At the Daily Mail, a daily bath of personalism—plus the truth about nonwhite crime
Corey N. writes:
A journalist, Anna Blundy, tells what it is like to write for the Daily Mail. I found it interesting. Here’s the beginning:
Anyone who has ever written a feature for the Daily Mail knows what it feels like. You only have to read the features pages to understand that something strange is going on — lots of first person pieces all written in the same style, with the same vocabulary, the same mawkish self-revelatory nature and bizarre turn of phrase. Who are these people who all write exactly alike, suffer bereavements, mental health problems, addictions and family troubles, wear brightly-coloured dresses and too much make-up?
Well, we are the unprincipled writers who will do almost anything for the money. The Mail is the only paper that still pays decent rates and so we email them, call them and go into the office to meet them, desperately hoping that our own first person trauma will take the commissioning editor’s fancy. I drink a lot! My dad died! I’ve had Botox!
The DM certainly does seem to have a very specific idea of what they think their audience wants.
LA replies:
Of course we already know that the Daily Mail is not a high quality newspaper, that’s it’s largely about sentimentalism, along with a huge number of photo-articles about “Jennifer shocks with her revealing outfit,” “Jessica gains a lot of weight,” “Whoever has a wardrobe malfunction,” aimed at their “Femail” readers. This überdumb material, aimed at a female readership with an inexhaustible taste for knowing who is the latest star to reveal “too much,” is the central feature of the Mail, running down the right side of every page of the website.
Its unique, indispensable value is that it is a prominent mainstream paper that publishes many, highly detailed articles about nonwhite and Muslim crime and other un-PC subjects, particularly in the U.S., that never get into any other mainstream venue whether in Britain or the U.S.. Evidently they do this, not through their own reporting, but by gathering everything available from the local media and putting it together. Whatever their motives for doing this (and I think they are largely pecuniary), it is a great public service.
Also, while there is a lot of sentimentalism and scantily clad actresses and stories about reality stars who are “single” again” (i.e., not divorced, but without a sleeping partner at the moment) the Daily Mail does not engage in the type of disgusting sexploitation which typifies the Murdoch-owned New York Post, and which led me to stop buying that paper some time ago.
- end of initial entry -
Alan M. writes:
For a while, my wife was emailing me me articles of both local and national significance that just aren’t covered much here in the US. It has become almost required reading for me now.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 09, 2012 12:01 PM | Send