rebness | The British press and its immense fail

What is with the British press lately? Why all the stupidity this week alone? I've decided not to buy any papers other than the ace 20p I from now on. And this is why:

1. News International have been dragged through the courts in the last year for hacking the phones of celebrities. It's all very silly and intrusive, etc, etc, etc.

Except this week, it has come to light that they hacked the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was murdered. Her killer was only sentenced in the last month for the crime, which occurred some years ago. Her family have had to face that awful pain for all that time. Her father, who collected BDSM and alternative lifestyle magazines, was not only questioned by police for being so depraved (BDSM! He must have killed his own daughter) and had the details of his life scrutinised in court, but the press got hold of it and covered every last lewd detail of the private lives of Millie's parents.

And then it came to light this week that, hoping for a story, News International hacked the voicemail of this little girl while she was missing and deleted the messages. Her family lived in agonised hope, telling themselves she must be okay, because she was logging in and listening to her mail.

All this for a scoop for a stupid newspaper that people read for the celebrities, anyway.

Rebekah Wade, the editor of the paper, insists she knows nothing about this and it was the work of a maverick member of staff. Today, it transpires they had 'personal dealings' with each other.

Oh, and they also hacked the phones of the families of the girls killed by the Soham murderer. And victims of the 7/7 bombings. It's so depraved that it's hard to put into words how low it is.

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Okay, so I know that finding offence in The Daily Mail is hardly the most difficult thing on the planet, but I'm really annoyed by today's article: a diatribe about how the programme Coronation Street has abandoned its working-class roots to give us 'Wall-to-wall gays, transsexuals, transvestites and teenage lesbians'.

Because working-class people can never be gay, or transgendered. It's so hateful and so inane and stupid that I don't know where to begin. Coronation Street gave Britain its first transgender character and although very problematic from the start with how they depicted that, the programme has opened up an issue that some would rather stay hidden and refuse to understand. What's not to celebrate about that? I also hate that they rant about 'transsexuals and transvestites' - a transvestite character appeared in one episode. It seems to me that they're deliberately trying to paint Hayley Cropper as a transvestite. And look at this:

'Squalor, grime and poverty have been replaced by shoddy, tinsel-edged glamour.'

Well, I'm awfully sorry to tell you, London-centric idiot journalist, but it's not The Road to Wigan Pier up here. Squalor and grime don't tend to be the landscape of 2011. Poverty in some areas, yes. God forbid a programme written by working-class people has working-class people being happy with being gay or eating something other than a bag of chips and running t' coal mine for mam.

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The Guardian, meanwhile, is always very, very, quick to report on the failings of other papers. It was this paper which broke the phone-hacking scandal. Everything should be in the light, it says. Everything should be acknowledged. Even if a freelancer for a paper, The Guardian finds the story, investigates it, shows us what's wrong.

So when Kia Abdullah, a columnist for The Guardian itself (as stated on her Twitter bio) decided to openly mock the deaths of three teenagers in a bus crash in Thailand because of the crime of having double-barrelled names (because nobody poor ever has double-barrelled names), the British press picked up on it.

Except The Guardian.

And when the grieving mother of one of those boys finally got an apology from the spiteful clown and people expressed their outrage to The Guardian, they replied that she wasn't a full-time columnist with them, which is excusable. What was inexcusable was them refusing to run a story -- even two lines -- about what happened in their paper or their site, or on the Comment is Free blog. This is in the same week when they have obsessively written about the failings of Johann Hari, who is sometimes inflammatory, sometimes a little harsh... but who doesn't celebrate the deaths of young people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wasnt sure what you meant at first by double-barrel names, I thought I knew but then I thought 'No, I must be wrong. No one calling themselves a journalist would ever laugh at the death of a kid for something like that'. Well, I was right about the names and wrong about the journalist. What the hell. And shame on The Guardian for addressing everyone's failings but their own.

This is the reason I stopped reading papers years ago and mute the television news. Somehow I still get information but I hardly know how because the mainstream media is just ridiculous, offensive, often un-or misinformed, and insane.

All of these stories are just sad and make me so angry.

*headdesk* to all of it.

I also hate that they rant about 'transsexuals and transvestites' - a transvestite character appeared in one episode.

Gah, that sounds like my mom, who says stuff like, "I don't mind these gays, as long as they don't shove it in my face." (And by "shove it in my face" she means things like mentioning having a same-sex partner, having photo of partner on desk at work, etc. GAH.)

A damn outrage! And the problem is people will just remain outraged about it all. They won't boycott those papers.

This is what drives me crackers. My mother buys the Daily Mail... "Just on Tuesdays. The health section is good!" and can't seem to grasp that it's a problem that she's supporting a publication that demonises people like me (disabled, therefore a workshy faker stealing benefits) and my partner (foreign, therefore evil) every day of the week. I feel like a lot of the people who read these papers don't subscribe wholeheartedly to the worst rabble-rousing views they espouse, but they keep financially supporting the papers because nothing has made them feel strongly enough not to. It's incredibly hard to convince people something's a big problem when it's not hurting them personally, and that's where I get stuck. :/

Wow. Just... wow. WTF is wrong with the media? Over here we have so-called news people whipping the public into lynch mobs over trial outcomes.

I am glad i am not the only whose clocked all what youve highlighted above. the hypocrisy alone is enough to drive me off buying a paper ever again. But what else can i turn to on the internet to give me my daily fix? BBC, just as bad or the New York Times, Huffington Post?

I really like reading johann Hari articles but now! im a bit pee'd off with him.

this whole episode has left the British press in disgrace.

I really dont know what they intended to achieve with all this hacking.

Well it is just par for the course for Murdoch and his media minions. They've never had any ethics, though they do spend a large part of their local Oz rags, tut tutting over other peoples' lack of morals. I just hope they get sued to the hilt or some of the rags disappear altogether.

I feel sorry for some of the capital cities in Oz who only have a Murdoch mendacious media monopoly in the print media. At least in Sydney and Melbourne there is one major competitor against his vile tabloid crap sheets. His tabloids are filled with the "opinion" pieces of rabid right-wing conservatives who would swear something was black if our Labor PM said it was white and claim that she was telling more porkies.

Bloody hell. I have basically no faith in the media these days.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and have kept meaning to recommend to you the book I'm reading:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0701181451

It explains a lot about how newspapers have changed over the past half-century, from the daily working lives of reports being drastically different, to churnalism and the rise of PR. It made sense for me of things I could previously only gape in horror at, like the way the BBC has been regurgitating the government's hateful propaganda about benefits claimants - I saw it as a simple failure to investigate, and a swallowing of government lies at face value, but what it also represents is the fact that very little of what you read in newspapers is original reportage. A line from the Spectator's review of the book is very apt in light of the phone-hacking scandal:

" If the practices he discloses were present in any other walk of life, they would have been exposed long ago, public outrage would have followed and criminal charges brought."

The situation for Milly Dowler's family must be absolutely heart-breaking. I don't know how anyone could do that. I really, really hope that the inevitable investigation and the public outcry will force the government's hand regarding Murdoch's takeover. As for the man at the head of an inherently corrupt media empire... there are no words harsh enough for him.

The British press and its immense fail

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