He is said to have been drinking heavily for eight hours and may have choked on his own vomit after going to sleep on a sofa at his apartment.

That made me swoon: partly because I thought I should be able to expect better of Pink News; but also because it’s a vile way to remember a hero of so many people. Even now I’ve not been able to get that image out of my head, and it turns out to be complete tosh.

Did you also report Pink News to the PCC while you were at it, Sister Mary C. (et al) ?

Thank you for sending us your complaint about the Daily Mail article on the subject of the death of Stephen Gately. We have received numerous complaints about this matter.
I should first make clear that the Commission generally requires the involvement of directly affected parties before it can begin an investigation into an article. On this occasion, it may be a matter for the family of Mr Gately to raise a complaint about how his death has been treated by the Daily Mail. I can inform you that we have made ourselves available to the family and Mr Gately’s bandmates, in order that they can use our services if they wish.
We require the direct involvement of affected parties because the PCC process can have a public outcome and it would be discourteous for the Commission to publish information relating to individuals without their knowledge or consent. Indeed, doing so might unwittingly add to any intrusion. Additionally, one of the PCC’s roles is dispute resolution, and we would need contact with the affected party in order to determine what would be an acceptable means of settling a complaint.
On initial examination, it would appear that you are, therefore, a third party to the complaint, and wemay not be able to pursue your concerns further. However, if you feel that your complaint touches on claims that do not relate directly to Mr Gately or his family, please let us know, making clear how they raise a breach of the Code of Practice. If you feel that the Commission should waive its third party rules, please make clear why you believe this.

So, as we are not ‘directly involved parties’, what other avenues of complaint would you suggest?

…or words to that effect; I cannot be ars’d to find the exact lines and cut and paste.

I buy a newspaper for news, Ms Moir, strange as that may be.
I don’t buy a paper for someone else’s idea of what MIGHT have happened; I could write that myself and save the 50 pence and come up with a point as valid, or not, as yours, since neither of us was there at the time of his early demise.
The DAILY MAIL has for a long time deteriorated into just another loo-roll; I haven’t bought it for yonks.

I shan’t for yonk to come.

Keith.

http://www.pcc.org.uk/complaints/process.html

Link to the article (which must be provided:
http://www.pcc.org.uk/complaints/process.html

The sections of the journalists code of conduct which this article breaches:

1.1 – “1 Accuracy i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.

12.1 “12 Discrimination i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability. ”

Section 5.1 does not really apply as that relates to intrusion into personal grief or shock so that doesn’t apply unless you were related to Stephen Gately or Andrew Cowles.

How sick is she!

Of course, until today no one has ever heard of Jan Moir until today. She has knowingly caused controversy as device to promote herself.

Her sty mate Melanie Phillips does it all the time.

All the best.

I don’t think you remotely have to canonise Steephen Gately to feel that it is deeply offensive to publish these prurient speculations, before his funeral, quite apart from using them to spread insinuations about all gay relationships.

If any eveidence turns out that his behaviour had anything to do with his tragic early death then, by all means, people should learn the lessons and avoid that, but for the moment that’s tasteless speculation mixed in The Mail’s case with an almost masturbatory salivating.

She is rightly getting a roasting.

To compare that to book burning is ludicrous.

Well that the only truthful words that have come from her vile mouth today ‘there is a internet campaign being set up against her’ yes love there is.

Lee

Reminds me of a line I once heard – “By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” – Adolf Hitler, Berlin, 1938.

Lee

ARE we waiting for any further evidence? The post mortem concluded natural causes. The rest is just tabloid gossip. There is no ‘egg on our faces’. At the worst, Stephen did no more than any other young male, including all the hetero ones who go over there in packs, does on holiday in Spanish resorts – had a few drinks with the boys. That’s all anyone can say against him.

Still, her new-money middle-class snobbery and superficiality is much preferable to her ignorant and unpleasant political views. Consider such gems as why the government should consider forced birth control, sterilisation or imprisonment of ‘unfit mothers’ (whoever they are; I would say a bigoted mother causes great deal of harm to their children); apologising for comedians who make racist jokes or why women are to blame for sexism in the workplace. The joy of the Daily Mail…

Yet today’s thinly veiled homophobic attack on Stephen Gately is disgraceful. Jan’s article is based on crude stereotypes of gay men that we have too much uncontrolled sex, take drugs and cannot hold down relationships (I quote: “…under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.”).

This article would be more at home in the 1980s when homophobic press hysteria about AIDS was all the rage and gay men and lesbians took the brunt of the violence it provoked; attacked on the streets, sacked from their jobs and failed by a Conservative Government that sat on its hands as thousands of gay men died.

This article does great disrespect to the memory of Stephen Gately. Jan Moir should immediately apologize and the Daily Mail should sack the editor that allowed her to publish this hateful drivel.