Telegraph, the Times, the Financial Times, the Independent and even the Guardian, are miles ahead of the Mail in terms of seriousness. It would rank, in my book at least, between the Mirror and the Express in terms of tabloid seriousness. Which makes it about #7 of a field of about 10 (ignoring i and the Morning Star).
Just for example, today’s banner headline:
Rioters came from 44 countries: One in seven jailed after the summer of violence was a foreign national
…The sheer number from different corners of the globe who took part in the mayhem is one of the strongest indicators yet that the riots had nothing to do with political protest or civil unrest, but was born of greed and opportunist criminality.
How do they define “foreign national”? Later in the article we find out: “born abroad”. Doesn’t say how long the ‘foreign nationals’ have been in the UK, nor whether they’re naturalised citizens or have right of abode. Furthermore most of the riots happened in major urban centres, the underclass of which contains many people from immigrant communities.
Extrapolating, that’s 35 individuals with undeclared nationality and 118 foreign-born but not necessarily non-resident or non-citizen.
If you wanted to you could also spin it as: “Immigrants underrepresented in rioting - despite high numbers of foreign-born nationals in affected areas, British-born citizens six times more likely to commit acts of riot”.
It’s the kind of stat that would be mentioned in passing in the closing paragraph of a broadsheet article about the imprisonments. It’s really not serious journalism. In fact, it looks like xenophobia.
Still, there are plenty of pictures of pretty celebs in bikinis.
The thing is, it posts incredibly racist and xenophobic things, and in the very next article, vermently condemns the closest Britain has to a Fascist party, the BNP.
I don’t like the BNP, but if they share so many of your views with it, it’s hypocritical to call it an anathma
They do not face the contradiction because posting Nick Griffin in a bikini would be bad for sales.
I’ve heard it called the “Daily Hate”.
I go to the UK once or twice a year, but have never bought a copy. Mind you I’ve never bought any UK tabloid. I prefer the Independent, but will also grab a Grauniad (Guardian) at times. Speaking of which, I occasionally read “The Times”, but it’s not my preferred read since it’s a Murdoch paper.
I dunno, 'is tits are pretty big
44 y/o citizen of the USA checking in: Yes… and it’s entertaining.
The book quoted is an interesting read. It talks with many former or anonymous Mail journalists who lay bare its racist nature.
One story involves a journalist going up to cover a murder story up north and being called back when it is learned the victim was black.
One of the Mail’s tricks is to buy up all the hotel rooms in an area where a big story is breaking so other journalists cannot get in. The Soham murder case specifically.
It is basically a mouthpiece for the extreme right wing and has simply no regard for truth or propriety.
One of its recent triumphs was running a report on how Knox lost her appeal. Complete with fabricated quotes from the family and Italian prosecutors.
What I dislike about the Daily Mail and its rival, the even more detestable Daily Express, is that they are considered “middle market”, meaning that they are supposedly more upmarket than the likes of the Sun and the Mirror. They make out that they’re more respectable than the red-tops, but in fact they’re just as bad. At least the Sun doesn’t take itself too seriously.
But like it or not, the Mail represent fairly mainstream opinion. It must do - it’s the second biggest selling paper in the UK, selling more copies than any American newspaper, and is probably the most successful in recent years in terms of gaining readers, or at least not losing them. I have seen work colleagues and the like reading it, people who seem perfectly nice. I can only hope they’re not reading it for the Richard Littlejohn column. Maybe it has brilliant gardening coverage or something 
I’d tend to agree, but putting it on a par with the Enquirer is too far down the scale. There are several British tabloids which fit that description much better. My sister-in-law reads it, I used to about 1980, largely because it was a convenient size to read in class in college. I wouldn’t buy it these days.
How bad is the Enquirer?
It’s well known in Ireland for its anti-Irish stance for many years but a few years ago they launched an Irish edition that seems to be doing OK. I also know it well for its reputation for categorising everything in the known universe into cancer curing and cancer causing categories.
I know it from this rebel song too.
Was it John Betjeman who said something like:
‘there is nothing sadder in the world than seeing a pretty girl on a train and then realising she’s reading the Daily Mail’