What does your newspaper say about you?
Dear Daily Mail,
I recently took the brave / foolish step of offering my readers the chance to influence what I write letters about with the new ‘Skribit’ widget that you can see in the sidebar. Some readers have already taken up the challenge, and via the voting system it was decided by my highly esteemed blog readers that I should write you a letter regarding your “corrosive influence of social and scientific discourse since the 1890s”.
Seeing as I wasn’t around in the 1890s or indeed a large part of the last century, it is hard for me to offer an objective opinion on such matters without being forced to cut and paste from Wikipedia. Having said that, it is clear that you remain one of the most divisive media sources in the present era – and I have a sneaking suspicion that this is no accident. Your message and target audience is, in my opinion, perhaps the most easily identifiable of any newspaper (well, at least those that strive to go beyond showing large numbers of boobies). The ability of your headline writers to strike fear into the hearts of middle-class parents is second to none. Today’s headline exemplifies the point: A sore throat … and 48 hours later Chloe was dead: Swine flu kills healthy girl aged six and a doctor. Brilliant, just brilliant. What I find astonishing is that your readers fall for it every time, as if they require the Daily Mail to do all their thinking for them – and this might just explain other key facets of your readership. For example, no-one does ‘faux outrage’ like the Daily Mail. Every headline and story will be met with a series of ‘tut tuts’, shortly followed by directing blame at enduring evils such as political correctness, Brussels or immigrants. With such a conservative (small ‘c’) readership, there is plenty to tut about these days. Your readers don’t really seem that bothered about evidence or balanced opinions – they just lap up your righteous indignation and then carry on with their daily lives. Sadly, stoking the fires of fear and panic among the middle classes does mean that it is hard to take you seriously, even when you raise important issues, but the comedy value of the incidents that you dig up can still make it all worthwhile.
To be fair, you’re not the only newspaper that has a certain type of reader and a clear agenda. Here is my brief guide to the hearts and mind of people who read particular papers:
The Guardian – Not only are their readers convinced we are going to die of climate change within 50 years, they remain under the illusion that Polly Toynbee makes a useful contribution to political debate. The hardcore Lefty readers, who still blame Margaret Thatcher for everything that goes wrong in the world, are no doubt disillusioned by the collapse of Labour but the Guardian still soothes their pain with increasingly desperate attacks on the Conservatives to keep the crowd happy. Their readers are also the only people left in the UK who think socialism might make a comeback.
The Independent – In an attempt to appear above party politics, their readers have been fooled into thinking that they are being given something approaching impartiality. Sadly, their increasingly sensationalist front covers mixed with rabid columnists (Yasmin and Johann, I’m looking at you) undermines their credibility as an independent news source. Their readers have no doubt been loyal over the years because they physically cannot bring themselves to read the Guardian, Telegraph or anything that Rupert Murdoch controls.
The Telegraph – after a brief flirtation with Gordon Brown a couple of years back, the Torygraph has reverted to form and opened their loving arms to Conservatives across the land. The likes of Simon Heffer ensure that the right-wingers get their regular dose of anti-Cameron bile. Their readers are increasingly open to the idea of David Cameron becoming Prime Minister, even though they secretly hate his guts, and after all these years they still pine for Maggie and cling to the last shred of hope that David Cameron will appoint her in his first cabinet.
The Times – as Rupert Murdoch switches political allegiances, so do supporters of The Times. Their readership is littered with swing voters who kid themselves that they are getting high-quality news. The Times used to be pro-Labour, it’s now anti-Labour – basically, their editors and consequently their readers have the same attitude to commitment as John Prescott. The ridiculously oversized Sunday Times is still a big player in the dying days of the dead tree press, presumably because it is solely responsible for destroying half the world’s rainforest just to print all its pointless supplements.
So, you see, you have your target audience and you shamelessly chase after it, but so do other papers. I would certainly consider you to be the ‘marmite’ of all remotely serious newspapers, as the Daily Mail has the capacity both to induce mass hysteria among the middle class and to induce mass hysteria among the Lefties who really dislike you. Honestly, you aren’t my cup of tea when it comes to the media, but I concede that sometimes it is hard to resist your irritation at issues such as political correctness. Whether or not you will ever warm to Project Cameron remains to be seen.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
I’m sure you already know that this was done more succinctly by Yes Prime Minister, and I’m not sure it’s changed too much since then:
Jim Hacker: “The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
- The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
- The Times is read by people who actually do run the country;
- The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
- The Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
- The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country;
- And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”
Sir Humphrey: “Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?”
Bernard Woolley: “Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.”
Lord Salisbury, I believe, in the 1880s said the Mail was a ‘newspaper for those who could read but cannot think’. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
LS, good call. I’d forgotten about that. I was merely following an instruction from one of my readers to write to the Daily Mail!
Shaun, hard to disagree with that assessment. The Daily Mail doesn’t appear to want their readers to dig beneath the headlines, and some of the readers are happy to oblige.
‘Honestly, you aren’t my cup of tea when it comes to the media, but I concede that sometimes it is hard to resist your irritation at issues such as political correctness.’
Sums it up nicely, LFAT.
However, I can’t help thinking that we’ve become a society that spends a lot of it’s time finding reasons to be offended and that is reflected in such papers.
Historically there have always been Murdoch style press barons.
Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail was described by Lord Salisbury as “written by office boys for office boys.”
Harmsworth became Lord Northcliffe
Lloyd George offered Lord Northcliffe a post in his cabinet, but Northcliffe declined and was appointed Director for Propaganda. Such was Northcliffe’s influence on propaganda over the Germans in WWI, German battleships were sent to shell his house in an attempt to assassinate him.
Excellent stuff.
I’m a Mail reader for three reasons- 1) I enjoy a laugh at the disproportionate outrage at events I couldn’t care less about, 2) the writing of Quentin Letts and 3) Littlejohn’s ability to make me wholeheartedly agree and vehemently disagree with him in one paragraph of his writing.
I occasionally go for a Telegraph if I have a long journey ahead of me, but the Mail seems to be the best of a bad bunch, especially up here in Scotland where the political scenery is slightly different. Up here it seems you’re either “Nat or Not”.
Brilliant post. An excellent summation of why I don’t read any papers.
Good post. The dire state of journalism is something that bothers me considerably – particularly the absence of a truly conservative newspaper. Objective reporting went out of the window a long time ago – but I believe this was a response to TV news reporting.
In defence of the Daily Mail (which I believe is no worse or better than any other paper) all journalism tries to tell readers/viewers what to think. This can be seen particularly on the 24 hour TV news stations which almost always report a story then bring in the resident “expert” to tell us what it means. Of course, what they are actually telling us is what they THINK it means – in other words, just an opinion.
On top of that, proper investigative journalism tends to revolve around the trivial – particularly sexual shenanigans.
People forget that the Profumo scandal was not so much about the fact that Profumo was having an extra-marital affair – it was the fact that the woman he was sleeping with was also sleeping with a Soviet naval attache and Profumo was the secretay of state for war!
The last decent piece of investigative journalism I can recall was when Cherie Blair engaged a well known fraudster to help her buy some flats – but for some reason (which I don’t understand) this was roundly criticised. For me, that is what journalists should be doing – there was the wife of the PM putting herself in a position which could, potentially compromise the national interest.
FLS, that comes back to the question of whether newspapers set the tone or react to it – the subject of a future post, no doubt….
Bill, I can’t see anyone shelling the Daily Mail anytime soon – but it provides an interesting mental image.
GK, thanks for the insight from north of the border. I have to admit that Scottish and Welsh newspapers are well outside my (limited) areas of expertise!
BE, you’re not the only one…. I read them, but I sure as hell don’t buy them.
Stan, investigative journalism is indeed a shell of its former self. I’ve read some fascinating books on the Iraq war and terrorism, but bar international conflicts journalists rarely seem interested in scratching beneath the surface anymore. Perhaps this reflects the 24-hour news culture?
“Brilliant post. An excellent summation of why I don’t read any papers. “
An excellent summation of why I read all of them. For freee, on the web..
Just can’t argue with that.
How I wish that the Specie were a daily organ. Time was when the Torygraph had the gravitas to be mistaken for the Daily Specie but no longer. These days the Torygraph is a tabloid in broadsheet clothing.
A few years ago there was rumour that Taki was thinking of investing in/starting a new Daily. That would have been something.
You have to hand it to the Mail for employing Letts; Littlejohn, Hastings; Oborne; and until very recently, the old bugger from upnorth whose name escapes me for the moment. However, like a chinese meal, one seems to finish reading it feeling vaguely unsatisfied. They’ve yet to find a replacement for Linda Lee-Potter more is the pity. Would that they would syndicate Mark Steyn, that would add a bit of body to their soy sauce. And, chuck in a weekly dose of Boris….I’m licking my lips at the thought.
The Times is a tabloid for people who wrongly think they’re a cut above Mail readers.
I myself read the Groan & the Independent. But I’m getting annoyed at the mindless pro-religion stance most of the columns & reviews state. I am not minded to pay for the outspewings of Madeleine Bunting, Terry Eagleton, & the various whingers about the recent “Does God Hate Women” etc.
This is why people who are of a secularist turn of mind are turning to the blogosphere.
“all journalism tries to tell readers/viewers what to think” This is the crux of the matter. When I started reading newspapers some 50 years ago, there were columnists who could argue several points of view to a mass readership who could follow the argument. People could then make up their own minds. 40 years of lefty education policies have put paid to that.
Hhaha.
I don’t know what you mean, mostly because I was educated in the 80s in a comprehensive and your argument uses words with too man sylla… cila… silab… er, letters for me to follow…
I must admit to reading the Daily Mail, but, I do read all the others too, as well as news from other sources from various countries. I like to get everyone´s viewpoint, do a little research in the things that interest me and then come up with my own opinion.
Saying that, I don´t buy any newspapers, I just read all the online stuff.. they´re expensive in Spain!
IMHO they’re all crap and I don’t read any of them… Frankly, I don’t want to encourage them.
I used to buy the DM religiously but now mostly read it online and then only cherry pick what I read. As some posters have mentioned, Littlejohn is still great as is Letts and I enjoy reading Tom Utley’s column. Oborne is also good. What really annoys me is the way they keep going at the police. I know the police make mistakes (who doesnt) but they go on and on about ‘Police fail to catch killer’; even though that could mean they failed to jail the killer 20 years ago on a shoplifting charge. And I am not kidding you!. They do this time and time again so that the armchair police officers can have a rant and a rave. Some of the reporting is good though.
[...] Letters From A Tory mentioned the headline on the front page of the print edition of that morning’s Daily Mail, which read A Sore Throat — 48 Hours Later Chloe Was Dead1. Clearly, in typical Daily Mail [...]