Correction to “Propaganda” made, thanks for pointing that out (shuffles off, looking embarrassed…)

Unrelated suggestion: try changing the second “o” in “propoganda” in your previous post into an “a”!

Good to see that someone care’s… !

Strange isn’t it, the “Yeh, whatever” response you get from some people, as if it’s odd to want precision.

I think there’s an Apostrophe Protection Society, but I’m not that cranky!

All the best,

Mark

Cheers,

P.

1) As a journalist, I’m allowed to print whatever I like and upset whoever I like whenever I like, because I’m expressing my “point of view”. Fine – in this case my “point of view” is that your son/partner was sleeping around and died as a result of living an immoral lifestyle (regardless of what the coroner might have said) and I’m going to tell you this the day before his funeral. You’re telling me that that is less offensive than calling someone up and telling them that you slept with their granddaughter? Your argument seems to be that telling someone the truth (unpleasant though that may be) is more offensive than a “point of view” because I’m entitled to hold that view and I’m entitled to have you know it. Have I understood that correctly?

2) If 20,000 people complain about my “point of view” then that’s just tough, it’s my point of view and you have no right to complain because to do so would be an attack on the freedom of the press?

3) If I tell 20,000 people to complain because someone *else* told someone he slept with their granddaughter that’s fine. But if I say that your son died because he was sleeping around (contradicting the coroner) and 20,000 people complain that’s *not* fine? And that’s not hypocrisy because….?

Taking your other points, I’m sure the Mail *doesn’t* want to avoid controversy – it practically bathes in the stuff. My point is that it ill-beholds the paper to create such controversy and then hide behind its own chairmanship of the PCC whilst lambasting the BBC for something which – and here’s where you and I differ – is at least of equal offence.

You’re right – The Mail didn’t try and make a defence of Jan Moir’s position (although it did send out a statement from Jan Moir where she tried) – and neither did the BBC try to defend Ross and Brand. On the contrary, Jonathan Ross apologised immediately to Sachs (before he was suspended incidentally), sending a personal letter to him and a bunch of flowers to his wife, and the BBC also issued a full apology. If the Mail issued an apology – or if Jan Moir apologised to Stephen Gately’s partner and family – then I must have missed it. So I think my accusation of hypocrisy is a valid one. Unlike you, I fail to see how the Mail’s lack of defence of Jan Moir’s position gives them the moral high ground over the BBC. Perhaps you could clarify that point?

At the end of the day, we’re left with you reiterating your distaste over Sachsgate which is a distaste I share (albeit to a lesser degree). But this blog posting was never about that. This post was my attempt to point out the absurdity of the Mail’s position – namely that the show was offensive and that therefore the BBC should pay (in some way). But when The Mail itself generates a similar volume of complaints, it says not a word. It doesn’t apologise (unlike the BBC), it doesn’t suspend its journalist (unlike the BBC) and it doesn’t fire its editor (unlike the BBC).

Indeed, I think the Mail has behaved worse. Brand and Ross were doing a show “as live” – they were in a studio and they were ad-libbing their way through it when the nastiness arose. In contrast, Jan Moir sat at a word-processor, collating her thoughts into a semblance of order, changing, editing, making the paragraphs the right lengths and generally making her offensive remarks as clear as humanly possible over a period of – presumably – a few hours. There is far less excuse for this article than for Sachsgate. But I don’t expect you to agree with that.

In summary, I believe Matthew Chapter 7 Verse 5 sums up the Mail’s position rather neatly:

“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

Happy Days Indeed!

You say that Stephen Fry is tangential to this argument, but it was your original blog that described how he “twittered” about the article and encouraged people to report the Mail to the PCC. You are surely not naive enough to suggest that the fact that Stephen Fry is gay had nothing to do with his encouraging people to complain about the article, are you?

The problem is that you are accusing the Daily Mail of hypocrisy because (a) one of their columnists wrote an article which a lot of people didn’t like and (b) the Daily Mail encouraged people to complain about the puerile behaiour of Jonathan Ross. If the Mail had tried to put up a robust defence of Jan Moir’s article and repeated the points she tried to make, then I might conceded that you had a point; unfortunately for your argument, that didn’t happen. Which is why I can’t see where the hypocrisy comes into it.

Paragraph Four – Andrew Sachs is in the business, he knows how it works. How on earth is that relevant? Are you saying that he knows that there are juvenile tossers like Ross and Brand working in radio, so he should expect to have disgusting messages left on his answer machine? Give me a break! And why should I have to justify hoardes of journalist camped outside his house – did I send them there? How could I gloss over that – I didn’t even know there WERE journalists camped outside Andrew Sach’s house!

So I will answer your three questions:

1) Is Jan Moir’s article on Stephen Gately as offensive as the Brand/Ross phone call? If not, why not? No, because she is a columnist expressing a point of view. You may agree or disagree with what she says but she is entitled to say it (unless you want to set yourself up as the arbiter of what can or can’t be written). The Brand/Ross phone call was, in my view, probably breaking the law and, as I have said umpteen times already, was a disgusting piece of harrassment against someone who didn’t deserve that to happen to him.

2) Given the volume of complaints that the article generated, should action be taken against Jan Moir and/or the Daily Mail? If not, why not? No, because to do so would be to impose censorship on the press. Where do you propose to draw the line between what opinions can and can’t be expressed in the press? Or on stage? Or in a Blog?

3) Is it hypocritical of the Daily Mail to demand the heads of BBC presenters and editors whilst ignoring a similar number of complaints against its own journalists and editors? If not, why not? No, because of all the reasons I have given above.

Happy Days!