Eclectic Memes

One of my quintessentially British traits, some might say flaws, is a reluctance to complain. As a consequence I will often have a private but impotent rant at the news media when I come across an article that offends my sensibilities or reason. However. Every once in a while something so egregious, so offensive, so disgusting crosses my path that I feel I have to do something. One such occasion has just occurred.

In the UK there exists what I shall, for want of a better term, call a ‘newspaper’ called the Daily Mail. (I scare quote here because this publication seldom contains actual news.) The publication (ah, that’s a better word) represents all that is wrong with the media. It is horribly and unashamedly right wing, pandering to the racist, homophobic, and xenophobic elements in our society. The article in question was penned by one Jan Moir with the is title “A strange, lonely, and troubling death…” the article is Moir’s hateful interpretation of Stephen Gately’s death.

Moir is one of those people you would like to meet in a dark alley. Preferably with a few other like minded souls. Her article takes the usual hateful bigotry she spews and cranks it up a couple of notches. Unfortunately it is necessary to link to the article in question so that people can appreciate what a hollow soul Moir is. The article can be found here.

I could feel my hackles rising even as I read her execrable drivel through. On reaching the end I was bloody fuming and ready for another impotent rant at my computer monitor when some kindly soul pointed my toward the Press Complaints Commission (the purported watchdog of the UK press) website and more specifically their complaints form. Armed with this information I could turn a potentially impotent rant into something constructive, so I registered the following complaint.

Moir’s article distorts and deliberately misrepresents information supplied by the authorities, making no clear distinction between statements of fact and her own bigoted opinion, breaching clause 1.

Mr Gately’s actions on the night in question are a private matter unrelated to his death. Moir’s scurrilous article intrudes on Mr Gately’s privacy and that of his partner and family, in breach of clause 3.

It would be difficult to conceive a more intrusive article than that penned by Moir. The article is unnecessary, bigoted, hateful, speculative, opinionated and above all an intrusion on the grief of Mr Gately’s partner and family, in breach of clause 5.

In making Mr Gately’s homosexuality a central theme to her article Moir exhibits a callous disregard for clause 12 of the code of practice. The entire tone of the article is discriminatory, implying, quite clearly, that it was Mr Gately’s sexual preference and lifestyle (at least the lifestyle painted by Moir’s own tawdry homophobic imagination) that led to his death.

Whether anything comes of this remains to be seen. Given the strength of feeling generated on Twitter (admittedly not a particularly good barometer of effective complaints against the press) and the subsequent collapse of the PCC website, presumably under the weight of people trying to complain about this article, I suspect that it will make the news for this reason if not for the real reason that the article is disgusting and Moir should be held to account over it.