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I hate the Mail because it encourages the worst in its audience. I have to believe that if the people that read it and I could reach a compromise if we weren't

I hate the Mail because it encourages the worst in its audience. I have to believe that if the people that read it and I could reach a compromise if we weren't being so polarized by their reading material. Being "greedy, cynical, childish and shallow, blaming others" are all vices at the end of the day (FYI despite the tone of my comment here, I'm actually not religious). I agree totally that Murdoch is worse, but I think the Mail does hold more sway in a vocal area of the population with political power. The fact that they never acknowledge their hypocrisy or the damage they do I think is also offensive on an intellectual level that the Sun et al never quite reach as they're so cartoon-like.

enko 13y ago
I agree with everything you wrote. But the problem is, what can anyone do to fix it? I mean it's easy to come up with a plan to "fix" Murdoch. Simply tighten media ownership rules, so that one family or organisation can't own more than a certain small percentage of media. And I take your point that the Sun is pretty clownish in the UK, but in Australia they're far more insidious. (¶) But how do you fix the Mail? They're like this perfect endgame of free press. There's no big conspiracy; they're simply the answer to the question: "what does the angry disenfranchised demographic want to read about?". And while I lament the means by which said class seeks to assuage its anger, I do sympathise that they have a lot to be angry about. All this is why I find it hard to wrestle with the question of the Mail. I want to hate them, but some part of me holds back, because I feel that's too close to simple class discrimination, and because I can't shake the feeling that they're the symptom, not the cause, of society's ills. (¶) Check out the Murdoch press's outrageous bias in the recent Australian election: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-telegraph-election-australia http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-t...

enko 13y ago

I agree with everything you wrote. But the problem is, what can anyone do to fix it? I mean it's easy to come up with a plan to "fix" Murdoch. Simply tighten media ownership rules, so that one family or organisation can't own more than a certain small percentage of media. And I take your point that the Sun is pretty clownish in the UK, but in Australia they're far more insidious. (¶) But how do you fix the Mail? They're like this perfect endgame of free press. There's no big conspiracy; they're simply the answer to the question: "what does the angry disenfranchised demographic want to read about?". And while I lament the means by which said class seeks to assuage its anger, I do sympathise that they have a lot to be angry about. All this is why I find it hard to wrestle with the question of the Mail. I want to hate them, but some part of me holds back, because I feel that's too close to simple class discrimination, and because I can't shake the feeling that they're the symptom, not the cause, of society's ills. (¶) Check out the Murdoch press's outrageous bias in the recent Australian election: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-telegraph-election-australia http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/daily-t...