I know that the London Daily Mail is an awful publication. If you want to read reports that one of the Kardashians has changed the color of her nail polish or how some barely-known “celebrity” is experiencing post-divorce trauma, then the DM is the paper for you.
So why do I read it? Because unlike the conservative newspapers Over Here, it isn’t all politics, all the time — which is almost as boring as another article wherein Amanda Holden gets to show off her skinny (“toned”) body yet again. I like me a little diversion of the salacious kind, but only as an occasional counterweight to all the earnest political crap.
Every so often, however, the DM surprises me with coverage that is not only relevant, but excellent — and often, their reportage on events Over Here arrives earlier than that from US newspapers, which makes no sense at all.
However, just the other day I noticed something interesting. There was a blizzard of coverage in conservative US outlets about what I referred to the other day as “flaggism“, so I went over to the Daily Mail to see what their take was on the situation. I mean, thousands of people all over Britain protesting the migrant hotels, Union- and St. George’s flags being hung on lamp posts and painted on the roads: this is news absolutely worth covering and talking about, because it’s a really important issue in British life at the moment. So what did the DM say about it all?
Nothing. On the day in question, there was not a single article devoted to the topic. Nor was there one in the Sun, and in the august Times of London? Not one either, but there were two on Taylor Swift’s engagement. Even the conservative (by UK standards) Telegraph had only one report on the unrest, and that was an analysis of how a single town‘s unrest may cause an election party switch at some point in the future.
One would almost think there was a conspiracy… but then again, I’m not too surprised. The British population (and its mainstream media), it seems, would rather gorge themselves on the details of Taylor Swift’s engagement or the Beckham family’s feud than concern themselves with an issue that is of vital national consequence.
Morons, the lot of them.
“would rather gorge themselves on the details of Taylor Swift’s engagement…”
If you’ve been diagnosed (multiply, reliably) with a terminal disease, why would you want to read yet more about it?
.
I would venture to guess that it is far more a fear of being prosecuted for whatever the Brit version of “hate crime” is, rather than lack of interest on the part of the readers. They’ve been harassing people for mean tweets (X’s, whatever) for a long time now, and I’m sure that the word has gone out to the publications that if they report on what is actually happening and how many ordinary people are involved that they will be summarily tossed into rape cages.
After, the authorities figure that if it’s not being reported on, it’s not really happening.
What the authorities HAVEN’T yet figured out is how preference cascades work, and that by attempting to suppress this information that they are simply driving it underground, where the result might be (we can only hope) a terrible surprise to them.
I read the Currant Bun and am often surprised by what they decide to put on their front page.
(For the record I have not much idea who all the celebs they report on, so frequently, are.)
(Also for the record I have never heard anything by Taylor Swift but then I am 72).
How much do you want to bet that Two-Tier Kier put a D-notice on the flag protests?