Comments on: 21,000 complaints over Jan Moir’s piece on gay singer Stephen Gately

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:28:34 +0000

I must admit, I am fed up with Jan now. Be glad to get back to slagging off the dirty old catholic bishops and cardinals again.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see graffiti that said, “Don’t **** *** ****”.

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:44:04 +0000

The Daily Heil in Ireland is just as hateful as the English Daily Heil on matters relating to immigration; ethnic minorities etc. However they are very sensitive to the (accurate) criticism that its management team was parachuted from London into Dublin to run the operation and is therefore completely out of step with Irish attitudes.

Ireland does not have a history of nationwide hate-press like the Daily Mail. The editors were well aware that if they had ran the Jan Moir piece that would have been curtains for the Irish Daily Heil as people would simply have stopped buying it.

By: Sister Mary Clarence

Sister Mary Clarence — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:20:17 +0000

In relation to teh Irish Mail, clearly they exercised editorial control that was woefully lacking in the main UK edition. Its a pity the editors here in London did not see fit to work to the same journalistic standards.

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:48:51 +0000

to complaints@pcc.org.uk
cc feedback@dailymail.co.uk
date Oct 20, 2009 1:46 PM
subject Jan Moir

Dear PCC

I hear you are investigating the article by Jan Moir in last Friday’s Daily Mail (where she seemed to blame Stephen Gately’s homosexuality for his death and contradicted the medical findings to engage in some verbal gaybashing.)

When can we expect a response from the PCC?

And what are the consequences that the Daily Mail may face?

Personally considering that Paul Dacre (editor of the Daily Mail) is also the chairman of the PCC’s Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, against whose code you will ultimately (supposedly) judge the Daily Mail; I am not convinced that the PCC has the necessary impartiality to conduct this investigation

There seems to be a clear conflict of interest.

What guarantees are you willing to give, to ensure that Dacre has no involvement in this investigation?

If no action is taken against the Daily Mail for their gratuitously offensive article the PCC will have proven itself unfit for purpose and I will be contacting government to lobby for indepedent regulation of the newspaper industry.

Yours sincerely

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:31:34 +0000

The Irish Daily Heil didn’t print Moir’s article on Friday as they guessed the response would have been even worse in Ireland. But the fact that they are basically saying she has nothing to do with the Irish Daily Heil operation is an indication of how bad this has been for The Heil in general.

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:25:34 +0000

The Irish Daily Mail publicly disowned Jan Moir today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/20/jan-moir-irish-daily-mail

It’s a PR stunt designed to hide the fact that the Irish Daily Mail is just a regional office of the English Daily Mail. It’s amusing nonetheless

By: Brian Burton

Brian Burton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:53:34 +0000

21,000 and counting I hope, with luck she’ll drown under the weight or the BBC may put her on the panel of ‘Question Time’ on thursday night along with the BNP panalist!!

By: JohnK

JohnK — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:12:55 +0000

21000 complaints . . . Roll on the “Sacrificial Lamb to the slaughter”

. . . This is the way of the world

By: dave

dave — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:53:00 +0000

The Daily Mail was running a concerted campaign against gay adoption earlier this year, but the PCC failed to do anything against the editor.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:27:06 +0000

Media Advisor to the BNP – your new job awaits Jan. Or you could write for their in-house members newsletter. At least you’d be CERTAIN of a sympathetic readership…

By: barry

barry — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:16:09 +0000

Something had to happen eventually as a result of the attitude towards minority groups as promulgated by this homophobic rag.
The woman wants sacking and the paper needs closing down.
Sorry – i’m not usually so vehement, but this whole charade is an absolute disgrace, and one of pop’s most popular young lads has had his reputation besmirched by this self-satisfied bigot.

By: Keith

Keith — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:34:07 +0000

Sooty used to say it at the end of his show (well his dad, Harry Corbett, used to.)

Jan Moir will be saying it, too, soon.

No, not IZZY WIZZY, LET’S GET BIZZY..
But…

“Bye bye everyone; bye bye..!”

Let’s hope so anyway.

By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:14:28 +0000

Now I wonder how this moron Moir would react if it were her son in Gately’s place. I can’t believe she would not feel offended let alone deeply hurt by the insinuations she made even though the medical evidence claimed that he died of natural causes. Moir seems to know more than the medical experts of course. What an idiot.

By: RobN

RobN — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:06:05 +0000

Tigra07: For many years, the Daily Telegraph used the term “gay”, one assumes to differentiate between homosexual and just plain happy. I think the word has since become an accepted word, so they’ve dropped the quote marks. Actually, I don’t know of anyone that uses the word in it’s original meaning, as it’s rather old-fashioned, along with ‘horrid’ and ‘spiffing’.

As for the scumbag-rag The Sun referring to “Boyfriends”, I think they may have a point. “Partner” is a horrible term, and “Husband” is a bit naff. I for one wouldn’t want to have a 50+ year old lover and refer to him as my boyfriend. (Even though many over-thirties gay men still refer to themselves as ‘boys’, ‘lads’ or even, God forbid, that abomination of a word, ‘bois’. (I always thought that was a forest in France).

By: J Carter

J Carter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:56:38 +0000

I want her sacked! Maybe she could go and write a column for that vile ‘God hates fags’ church. I’m sure they would welcome her with open arms.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:52:33 +0000

Her career at the Daily Mail is effectively over.

She can’t write a column now, it would have to be an entire page since none of the big advertiser would want to appear alongside. Mind you, I suppose the BNP would get a good discount now.

She has cooked her goose.

By: max

max — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:48:47 +0000

Simon comment 8; daily mail doesn,t sell 2mln copies, it is their distribution figure, but to attract more advertising they also distribute lots of free DM copies in places like hotels, airports etc. so its not like 2mln people choose to pay to read this so called paper,

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:10:27 +0000

“In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign”

The hypocrisy of that statement is blatant.

When the Jonathan Ross / Andrew Sachs scandal was unfolding it is worth remembering that only 5 complaints were made to Ofcom when the show aired.

It was only after the Daily Mail orchestrated the witch-hunt against Ross / Brand and the BBC did Ofcom go into meltdown with 38,000 complaints.

By: AndySam

AndySam — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:05 +0000

“In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign” – a rather strange ‘defence’ from someone in the mass media? Did this sad silly woman really think that such a pathetic article wouldn’t get a response? And perhaps she will enlighten us all by telling us who the orchestrator is?
This was nothing more than “keyboard masturbation” – a self-centred and self-gratifying exercise that produced absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
I wonder how Ms Moir would feel if people started to write articles about her based on the same type of innuendo, inaccurate assertions, judgemental opinions, … etc.

While utter scorn for her [and her newspaper and all of her ilk] is just all too easy – ultimately this sad, poisonous, pathetic creature is more to be pitied!

By: Codex

Codex — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:56:01 +0000

However she tries to defend herself the article was laced with venom, malice and spite. I was aghast when I read through it at my local branch of Smiths, Such insensitivity. It appears to be in the vein of other Mail columnists like Amanda Platell on Saturday whose brief is to be maliciously spiteful to all and sundry – well, those who the Mail does not approve of. How do these people live with themselves for being professional prostitutes of the pen? Utterly pernicious!