A typical DM 'story'.

So the DM has achieved its purpose, in spite of the ridiculous story. Surely the fact that the headline is belied by the facts in the body of the story gives anybody pause for thought. This woman is NOT living on £516 a month - the whole story is nonsense - but why let the facts get in the way of a good story. Let's just give people something to be indignant about.
Well done, DM!

I look at most daily papers/weekly/monthly magazines that interest me on-line. I'm fortunate in having The New Statesman and The New Scientist passed on to me, which I in turn pass on to others, and I can get The New Yorker from our little local library - who don't want them back - so those get passed on, too!

I find I value world photo-journalism almost as much, if not more, than the written word. The New York Times being particularly good in this area.

There's so much more out there - along with the 4 main UK papers of course

I think, regardless of whether the DM has all its facts straight, if the main part of the story is true, then I think a lot of people will be feel p*****d off that this girl has never worked or never intends to work and just take money from taxpayers. Holidays? I wish I could afford holidays.

Not sure that is true about the Guardian, Greatnan. We, along with most of our friends were pretty outraged when they supported the Lib Dems in the last election, though.
I have always read the Guardian, though I grew up in a Tory voting, Telegraph and Express household. Now I pay for the app as I can't buy the paper here. They don't always get it right, but they have some excellent journalists and we would never have had phone hacking exposed without them.

Then we agree on that Greatnan

Interestingly, this issue, mentioned in the DM was picked up by LBC Radio (and no doubt, many others). I was listening to a phone in in the car and the callers were all of the 'outraged of Surbiton' variety. The grounds for their outrage were that this girl of 20, who has never worked and has a new two bed Council flat in Croydon can manage to save £2000 out of her benefits to buy Christmas presents for her children when they, the callers, who were working and paying taxes, couldn't dream of doing the same. They were coming to the conclusion, naturally, that she was being given too much.

Regardless of the Maths, this is the subtext of this story and in a time when people are suffering and many have had their income cut over the last few years it was hardly wise for her to give this to the media, Closer, the DM or whatever.

I don't see anybody getting their knickers in a twist, Sel. I don't think The Guardian is held in very high esteem any more - too many people thought it was too close to Blair.
I don't think printed newspapers will survive - young people seem to spend most of their free time using their technological devices and they can get all the news and features they want from them.

I remember reading somewhere that the Daily Mail online is the most read online newspaper.

Whilst everyone gets their knickers in a right/left twist about newspapers a larger issue looms: who is going to be buying newspapers in the future? I have three children who have grown up in a newspaper reading household and none of them buy a newspaper. They pick and mix their intake of news, online using PCs, tablets and phones. They might watch the news on TV or pick up a free paper. They are all well educated and not unusual amongst their friends. I also think they are more free thinking than their parents' generation and more inclined to make up their own minds on an issue as it arises.

The Guardian, so beloved on here, is haemorrhaging money. One of the most profitable newspapers today is a free one, 'Metro' - a light read on the train or tube owned partially by...*The Daily Mail*. As all media exists to make money, that has to come from advertising - the Metro is thriving as they can sell advertising.

My youngest child is 23 so maybe older GNs will contradict me and will see a thriving future for the print industry.

Yes, it's worth it for Liz Jones. What a rich imagination she has!

I love reading the Mail on Sunday, purely for Liz Jones's column. She presents herself as such a bitter, unpleasant person and for some time she has been pretending to be the lover of a 'rock star' . I think she keeps herself in her job by offending as many people as possible - it is very funny.

The 'story' has now attracted over 3,000 comments, nearly all what one would expect. Very few DM readers appear to have done the simple arithmetic.

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

Couldn't eat anything touched by the DM feetlebaum

And fish and chips in it on Thursday...

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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 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?

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'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!

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