How to complain about Jan Moir’s nasty article
Hello, and welcome to the latest unpleasantness from the Daily Mail!
First, here is the dirty little article in question which, if you haven’t already heard about, you surely will soon & lots. Clearly published to be hurtful and reactionary, and thus not at all deserving of any space.
The sad thing is that I fully expect this to have been printed in full knowledge of the hurt & offence it will cause, simply because it’ll stir up a media storm with the Mail at the centre. It’s all publicity. That shouldn’t, however, justify this sort of behaviour.
Second, and more importantly, here is the URL for the Press Complaints Commission
Thanks to @nikkib on Twitter, who was re-tweeted by @DerrenBrown, suggesting the Press Complaints Commission route, along with which parts of the Code Of Practise had been breached. You can read the Code of Practise in full here. (Or scroll down for edited highlights).
I know complaining like this takes up more time that clicking an “I hate this” box on a poll, but if you can be bothered, it’s a nice official route to take. I used the PCC to complain about that Dunblane article (yes, again the mail, again attention-seeking through emotional cruelty) some months back.
To their great credit, I received written confirmation of my complaint in the post, plus another letter detailing the action that had been taken by the PCC once a judgement had been reached. I was quite impressed. Also, the paper quality the letters were printed on was ever so good.
If you don’t want to look through the whole thing (attention spans are short in the digital age. I know, I myself have - ooh! Jingly jangly keys!)…
The sections you can argue have been breached would be 1,3,5 & 12, as follows:
1. Accuracy
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published.
iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.iv) A publication must report fairly and accurately the outcome of an action for defamation to which it has been a party, unless an agreedsettlement states otherwise, or an agreed statement is published.
” Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.”
Actually yes, they do, frequently. It’s not amazingly common, and it’s certainly not fair, but there are a number of conditions that can leap up on a 33 year old anyone without warning, and lead to their never waking up again.
“Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this.”
Yes. It is. It has been ruled so by a coroner. The article goes on to state that Gately died of fluid on the lungs, but seems to try and link it with smoking ONE joint the night before - I’d quite like a bit of clarity on what the link is supposed to be there.
3 *Privacy
i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s private life without consent.
ii) It is unacceptable to photograph individuals in a private place without their consent.
Note - Private places are public or private property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
(*There may be exceptions to the clauses marked * where they can be demonstrated to be in the public interest.
1. The public interest includes, but is not confined to: i) Detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety. ii) Protecting public health and safety. iii) Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation.)
Although I suspect Moir likes to imagine she’s detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety, I really think she’d need to, you know, make a valid argument or something like that to prove it.
Complaining about a breach of privacy in this article may be a bit tenuous, as I’m assuming all the information Moir uses has been given out by representatives of the family. However, I’m not entirely sure taking “a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment” is relevant to the article. Use your own judgement as to whether you think privacy has been breached or not on this one - there are family references, but, like I said, I doubt it’s any more than has been released as an official statement.
Further thoughts as to privacy breach are are welcome.
5. Intrusion into grief or shock
i) In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. This should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings, such as inquests.
*ii) When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used.
I think we can safely say that, yes, the former has indeed been thoroughly disregarded. The purpose of this article is basically to imply that a lifestyle inferred only by his sexuality is responsible for his death. It questions the validity of a family heart complaint in favour of basically claiming that He Brought It On Himself. It’s not fair and, more importantly, its an accusation made entirely without any factual basis.
The grieving family of a young man who has simply died doesn’t deserve to have strangers writing in newspapers that it was his own fault for being gay, celebrity or not.
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.
ii) Details of an individual’s race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.
Breaches of this by the shameless bucketful.
Bizarre implication that one natural death and one unrelated suicide call into question the validity of Civil Partnerships? Um…I’m sorry, what? Dear lord - the heterosexual community must be desperately trying to think up ways to save the civil partnerships of straight couples after the slur that Elizabeth Taylor’s many marriages, and Britney’s terrible wedding disasters have brought upon them!
“Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.
Of course, in many cases this may be true.”
Ahh, see how she covers her back, there? ‘In many cases this may be true’. There is a natural ‘but’ that follows that sentence, and I don’t like the implication of it at all.
As a side note, what on earth is wrong with being ‘like George Michael’? Is he now the standard Evil Gay we turn to as comparison? He’s made mistakes, and been caught doing a few typical Dodgy Homosexual Acts but, you know, I don’t think he’s actually raped or murdered anyone. Not even once. Also, he’s been really successful in his chosen career, which has had several tricky moments yet still survived.
How much does a gay man have to be ‘like George Michael’? Will just having the stubble do, or does the wardrobe have to match as well? What about for us gay ladies? For that matter, what about straight guys who have a fumble with a girl in a nightclub toilets & never see them again? Isn’t that quite a lot like George Michael, too? I’m so confused…
Presumably being Like George Michael is cottaging, and that’s all. I’m willing to bet that very few groom speeches at a same-sex marriage begin with “People often ask us how we met. Well, haha, you’ll laugh at this…I was in a public toilet, pretending to have a wee…”
The entirety of this article is some bizarre gay-bashing piece, using the gay=clubbing-in-small-shiny-pants line of reasoning. How very early-80’s.
“For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.”
Before, like me, you become hopelessly enchanted by the thought of a sexy beetle, twinkling its way through the night under its stunning bejewelled carapace, let me be the first to say “Um, what…?”.
I am genuinely at a loss as to what oozey (I’m imagining it a nice purple colour, and pearlescent, to match the sparkly carapace) lifestyle Moir is talking about here. I just read a journalist desperately trying to make having a joint and going home with a mate after a night out sound like a despotic orgy. Please show me the dangerous lifestyle. Their Bulgarian friend wasn’t even a hip young rent boy - he was 25. And a friend (I really don’t think the Mail would use the word ‘friend’ if they could get away with something more scandalous sounding).
Please, if I’ve written anything here that you feel should be corrected, let me know. I mean, you know, corrected properly, not just because you’re angry and there’s a comment box there.
I’m as vulnerable to kneejerk askancity as anyone when it comes to what I see as hurtful reporting for the sake of hurtful reporting, and so may have sounded a bit bandwaggony in places. In which case, I apologise.
The last thing I want to do is turn Being Gay into the next untouchable status (no - don’t criticise them! They’re gay!). There’s nothing wrong with mentioning someone’s sexuality in an article if it’s relevant, but… it wasn’t. Worse than that, the way it was mentioned was only to imply that a certain type of behaviour is intrinsic to homosexuality (how very victorian).
This was a mean thing to write, in a format that Moir knew would be widely read by a lot of people who are quite capable of being cruel on their own without a mainstream paper making it appear acceptable.
And so I shall end my extended ramble (frankly, I’m a bit surprised you’re still here. Go on, prove it by tweeting “EXCELSIORRR!” to me - @lauriepink - I’ll reward you with a custom drawing on my flickr that you can print out and keep).
I’m going to have a cup of tea. I hope my depraved homosexual lifestyle doesn’t lead to it accidentally killing me. Then again, no one will be surprised if it does, so at least that’ll ease the shock for my close friends and family.
Below is my unicorn chaser: piece of toast riding its magical rainbow rabbit. It is thinking of good things, like marshmallows that make you healthy & sleepy kittens playing on big squishy cushions.
Also, read Why There Is Nothing Natural About Jan Moir’s Face.
And this one, with some nice comebacks in it: Why There Is Nothing Natural About The Life of Jan Moir
