‘Backlash over BBC coverage of Tiger’s apology,’ said the Daily Mail, reporting that the corporation faced ‘fresh accusations of dumbing down’ after it led with the golfer’s apology as the top story on the same day that 1,600 workers lost their jobs as the north-east’s last steel plant shut down. But which paper put Woods on its front page – ‘Tiger’s mother forgives him, but where is Elin?’ – and relegated the steel factory story to page 10? Step forward … the Daily Mail.
Media Monkey’s Diary.
Ah, there’s nothing quite like a bit of hypocrisy to start the week. Classic Daily Fail.
10th November: Daily Mail publishes an article detailing various things Demi Moore has said to W Magazine regarding her supposed status as a cougar. An image of the magazine’s cover takes a prominent position in the story.
19th November: Daily Mail publishes an article about the “controversy” surrounding the airbrushing of that magazine cover.
Seriously, nine days to spot this?! What is more likely is that there are a bunch of really fucking lazy journalists at the Daily Mail who simply churnalised the initial press release from W Magazine, and then a week later stumbled across someone else online who had noticed the airbrushing.
The second story references Jezebel.com on the airbrushing topic, but Jezebel published their article on 11th November. Again, eight days to notice that post? Glad to see the Mail has its finger on the pulse…
Annoyingly, the Daily Mail still refuses to hyperlink to any other outside website, even when it is the sole source of a story, particularly in the case of publishing a celeb’s Twitpics or similar. And usually they just say “a blog” rather than giving the actual website’s name.
Unfortunately, this kind of keyword-whoring and lack of understanding the nature of linking is very much an old-media mentality. It’s not about good quality, repeat readers. It’s purely about as many eyeballs as possible…
Interesting to note that the cost of Amy Winehouse’s boob job has apparently gone from £35,000 to only £5,000, according to the latest re-writing of history by the Daily Mail.
I love that they will write utterly sensationalist and non-fact-based stories, then totally ignore them a few weeks later. Seriously, the £35k story was written on October 12th, yet a mere 15 days later the price is now a seventh of what it was then.
I’d say that you couldn’t make this kind of shit up, but it’s pretty damn evident that they did.
Oh, and Amy Winehouse really is a mess, isn’t she?
You see, this is what pisses me off about the media and in particular their reliance on attention-grabbing headlines that bear no resemblance to the actual story in question. Look at this piece of shit journalism on the Daily Mail website:
Has Amy Winehouse had a £35K breast enlargement before tonight’s appearance on Strictly?
That’s the headline. ‘Strictly’ refers to Strictly Come Dancing, which non-Brits will know as Dancing With The Stars.
The story essentially questions whether Amy Winehouse has had a boob job ahead of her triumphant (© BBC PR Dept) return to TV. Apparently her use of drugs in the last few years has removed all of her once-famous curves, and she wants them back.
Bluntly, I couldn’t give a flying fuck whether she has or not, and judging by the photos in the story it’s pretty obvious that she hasn’t.
My issue is with the number in the headline. Where the fuck did they get £35,000 from?! I’m no expert on boob jobs, but I understand the normal price is something like £5,000 at most. As you read the “story”, it’s pretty fucking obvious that the journalist has just pulled the number out of her ass.
The opening line says “She is said to have spent £35,000 on a procedure to give herself a more curvaceous figure”, but fails to make any reference to this at all for the rest of the article. Who “said” it? Where did they get it from? Why did she spend so much more than usual?
It’s a fucking terrible example of an opening hook which is swiftly forgotten and glossed over, and it’s something that happens far too often in modern journalism. Newspapers are taking readers for idiots, and we let them get away with it.
And that’s really, really, fucking depressing.
A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbours by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat.
Ah, yet another example of old media totally failing to grasp new media, and making a mountain out of a non-existent molehill. The Daily Mail is running a story about how Demi Moore has “snubbed” Sarah Brown (our Prime Minister’s wife) on Twitter by not replying to her.
As it breathlessly reports:
On Tuesday afternoon a series of Tweets popped up on Miss Moore’s page from Mrs Brown’s Twitter account telling the actress to ‘Spread the word (in the U.S.A)!’ that ‘Half The Sky by Nicholas Kristoff & Sheryl WuDunn comes out 2day’.
The response from Miss Moore? Very little, apart from a nonplussed silence. In terms of Twitter etiquette, it’s rather like being ignored at a social function.
Issues with this:
a) It wasn’t a “series” of Tweets. It was one.
b) It wasn’t a message directed at Demi Moore. It was a Retweet, with her name in there purely as a form of attribution for the original tweet.
c) In general, Twitter etiquette doesn’t require a reply or thanks for a retweet, although some people do.
The tweet in question is here, and the Daily Mail doesn’t even do the decent thing of linking to it. Old media just doesn’t grasp how linking and attribution helps everybody in every case.
The story is just terrible trash. I was going to use the word “journalism” or “reporting”, but I’d feel quite dirty placing those words so close to this story. Evidently the Mail wants to make fun of Mrs Brown in the same way it relentlessly attacked Cherie Blair, but Mrs Brown isn’t making herself such a public figure.
She’s actually dedicating herself to good causes, and staying under the radar, whereas Cherie was a big-name human rights lawyer who also courted publicity. This strikes me as a very unfair attack, and even moreso for being inept and incorrect.
IS THE METRIC SYSTEM MAKING BRITAIN’S SWANS IMPOTENT?
Dammit, the Daily Mail-o-matic is still funny.
Other highlights from this 30 seconds of not doing any work: “COULD THE LOONY LEFT KILL PENSIONERS?”, “IS JACQUI SMITH INFECTING THE QUEEN WITH AIDS?”, and “HAVE THE GERMANS GIVEN YOU CANCER?”.
Tremendous.
The Daily Mail amuses me sometimes. Usually it irritates me beyond belief, but sometimes it’s so incredulous that I can’t help but find it funny.
Take this story, for example, which details some made-up anger about the BBC hiring ex-tennis player Martina Hingis as one of their celebs on the new series of Strictly Come Dancing (the forerunner of Dancing With The Stars in the US).
The Daily Mail and their handily available angry commentators Mediawatch UK are up in arms because Hingis was forced to quit tennis for a second time last year after a positive test for cocaine. She denies it, obviously, but the ITF still banned her for two years.
My issue isn’t with that.
It’s the way that another celeb in this year’s line-up is being given a free pass, and has been for the last few years by the media.
Scroll down to the bottom of the article and look at the group photo. See the guy on the left?
That’s ex-cricketer Phil Tufnell. He has a criminal conviction for assaulting his then wife. Not just an accusation or a rumour. A full on, court of law guilty judgment against him.
How the fuck is maybe using cocaine worse than assaulting someone?!?! The Daily Mail’s morals (as ever) are sorely misguided on this one.
“Glutton for punishment”: it’s funny because she’s soooooooo fat, you see?!?!?!
Stupid fucking Daily Mail.
