Teabags read papers that are racist and classist
Today the Mail had a piece about a vicar who's in a bit of trouble for including in the parish newsletter a line about how "there's a little nip in the air - which is what they said when the Japanese man was hung!" Oooh, I say.
The PC Police (read: people who are familiar with the modern world) are up in arms, and the Mail thinks this is all just quite dreadful. Political Correctness run amok, etc.
Which is what they would say.
Ah, but wait.
Over at the Mirror, they're having a field day with "the Snories." Yes it's party conference time, and in a move that may have been envisaged, the Mirror's not overly thrilled with the political bombs being dropped in Bournemouth. Again, fair enough.
Except that while the Mail and its ilk sells their special brand of thinly veiled racism, the Mirror can't seem to mention a single Tory without referring to him as a toff. "Toff." That's who's doing it to us. The toffs. The Tories aren't a group of people who have conceived of policies that the Mirror feels will be detrimental to the UK. They're, you know, a bit like that cunt down the bank. You know the one I'm talking about.
In a pub recently, somebody told me that the UK's not a class-distinction sort of place anymore. But apparently, nobody told that to the Mirror.
I don't like the Mail, the Mirror or the Tories. So really now, why am I going on about this? Well, maybe because for some damn reason, the opinions of the tabs are important in this country. The Volvo-driving, right-thinking "liberal" middle-class British masses would love to tell you that somebody like Robert Fisk's the most important print journalist on this piss-stained isle, but that's shit. Worse, it's denial. People may quote the right-on liberal broadsheets (or "qualities", whatever the fuck that is), but the daily sales figures tell a different story. So do the context clues involving which papers get queues of politicians who want to suck a little cock in exchange for a bit of support.
There is a fundamental denial of the fact that this is a tabloid nation which remains in the thrall of whichever print rag will pander to the various preconceived notions of diverse yet consistently dim readerships. Call the result entertaining. Call it combative. Call it interesting. Just don't call it journalism.
Today the Mail had a piece about a vicar who's in a bit of trouble for including in the parish newsletter a line about how "there's a little nip in the air - which is what they said when the Japanese man was hung!" Oooh, I say.
The PC Police (read: people who are familiar with the modern world) are up in arms, and the Mail thinks this is all just quite dreadful. Political Correctness run amok, etc.
Which is what they would say.
Ah, but wait.
Over at the Mirror, they're having a field day with "the Snories." Yes it's party conference time, and in a move that may have been envisaged, the Mirror's not overly thrilled with the political bombs being dropped in Bournemouth. Again, fair enough.
Except that while the Mail and its ilk sells their special brand of thinly veiled racism, the Mirror can't seem to mention a single Tory without referring to him as a toff. "Toff." That's who's doing it to us. The toffs. The Tories aren't a group of people who have conceived of policies that the Mirror feels will be detrimental to the UK. They're, you know, a bit like that cunt down the bank. You know the one I'm talking about.
In a pub recently, somebody told me that the UK's not a class-distinction sort of place anymore. But apparently, nobody told that to the Mirror.
I don't like the Mail, the Mirror or the Tories. So really now, why am I going on about this? Well, maybe because for some damn reason, the opinions of the tabs are important in this country. The Volvo-driving, right-thinking "liberal" middle-class British masses would love to tell you that somebody like Robert Fisk's the most important print journalist on this piss-stained isle, but that's shit. Worse, it's denial. People may quote the right-on liberal broadsheets (or "qualities", whatever the fuck that is), but the daily sales figures tell a different story. So do the context clues involving which papers get queues of politicians who want to suck a little cock in exchange for a bit of support.
There is a fundamental denial of the fact that this is a tabloid nation which remains in the thrall of whichever print rag will pander to the various preconceived notions of diverse yet consistently dim readerships. Call the result entertaining. Call it combative. Call it interesting. Just don't call it journalism.
posted by Frank de Sales at 11:00 PM
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