Apparently you could make it up.

January 26, 2014 2:11 PM

13 reasons why I am taking the Daily Mail to the Press Complaints Commission Jon Danzig deconstructs and demolishes a Daily Mail immigration story. [DM story: Sold out! Flights and buses full as Romanians and Bulgarians head for the UK]
posted by jaduncan (26 comments total)

Most anti-immigration people don't seem to have any kind of a clue how difficult it is to move to another country. I'm not talking about paperwork, of course -- that stuff is annoying, no doubt, but it's also finite. I'm talking about leaving behind everything you know and going to a place where you don't know any people, and you may not know the language, and the culture and customs are either a little bit off or quite outlandish, and you'll quite possibly be viewed as a second class person. In short, it requires a great deal of motivation -- and not the kind of motivation that leads people to seek a handout.

Source: I was born in the United States, but my parents are immigrants from Germany and my wife is an immigrant from Romania and most of my friends are immigrants (or the children of immigrants) and for goodness sakes you don't need to talk to very many of them to understand the shared immigrant experience.
posted by Slothrup at 2:31 PM on January 26, 2014 [16 favorites]

God, the Daily Mail is run by truly disgusting human beings.
posted by grouse at 3:09 PM on January 26, 2014 [13 favorites]

We really need a few hundred more of this kind of exposé for there to be any impact whatsoever. The Mail's readership is firmly entrenched in its bigotry, and it's going to take something pretty monumental to disturb that.

Part of the problem, at least as far as I can tell from the Mail readers in my own circle of relatives and acquaintances, is that a lot of people really don't see any problem with the paper printing works of fiction dressed up as fact. As long as what's printed doesn't attack them personally (rather, it reinforces their views,) they justify their reading it by saying things like "it's just a bit of fun", or "I just do the crossword - the news doesn't really interest me". I try to raise their awareness of just how damaging the Mail is to their perception of what's actually going on around them, but they really couldn't care less. It's very frustrating, because none of them are what I would call "bad people".
posted by pipeski at 3:13 PM on January 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Good stuff. About time too
posted by MrMerlot at 3:18 PM on January 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Mail's readership is firmly entrenched in its bigotry.

That makes some sense, as apparently the paper just makes shit up to fuel racist sentiments. Presumably they've been doing that for some time.

Are the countries that don't have racist papers (or TV networks) making shit up to fuel xenophobia and bigotry?
posted by el io at 3:23 PM on January 26, 2014

If worst comes to worst, the Mail will just take the amount it's fined out of petty cash, as they do with libel awards and the like. They're profitable enough that such things are just another business expense.
posted by acb at 3:26 PM on January 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

If worst comes to worst, the Mail will just take the amount it's fined out of petty cash, as they do with libel awards and the like. They're profitable enough that such things are just another business expense.

If the equal prominence for corrections requirement ever actually comes into law it will genuinely hurt them, I think.
posted by jaduncan at 3:36 PM on January 26, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'd like to see the Daily Mail sink into a marsh of its own making. My relatives have the same "it's just a bit of fun" response. But it's not, it's low behaviour and should be struck down wherever we see it.
posted by arcticseal at 3:48 PM on January 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

Relevant self-link to MeTa.
posted by lalochezia at 5:27 PM on January 26, 2014

This isn't the first time I've linked to Kitten Block, which replaces Daily Mail links with more adorable, and far less infuriating, content.
posted by JHarris at 5:36 PM on January 26, 2014 [6 favorites]

Unfortunately, complaints to the PCC don't generally move forward unless the affected party complains. You could argue that all of us are affected when things like this are printed, as our collective decency and empathy erodes, but I doubt that would wash.
posted by liquidindian at 5:43 PM on January 26, 2014

OMFG. Why did I NOT think of this?! The Australian media across the board is so full of shit about migrants to the point that I have to field stupid questions about getting a free house and business because Today Tonight said so.

(I did appear on an SBS news segment ages ago about this, but it still goes on.)
posted by divabat at 6:17 PM on January 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

God, the Daily Mail is run by truly disgusting human beings.

I'll believe "truly disgusting," but I've seen no evidence of humanity.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:18 PM on January 26, 2014 [13 favorites]

OMFG. Why did I NOT think of this?! The Australian media across the board is so full of shit about migrants to the point that I have to field stupid questions about getting a free house and business because Today Tonight said so.

Because the Press Council of Australia is an impotent cipher, and ACMA is weak and ineffective?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:58 PM on January 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

grouse: "God, the Daily Mail is run by truly disgusting human beings"

Human beings?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:07 AM on January 27, 2014

Interesting factoid: anti-EU DAILY MAIL editor Paul Dacre has taken over a quarter of a million pounds in subsidies from the EU, for the upkeep of his country estate.
posted by lucien_reeve at 1:37 AM on January 27, 2014

And now they get even more publicity.
posted by devnull at 2:08 AM on January 27, 2014

Human beings?

Human beings!
I haven't seen any other species behave like that. Well, monkeys fling shit and camels spit, but a) in self defense b) not on an industrial scale and c) they don't employ others to do that.
posted by hat_eater at 3:12 AM on January 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

My dad buys the daily mail because it's the cheapest newspaper....ugh
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 5:34 AM on January 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

My dad buys the daily mail because it's the cheapest newspaper....ugh

I thought that was the whole philosophy behind the launch of (£0.20) condensed newspaper the i.
posted by ambrosen at 6:18 AM on January 27, 2014

Good luck: (from the relevant Meta linked above)

"Davies notes (p.364) that the Press Complaints Commission was basically useless. He looked through 10 years of complaints and found that the PCC had received 28,227 complaints from members of the public. The PCC refused to consider 90% of them, 25,457, on technical grounds. Without even investigating them. Only 448 complaints in total managed to get a formal adjudication from the PCC, of which more than half were rejected and just 197 upheld."
posted by MuffinMan
posted by marienbad at 6:28 AM on January 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

In this case I'd hope that he would organise a joint complaint from himself and all the misquoted people given that they do have PCC standing.
posted by jaduncan at 6:47 AM on January 27, 2014

Let's see the PCC cover itself in gory on this one...
posted by DanCall at 7:51 AM on January 27, 2014

How much longer has the PCC got?
posted by MrMerlot at 3:28 PM on January 27, 2014

The second-best headline of all time
posted by homunculus at 12:44 PM on January 30, 2014

J.K. Rowling Sues the Daily Mail for Libel
posted by homunculus at 5:24 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]