And journalists wonder why everybody hates them
I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while, but Graham Linehan has beaten me to it: on the 8th of March, the Scottish Sunday Express ran a contemptible piece of shit by Paula Murray about the survivors of the Dunblane massacre. There’s a PDF link here. For some mysterious reason, the paper has wiped the online version. As Linehan writes:
As others have pointed out, the gist of the story is that these kids are showing disrespect to their dead classmates by… being alive.
Here’s an example of Paula’s scoop: “For instance, (name deleted), who was hit by a single bullet and watched in horror as his classmates died, makes rude gestures in pictures he posted on his Bebo site, and boasts of drunken nights out.”
Rude gestures. Boasting. Drunkenness.
If only the doctors and counsellors who treated the wounds and mental scars of those children all those years ago had had the foresight to say: ‘Now, children, you most now go forth and live the lives of angels, not only in tribute to your dead schoolmates who no doubt would have wanted you to live puritanical lives, but also to avoid the predations of journalists barely worthy of the name who, as soon as you turn 18, will ransack your private lives in search of cheap, revolting scoops.’ All this could have been avoided.
Tim Ireland may have discovered a teeny-weeny little bit of hypocrisy. On her Facebook page, she boasts about getting wasted.
In her attack on Dunblane survivors, Paula Murray castigated and demonised survivors of that tragedy who “boasted about alcoholic binges”, which is EXACTLY what she’s doing here.
Obviously, this is just cherry-picked text, and making a judgement based on these statements alone would be a wrong.
So to back them up, here’s a series of photos of Paula getting pished with her mates
Still, the Press Complaints Commission is on the case.
The editor of the Daily Express, Peter Hill, left the board of the PCC last year following front page and high court apologies from Express Newspapers titles the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday over a string of false stories about the disappearance of four-year-old Madeline McCann, which resulted in payments of £550,000 in damages to the McCann family.
Back to Linehan:
The press likes us to believe they’re a properly regulated body, but they’re anything but. First of all, The PCC seems to be a completely toothless organisation by design. It is made up of representatives of the major publishers, who are obviously not inclined to be too hard on themselves. Also, unlike Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority, who have easy-to-use complaint forms on their websites, the PCC don’t even accept third party complaints – in other words, unless you are the person named in a printed article, they’re not interested in hearing your opinion. So when faced with an affront to our humanity (which is what I believe this Express story is), there is no official channel for us to register our anger. That’s right – if you are offended by something on TV, Radio or in an advert, you can complain; if you’re offended by something in the print press…well, you’re just going to have to walk it off, because literally no-one wants to know.
While we’re on the subject of contemptible pieces of shit, what’s wrong with this picture? Clue: she isn’t dead yet:
I wonder, what company owns OK?
Copyright ©2009 Northern and Shell Media Publications.
Do they publish anything else? Yep, the Express and Sunday Express. According to the corporate website:
Northern & Shell is determined to maintain all its products and activities as benchmarks of excellence to its readers, customers, advertisers and business partners.
Benchmarks of excellence? Jesus wept.
22 Responses to “And journalists wonder why everybody hates them”
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Graham on March 18th, 2009
Ah, OK magazine – bastion of editorial standards:
http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.com/2009/03/ok-magazine-turns-merge-pictures.html
Heather on March 18th, 2009
I had filed a complaint with the PCC last year and their tack was at Linehan said – the story was not about me, therefore my complaint was invalid. What would Niemoller say.
mupwangle on March 18th, 2009
That’s vile. With that headline you would expect the story to be something like them terrorising the families of the dead kids or desecrating the graves. She shouldn’t be allowed near a newspaper.
>>- the story was not about me, therefore my complaint was invalid.
So if they run a story about someone who has no family and it causes them to take their own life then nobody has the right to complain? That’s not good.
Squander Two on March 18th, 2009
> if they run a story about someone who has no family and it causes them to take their own life then nobody has the right to complain?
Under UK law, there is no such thing as libel against a dead person — even if they were alive at the time of publication — so, the moment the object of the piece kills themself, the journalist is off the hook.
To be fair to OK, Jade has been admirably upfront about her desire to simply get every bit of coverage she can in her final days in order to rake in cash for her boys. So the headline may be crass, but it is at least with her permission and for her benefit. It’s more difficult to see who benefits by slagging off teenagers who had the temerity to survive a massacre.
Did you know that some of the Jews who survived the Holocaust later went to parties? Some of them even got drunk. Cunts.
Heather on March 18th, 2009
Frankly I’m surprised OK didn’t send a covert nurse in with a special syringe. I watch too much 24.
Gary on March 18th, 2009
> So the headline may be crass, but it is at least with her permission and for her benefit.
I’m not convinced it is with her permission – partly because OK has a long track record of making shit up, and partly because she’s hardly in a state to make any sort of judgements any more. I suspect the reason celebs haven’t sued OK for its routine lies is because the cost is too much and the potential lack of coverage too expensive. But publications are supposed to care about their readers, not to lie to them. OK is particularly bad for that.
> It’s more difficult to see who benefits by slagging off teenagers who had the temerity to survive a massacre.
It sells papers. That’s enough.
The linked PCC thing talks about the McCann and Murat libels – even after court judgements, what the Express paid out is a fraction of what it made through increased sales and, I presume, syndication. Just another cost of doing business. That’s what’s so repellent about it.
Gary on March 18th, 2009
> Frankly I’m surprised OK didn’t send a covert nurse in with a special syringe. I watch too much 24.
I don’t doubt that if they thought they could get away with it, they’d probably do it.
I really don’t like OK magazine, as you might have spotted.
Gary on March 18th, 2009
Graham, Hepworth nails it in that article you’ve linked: “it is quite breathtaking in its contempt for the intelligence of the readers.” I’d add: the fact it sells in huge numbers suggests that, sadly, it’s the right strategy.
Lis on March 19th, 2009
This is one of the reasons I happen to hate “journalists” at the moment. And while I’d be willing to believe no one out in this scene is a genuine journo, there are genuine journo’s buying the fruits of this labor. It’s absolutely disgusting, from every single angle.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/celebrities/6319967.html
Gary on March 19th, 2009
That’s hellish. I don’t have the links handy but there have been some really good (and appalling, in terms of what they describe) features about paparazzi in the UK recently. The problem’s getting worse – more mags taking the pics, amateurs wanting to make money, etc. The defence is, as ever, if people didn’t buy the magazines then there wouldn’t be a market for the shots.
Squander Two on March 19th, 2009
And now it turns out that Elisabeth Fritzl has been driven out of her home by British journalists. Makes me feel all patriotic, that.
> It sells papers. That’s enough.
Does it, though? I mean, how much smaller would The Express‘s circulation have been that day without that article?
Squander Two on March 19th, 2009
Oh, you were right: Max Clifford’s not happy with OK. Which means Jade isn’t.
Looks like they might have just screwed up their timing:
They thought she’d be dead by the time anyone bought a copy. Didn’t want to get stung by that whole Princess-Diana dying-at-the-wrong-time-of-day-for-newspapers thing. Fuckwits.
Gary on March 20th, 2009
Bloody hell.
mupwangle on March 20th, 2009
>>> Frankly I’m surprised OK didn’t send a covert nurse in with a special syringe. I watch too much 24.
Did they ever find out who was behind the mad woman who went after her with a hammer in hospital? Hmm…
Heather on March 21st, 2009
Back to the Dunblane story, the hypocrisy of the author’s binge drinking photo collection pales in comparison to this:
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/03/derek_lambie_the_gates.asp
Gary on March 22nd, 2009
The Express has printed a grudging apology:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/90417
> the hypocrisy of the author’s binge drinking photo collection pales in comparison to this:
He wouldn’t be that stupid. Would he?
Squander Two on March 23rd, 2009
That’s not an apology. The first six paragraphs are self-promotion.
Heather on March 23rd, 2009
Has anybody really asked questions about the larger issue at hand, which is why journalists have turned away from basic reportage and are now declaring war on innocent civilians? The Dunblane thing last week, the ET’s litter campaign last year. These are not celebrities, they are not footballers, they are not politicians, they are grannies who dropped their bus tickets and kids who got shot.
Gary on March 23rd, 2009
Maybe it’s coincidence. Then again, maybe it’s because ordinary people are cheaper to investigate, don’t go running to the PCC and don’t hire law firms such as Schillings to prevent anybody printing anything. There was a good piece in the Sunday Times magazine yesterday about that latter issue: essentially we’ve got a system where many papers simply can’t afford to contest legal claims, even when the papers are in the right.
Gary on March 23rd, 2009
> That’s not an apology
I thought that too.
Heather on July 6th, 2009
Gary, what’s your take on the PCC ruling?
Gary on July 7th, 2009
In a word: toothless. I think the PCC ruling is correct, but I don’t think it really matters.