A typical DM 'story'.

Being relatively new I don't know if there has been a thread purely about the DM before, though I have caught hints that readers feel their paper is being demonised on other threads. But all topics are up for discussion on GN and the press is a valid subject.
What annoys me about the DM is that it holds itself up as something it's not, a quality paper. It lulls the unsuspecting reader into believing its point of view. I can always tell a DM reader within a few minutes of any discussion as they seem to accept and internalise the paper's philosophy without passing it through a reality filter.
Readers will argue that this is not the case.
Back to the OP. What is the DM's motive? Very obvious I'd say.

I suppose I could be called a DM reader, but don't fit that stereotype. Like Greatnan and many others, I read a few different papers online (I won't waste my money on newspapers these days), including the DM. I don't internalise its views, though, nor do I internalse the views of the broadsheets whose political stance does not accord with mine. I find that the DM does make some awful mistakes, and interprets the news in a prejudiced way - more so than other papers. None of them are 100% reliable, though.

So, if I'm a DM reader who does pass what I read through a reality filter, I don't fit your stereotype Jodi. I know someone who does, and we agree to disagree with each other when we occasionally have to be in the same room on social occasions. He holds racist views and only reads the DM because he says it reinforces the views he has about a wide variety of issues.

I'll revise that when to dedicated DM readers but I suspect you know what I mean in general terms. Your sample reader sounds fairly typical

It's interesting, isn't it, how the paper that one reads is, for some people, an instant indicator of one's views.

My father, who, for most of his life read The Guardian, (like me) switched to The Telegraph in his 60s. Why? Because it was cheaper. He didn't change his views and wasn't influenced by its political stance, but he was much better informed about court reports.

My husband gets apoplectic about the DM while never reading it, but I read it online, and I can see the attraction. It's very well designed and, actually, engagingly written. The bias seems to come from two aspects. Firstly, the choice of some non-stories such as the one highlighted above, and secondly the provocative headlines and sub heads. When I compare the actual information between the the G and DM there really isn't very much. (I'm ignoring the nonsense down the right hand bar.)

And, reading it does make it easier to pick up on some of the scandals that the others are too high minded to report but refer to in oblique terms.

I have on occasion written to the Guardian complaining about the number of their articles which use DM articles as a hook for one of their responses. They don't respond.

Jodi . Having just glanced the DM headlines, I came up with the same sums as Greatnan for this family. I can see how this young woman can manage on her benefits from week to week, but the way they describe her £250 a month savings implies she is well off, whereas that money isn't surplus - it will be her budgeted money that covers school uniforms, shoes, any emergencies, replacement appliances, furnishings in the house etc. For a 20 year old to report that she is able to have foreign holidays and spend £2,000 a year on Christmas, as well as have designer clothes, implies she does this year in, year out. She's 20! I suspect she has said this is what she would like to do if se could ring-fence every penny that she sets aside. I would like to see the evidence that she has done it consistently for 2 or 3 years to be able to make such a claim.

I can do a budget that shows I would have £400 a month to save out of my modest pension. I have to ignore all the other expenditure that is not included week to week, though! What a silly story!

Implausible in the extreme.

Designer clothes? Most of her generation shop at Primark. If they manage to have designer gear, it's usually because they diligently comb the charity shops.

The DM really enjoys these subtle digs at what they call benefit scroungers and foreigners. Never mind what the facts might be.

The bold headlines says Unemployed single mother on benefits who spends £2,000 on Christmas with 20 presents for each of her children.

The small print text underneath says... "Mother-of-two Leanna Broderick plans to buy 20 presents for each of her children.

That is "plans to". Dreams of perhaps?

The DM is being plainly dishonest in "spinning" this article.
They do not tell a story without adding some irrelevant and innacurate facts designed to rake up predjudices. They seem to be relying on their audience to read the more memorable large headlines and nothing else.

I have just looked at the headline that sits further along on the DM online page.

"£93,000, the price of peace of mind: Amount would leave most people feeling 'financially safe and comfortable'
I cant help feeling they have rather shot themselves in the foot with those two on one page."*

So if anyone out there wonders why I and others rant about the DM, here is my reason.

It's an "Outraged and indignant of Acacia Avenue" paper. I'm only surprised that they haven't invented some sort of punctuation mark to show "tutting".

But don't you find that, whatever the story, every paper puts their own slant on it depending on their political allegience. So you would get the same story, same facts, but the emphasis is completely different when written by different journalists.

To a degree, yes, but what some papers deem "newsworthy" doesn't appear at all in some others.

I'm always surprised that no one ever mentions the Daily Express on here. Their front page headlines are a standing joke in our house - within the space of a week they can claim that house prices are falling, then rising, and that statins will save the population, oh, no they won't, they cause muscle damage...you get the picture.

Good post, MiceElf!

I love the Daily Mail simply because it's such rubbish. A friend and I read the stories and have a laugh. Unfortunately my mum also reads the DM and finds it much harder to separate fact from fiction. I've tried to point out to her the phrases like plans to, maybe, could, or the possibility that means that the report is not fact but she doesn't always get it.

I stopped buying the Guardian because I no longer feel the need to have my opinions confirmed on a daily basis. We take the Telegraph because my DH likes the crossword and the obituaries. I read bits of the Mail because it is good for me to have my perceptions challenged. I read bits of other newspapers, British, foreign and local on line. I'm sure there are lots more people like me. No doubt there are many who read and believe every word in their preferred daily organ but I've never met any. Mostly the people I know start frothing at the mouth at any mention of the DM. It's a shorthand way of identifying 'our sort of people', isn't it?

Is it? I've never thought to ask anyone I know what paper they read. If I like them, they're 'my sort of people'.

I don't look at The Express as part of my daily scan of UK newspapers on line because I despise Richard Desmond, who is the purveyor of hard core porn.
I look at the DM because I find it amusing to see how they can twist almost any story to fit its own right wing agenda. It doesn't challenge my perceptions - it reinforces them.
I read The Independent, The Torygraph and The Guardian, always bearing in mind the personalities behind them. I don't bother with 'comics' like the Sun or The Mirror as I don't need my news broken down into short sentences.
No newspaper currently represents my point of view on all serious subjects, but I like to read them with my cynic's hat on ( I wear it a lot) and spot how they have dealt with stories to suit their own agenda.
I am sure even the most vociferous defender of the DM will admit that this story is just a joke - it needs only a modicum of mental arithmetic to see that it is just another way of attacking the groups that the DM hates.

I've had a look at the article and it appears that it came from Closer magazine, the French edition of which printed the topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge in September. Presumably then the DM didn't pay the mother.

Well, it is good to know that the DM uses such good sources!

Well yes the Daily Express and few other tabloids as well!

janthea This particular one is rather more than a slant. It's a prominent headline that says something quite different to what the actual narrative underneath states. (As I highlighted.) To my mind that is deceptive.

A clear statement of policies or opinions in a paper is one thing. This headline seems deliberately slanted propoganda and aimed to mislead and incense the reader, but it is not what the woman actually said.
Still fuming.

When I was at school we had a particularly good English teacher. One of the things I remember him doing was taking a current news story and getting us to compare how it was reported in a variety of newspapers. A very interesting exercise.

Well, we buy the DM because DH believes we should aways read at least one paper whose views we profoundly disagree with to protect us from the self satisfaction and smuggery that can ensue when you only read the media you agree with, we also read the Indie.

I read the DM generally with hackles raised and do a good impression of Disgusted Tonbridge Wells, only in reverse, not right outraged at left but left outraged at right. However over the years I have been able to see some merits in it. It has excellent health and money sections on Tuesday and Wednesday

And fish and chips in it on Thursday...

Couldn't eat anything touched by the DM feetlebaum

I read the DM (looks round for hard hat and ducks below parapet), but that doesn't mean I don't think for myself. I also read other newspapers, listen to news radio and watch television news from a number of different channels. I then use the different slants put on a news item to work out something which may be close to the truth