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RSSDon’t click on the Daily Mail!
How many visitors to the Daily Mail’s website are angry liberals, peeping at the horrors be
By Steven Baxter Published 08 February 2011 12:21
There's a difficulty about writing about Daily Mail columnists without falling into a couple of traps.
It's become something of a cliché, the wringing-wet liberal getting all antsy about something provocative that a Mail columnist has churned out, raising yourself into a sense of righteous anger over someone else's terribly un-PC and controversial views that they churn out, every week, to a deadline and to a word count.
"Oh, there you go again," people will say, shaking their heads and tut-tutting at you, "getting all wound up by the Mail and the sentiments in it. Every week you get surprised by the fact that Richard Littlejohn doesn't vote Labour or that Melanie Phillips hasn't discovered atheism – what do you expect?"
Sometimes it can feel a bit obvious, a bit ordinary, a bit banal, to challenge columnists who are only there to bulk out the newspaper or website with some colour, whose views are bound to vary from your own.
The second trap people can fall into is promoting the very thing you're unhappy about. If you get angry about some terribly controversial and un-PC views, which are nicely laid out every week under the journalist's photo byline and illustrated by cartoons and photographs of celebrities, you might just bring them to a wider audience.
If you get angry about a Mail columnist in the privacy of your own living room, that's one thing. If you do it on Twitter, the power of the hyperlink means that you may well be inviting lots of other people in the echo chamber to get similarly angry about the same thing, who will tell their friends with similar views about how awful it is, and they'll click on the link to look at how vile the views are, and so on, and so on.
Reel 'em in
The Daily Mail's website gets millions of visitors a day. I'm starting to wonder how many of them are angry liberals peeping at the horrors from behind the curtain. It's not recorded in web traffic statistics whether you approve of the content that you've just seen or not; your presence is just added to the total. Advertisers and potential advertisers don't get told that a lot of people who visit Mail Online are swearing under their breath as they read the awful toxic words; they just get shown the numbers.
I say all this because, as I write this, I am reading on Twitter that some people are upset by a piece by the Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir in which she talks about the reaction of "gimlet-eyed" celebrities on Twitter to the death of Amanda Holden's baby.
To my mind, it seems like perfect flamebait: it's Jan Moir, of Stephen-Gately-death-nastiness fame, once again spouting off in public after a human tragedy, except this time there's the bonus idea of sticking the article full of celebrities' names and insulting Twitter. It's a perfect pointy stick to rattle around inside the hornets' nest.
I'm not saying Jan Moir doesn't believe her views about public events, which she has been producing once a week in Word format for a long time now; I'm just saying it would be easy for people to think such articles were designed to provoke the kind of reaction that would see the website swamped with traffic.
But, all of that said, if you do disagree with these articles, what can you do? Thousands of complaints to the PCC did not lead to a massive censure being aimed at the author after the Gately piece. Do you complain anyway, just to put your disapproval on the record? Do you write your own response, detailing your emotional reaction to the piece? Do you walk away and try to forget about it, knowing that something which you find unpleasant has gone unchallenged?
My own view is that this Moir piece isn't terribly offensive, but it is flamebait, and should be treated as such. She isn't unpleasant towards Amanda Holden, and saves her attacks for Twitter celebrities, who may write their own responses if they wish. Perhaps we should put away the flaming torches and the pitchforks until such time as they're needed.
Now, I realise that by writing this, and by tweeting about it, I have drawn more attention to the Moir article than it might otherwise have got, for which I apologise in advance. They win, whatever you do. Perhaps the only thing to do in future is not only not to write about Daily Mail columnists, but not to write about writing about Daily Mail columnists. Or is that a cliché, too? I don't know, but if you want a happier day, don't click on the link. I said, don't click!
Tags: Amanda Holden Jan Moir Daily Mail
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35 comments
I stopped reading that vile rag after it offered money to the Yorkshire rippers wife. That was decades ago.
Your post makes a valid point, but there are ways around it. Is it not possible to advocate the use of methods that media bloggers on Twitter use to deprive the Mail of ad revenue?
I guess doing that on the website of a national publication wouldn't be allowed, but it's something we can promote elsewhere.
Read the Telegraph and Mail if you want to get somewhere near the truth, but because we are now led by a soft left Tory party, I do not know where we go from here. http://www.personalinjurylaws.net/
God, it's a good thing no one reads it.
Jan was sort of on the right track, but what really got me was how the piece was liberally accompanied by images of a visibly pregnant Amanda.
Please don't visit Daily Mail website?
HaHaHa - how desperate can you get?
Pathetic.
So true I click on to read the rabid rights perspective and always end up shaking my head at their vileness. I had not considered the imlications that it mught benefit them before though!
The Guardian is run by an editor who earns over £600,000 a year.
No one buys The New Statesman.
The top so-called journalist on The Independent has been exposed as a fraud & a plagiarist.
As for the BBC: It forces the public to pay for their drivel whether they want to pay for it not.
Give me the Daily Mail anyday.
I say that to people who watch horrendous shows like X-factor and Britain's Got Talent.
Simon Cowell doesn't care if you're laughing at them or enjoying the show; stop giving them rating figures!!
===== http://www.chic-goods.com/ =====
===== http://www.chic-goods.com/ =====
surely the resultant failure to sell anything to those richly prejudiced tossers
means the advertisers won't come back to the Mail
are the daily mail still pushing for the appeasement of hitler?
Jan Moir has written some truly repulsive articles but in this case she was spot on.
A 2 line message of public condolence sandwiched between self promotion is extremely distasteful
As I said before, treat it like The Beano, or The Dandy (you are either one or the other), treat it as a comic. Bit like watching Alan Partridge on the telly.
My dad buys it every day through the week, and reads it behind the bike sheds, when nobody is looking. It keeps him young with it's unintentional humour, and show us "regionals" how stupid the "middle class" in SE England really is.
You can link to daily mail articles using:-
http://istyosty.com/
This caches the link so that the daily-mail does not get the web traftic.
so link to amanda holden article is :-
http://istyosty.com/tmp/cache/6109eacf068c69c4ce01b9a1ece4d790bb5a931a.html
no phil but you're probably still pushing for the appeasement of islamo fascists: "if only we just left them alone"
Dailymail is bias and so what? so is the Guardian. It's only bias to you because you're on the other tea.
In the US the majority of media and tv shows have a liberal bias and yet we hear nothing about them piss and moaning about Fox news. Accept that others have different beliefs to you if not that makes you a fascist.
Peter Oborne may now be at the Telegraph, but perhaps people are clicking on the Mail to read the anti-war, anti-neoconservative writings of Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Peter McKay, Stephen Glover and Andrew Alexander?
Daily Mail is so small minded, and full of silly wimmin - they put their dads and mams in homes and forget about them.
That is your average Daily Mail reader. Oh yes! Look and Learn.
Something about knowing the enemy?
HI GUYS!
Yes, the Mail is horrid. But did it ever promote anything as repellent as this?
FROM THE NEW STATESMAN: "Some of British socialism's most celebrated names were among the champions of eugenics - Sidney and Beatrice Webb (the founders of the Fabian Society), Harold Laski, John Maynard Keynes, even the New Statesman and the Manchester Guardian. They hoped that a eugenic approach could build up the strong section of the population and gradually remove the weak. In July 1931, the New Statesman asserted: "The legitimate claims of eugenics are not inherently incompatible with the outlook of the collectivist movement. On the contrary, they would be expected to find their most intransigent opponents amongst those who cling to the individualistic views of parenthood and family economics."
Many early left-wing thinkers wanted government to direct social policy towards "improving" the human race by discouraging reproduction among those sections of society deemed to have undesirable genes. Supporters of state planning often found the idea of a planned genetic future attractive. As Adrian Wooldridge comments: "The Webbs supported eugenic planning just as fervently as town planning." Beatrice Webb declared eugenics to be "the most important question of all" while her husband remarked that "no eugenicist can be a laissez-faire individualist".
THAT'S 'PROGRESSIVES' FOR YA!
@victoria Unless you're watching an on-demand service, it doesn't matter if you watch it or not as it won't get counted (unless you're part of the viewing ratings panel).
actually i go to the mail website sometimes for a bit of light relief, to find out how to look good over 50, and how stress is bad for me, and advice on dieting and all that other silly stuff, but i'm sorry, all this serious stuff can get a bit boring.
Great point well made. Wouldn't be surprised if the Mail engineers stories to get maximum hits...it's obvious nothing is beneath them. And it's right to save the liberal Twitter linch-mob for when it's really needed.
Telling people what not to look at is probably going to be counter-productive. People don't like being told.
One time Jan MOir took hostage little Bichon Frise and only power of thousand other animal pushing pushing pushing burst into catflap would fell this mighty oak. SOmetime we have music in the air, sometime spilled bile!! In the past the bits of newsprint would be glued to telegraph poles and hands by outrage and hate.
Basically the 'if we pretend it doesn't exist maybe it'll go away' approach.
I've been trying that one for years, it doesn't work.
Her article wasn't that bad by Jan Moir standards. Just shows an ignorance of how and why people use Twitter. Failing to understand social media is expected in the middle aged.
I like the fact that the first comment you see on the Mail article is "Twitter is PC gone mad!" Brilliant.
Is it not strange that left-wingers always get so excited when confronted by the truth, ie what the Daily Mail usually prints? It is so funny to read what New Statesman readers write on such subjects. How you have all been so brainwashed by the left who have had control over our media and schools, universities etc since that late 60's.
Perhaps you should read what John Sissons has written about his time at the BBC to see how biased it has always been.
Read the Telegraph and Mail if you want to get somewhere near the truth, but because we are now led by a soft left Tory party, I do not know where we go from here.
"But, all of that said, if you do disagree with these articles, what can you do? "
Accept that people have different views and move on? Is there a reason to get terribly upset and overwrought over what another person thinks? I'm sure we all disagree with someone at one point or another but to the best of my knowledge such disagreements haven't left me wringing my hands in despair or seeing who I can write to voice my displeasure at someone having a view I have not endorsed.
I avoid links to the Daily Mail website, and I also have a Firefox addin called "Tea and Kittens" that shows pictures of tea and kittens instead of frothing right-wing drivel about actresses wearing clothes.
god you're all so fucking smug. i read the new statesman so i'm nice, others read the daily mail so they're vile, beyond parody.
^
lol flamebait
There was a protest against the Mail last week. Very little was reported about it.
I thought Stephen Baxter had built his writing career on writing about the Daily Mail and its columnists, including linking to the website.
Maybe he has had a change of heart, but his last post was a letter to the Daily Mail, applying for a job.
(ironically of course)
http://enemiesofreason.co.uk/tag/daily-mail-scum/