Paul Dacre defends the Daily Mail

The problem with mainstream media is they don't report things that are important. Thousands can be swept away in a third world country or asylum seekers can drown and the media think we don't need to know or it's tucked away somewhere. I want to know more and don't give a fig for some celebrity and their rubbishy lives. Thank God if he or she is reading this for the internet, I get fed up with people saying don't believe everything you read on it. Don't believe everything the media spoon feeds you either.

Petallus, I assume you read the DM in Waitrose because it's the right size. The Guardian is very awkward to fold and unfold when you are drinking coffee at a small table. That's when I sometimes buy the I paper.
But I'll get the Guardian to read when I get home.
Wish I had a Waitrose to go to. The nearest one is Hexham.

Jendurham

Fair enough, I just read your post as a statement of principle never to read it. As you say there would be no point in commentating on DM stories if you did not read them. Point taken.

POGS the only DM articles I read are ones I have been directed to from here. As I have been directed to them by people on here, I assume I am allowed to comment on them. If not, there's no point in commenting on anything, is there?

Can you imagine the thingie over the e please. I can get it on the ipad but not the laptop.

I read the Guardian for years and years and then got fed up with it and gave up Newspapers. Recently I started glancing through it again online.

When in the in Waitrose cafe, for some reason I always make a beeline for the Mail to read whilst drinking my coffee.

Apart from the politics of the Mail, what makes it awful is the scandal-mongering and negative attitude to those unfortunate people it likes to feature in it's exposes. It never gives the benefit of the doubt but exaggerates sins for the delectation of readers.

Trouble is, it's enticing in an unhealthy sort of way!

Jendurham

I don't follow how you can declare you do not read the DM but comment on what it has written.

Just read about the Zinoviev letter, Absent. Very interesting. It was easy for Zinoviev to dispute signing it, but with the internet it would not be easy to say ,"Wasn't me, gov.," these days.

Same here Bags. As I am on my own, and it's miserable here at the moment, I haven't even been out and bought a Guardian today. In fact, most days I read my Guardian online. But I also look at, and comment on articles in, the Independent and the Telegraph. Not the Times as they have a paywall, and I would not want to pay for their views.
What's the internet for, if it's not to educate people? But obviously, we cannot look at everything, there's not enough time in the day.
I did not read the Daily Mail when my parents were alive, so I'm not going to start now.
Anyway, learning how to do links to articles is a new skill I have just learned, and occasionally forget to do. I always read the links whether I agree with them or not. Politics is what I do and have always done.

deserving, I have changed my opinion on a number of issues over the years when I have been given or have found more information than I had initially. Reading more about something used to be called education. I think it still is but I agree with the idea that you have to follow up opinions with factual research.

Providing links to articles can be useful. People have a choice whether to read them or not, after all. Quite often I've been glad to have the opportunity to read an article someone else has flagged up.

Doesn't the Daily Mail's duplicity and malice stretch back to publishing the Zinoviev letter in 1924? Of course, MI6 should be just as ashamed of itself as that rag – but both seem to flourish and gain increasing power and influence.

deserving, I just read your last message. What do you mean by "We don't have many male mediums"? I do not understand. Can you please explain?

Read Dacre's article in the Guardian now. He's very scathing about everyone who does not agree with him, and particularly about Guardian readers and the BBC. He talks about the phony world of Twitter and calls anyone who disagrees with him the Twitterati. What annoys me is that Cameron and Hunt, etc., have time to use Twitter. They should be taking their jobs more seriously.
I would like to see Paul Dacre, in the interests of fairness, write a piece in the Daily Mail about Rothermere and his support of the Nazis, but I won't hold my breath.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/richard-murphy/
For heavens sake, deserving, you said you do not like people bluing things. That's all I meant.
However, here's another one for you, because you obviously have not read about Richard Murphy, who is as influential as Paul Dacre and knows a lot more about economics that the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Some of you on here will not like him because he believes in the green new deal.

The DM definitely influenced my parents. That's what I said and what I and my siblings believe, Merlot.

jendurham, My in-laws were working class tories who read the Daily Mail. They worked hard all their lives, died within six months of eachother and downsized to a one bedroomed flat from a three bedroomed council house due to ill health. They had no money to leave their children but funnily enough, none of us thinks the Daily Mail influenced their life choices.

Does the DM get blamed for everything on here?

Seems we all agree partially with one another about some things but not others, that's how it should be. We need then to think that we are never going to agree with everyone on everything, and persistent "blueing" and references to the papers WE read, and the opinions We have, are not going to change anything by one iota, never has and never will.
Knowing what I will like, or dislike verges on the "spooky" you are not by any chance a medium are you JEN? We don't have many male mediums.The disadvantage of "bluing too early means that you have not yourself read the replies that emerge later. These often throw a different light on the veracity of the original opinion, as I said earlier you believe what suits you, and evidence to the contrary is suspect when you see the origins of the experts evidence.
( Rather be asked, "When will you wake up, rather than when do you sleep") More apt I suggest, but then again thats my opinion , at the moment.

Oh, and I was brought up on the Daily Mail, and even after I left home my mother used to send me cuttings that she thought were interesting.
My parents were typical working class Tories, who were conned into thinking that if they worked hard all their lives, they too could end up in Utopia. They died within 3 months of each other in 2006, living in a one-bedroomed flat and paying lots of rent to a housing association, so were never even able to pass on an inheritance to their children. But they still believed the Daily Mail.

David Cameron knows better than to whine about what is written about his father, because he cannot justify it. His father made his money out of cheating the taxman and setting up schemes so that others could do the same.
Yes, Sel, the link is one guy's opinion, but the government take notice of this guy, or at least pretend to. If you read the rest of the Tax Research site, which I expect intelligent people on here to actually be capable of doing, you will find that he is a Quaker who thinks about ordinary people and how to make their lives better, not about how to fleece the poor and workless.

POGS I too agree with your impassioned post very well put. Also agree with Bags' comment re state censorship "stupid and dangerous as well as wrong". Finally, Sel I also thought Ian Hislop's argument in defence of a free press on HIGNFY excellent.

POGS. I agree with everything you have written. I would like to add that I was getting sick of seeing Ed Milliband and his trembly bottom lip when he was interviewed about that article. The things that are written about David Cameron and his background - you don't see him whining about it.

Sel That is a little bit simple minded. Of course the internet is full of all sorts of fools, bores and loonies. It is also a place where intelligent and informed comment can be found. It's just that it behoves us to check whose opinions we are reading and how valid those opinions are – just like when we pick up a newspaper.

Jendurham that's what I meant in my post - this link it one guy's opinion. Worth no more or less than yours or mine but because it's on the internet, you quote and link to it.

I love this idea of an independent regulatory group. Made up of? Appointed by whom? There is no such thing and never can be. Just leave the press alone. We need them. God forbid they are regulated

What is the downward trend? The press reflects society. Society has taken a downward trend hasn't it?

Very few people actually buy and read newspapers. Witness all the members of GN quoting and reviling the Daily Mail that they read online and linking to various spurious opinions. That's where the battlefield is for politicians and they can't control it. I notice people quoting and linking from other online opinions, not the Press Barons of the past; any Tom, Dick or Harry can easily acquire a quasi legitimate voice. One person can blog, multiple believe and follow. Yahoo news anyone? Sky? Huffington Post? Do you check out who owns what, who seeks to manipulate you? Better the devil in my opinion.

I know you will not like this, deserving, but never mind.
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/10/12/the-mail-cant-even-tell-the-truth-about-the-prevailing-hegemonic-thinking/
I read a lot on the internet, particularly at this time of night. As a friend said to me the other day, "When do you sleep?"