Recently (yesterday) my friends and I decided we’d go to
Wimbledon: soak in the English atmosphere, eat strawberries, drink pimms,
sunbath and perhaps watch a bit of tennis. So we dutifully got up at half 5 to
begin our journey to ‘The Queue’, and yes it is signposted ‘The Queue’.
I haven’t added the definite article or the apostrophes or the capitalisation. It’s so well known it has officially required a legendary status.
I haven’t added the definite article or the apostrophes or the capitalisation. It’s so well known it has officially required a legendary status.
When we arrived at about 8 O’clock we were issued with our
queue cards –Number 07558. 7558 people were here before us! We started a long in
depth discussion about whether
we were actually going to get in –some of us were convinced capacity was 7,000 and we’d be there ‘till 5 –others (me) optimistically thought it was 15,000 and we’d be in before 1. Somehow we managed to make it in by 20 people (capacity was 7,000) but during the 5 and half hours we were queuing it got me thinking about newspapers.
Why, you may ask? Well recently I managed to persuade my
parents to stop buying the Daily Mail. It’s been a long campaign that started,
rather half-heartedly admittedly, when I was 14 and studying the Daily Mail’s
support of Oswald Mosely and fascism in the 1930s. Now that’s probably not a
fantastic reason to entirely dismiss a newspaper. 80 years is a long time but
luckily for me my assumptions appear to have been right all along. The Daily
Mail is to be avoided at all costs. It is biased, prejudiced, only half true
and designed to rouse anger and irritation. But ironically it makes me be all
of these things when reading it, talking about it and screaming angrily at it.
In Ireland your
political stance is signified by religion, in Scotland your football team, in
Wales – well you’re too small to matter (I love you Gemma). In England your newspaper is by far your biggest
giveaway in the supposed anonymity of voting. Daily Mail = bigoted
conservative, The Guardian = leftie and wannabe socialist. Each day we all
publicly declare our political loyalties to the world when we buy our
newspaper.
In ‘The Queue’ each newspaper had bored and tired looking
volunteers offering a copy, a picnic rug and an extra something for £3. If you
want The Observer you get flipflops and a waterbottle, if you want The
Telegraph you get a bar of galaxy chocolate and so on. If we take that to be
reflective then Observer readers enjoy the sports section and are practical,
readers of The Telegraph are more interested in pleasure and entertainment. Ok
so I may have taken my desire to analyse and find symbolism in everything an
insy bit too far but in buying that specific tartan with a red stripe in it for
a picnic rug, the World now knows I like chocolate.
Perhaps it is embarrassment at our political or supposed
political loyalties that really guides our purchase of newspapers. My mum for
example bought the Daily Mail for its crossword, my Dad for the sports section,
but neither would proudly admit to this. Although I loath the Daily Mail for
its bias and poorly written persuasive content it gives people the news that
they want. Yes that might be articles about the private lives of politicians
and celebrities, big pictures and a reason to be angry at the government. But it also gives me a way to laugh at my
friends snapped at Exeter University’s Safe Sex Ball or in the early hours of
Cambridge’s May Week, a way to feel self-righteous and superior to the rest of
society. I would never read this rubbish seriously but I’m still reading it.
The Mail Online is now the second most popular newspaper in
the world after The New York Times. I’m in the minority? Surely not? There must
be something I’m missing here, after all you don’t get that popular over
nothing. I have unfortunately had to come to terms with the fact the Daily Mail
is a good newspaper. It’s not a good work of literature, it’s not a good piece
of political propaganda, it’s not accurate but it’s a successful newspaper. Either
you love it, you really hate it, or you pretend to hate it but secretly love
laughing at all the silly people and condemning others to make yourself feel
better.
Perhaps what’s scary is how much influence it’s managed to
gain. Yes there will always be people condemning its style of writing and
getting angry at its repeated, hypocritical and inaccurate political points but
at the same time we’re talking about the issues it represents, whether or not
we’re agreeing with them. It raises important debates and for that I can’t
fault it.
Nonetheless, if I see one more grammatical mistake you’ll
find me in Kensington with a banner.
The success of the Daily Mail to me appears as a red flag calling for better education and a focus on critical thinking so that people are not taken in by the often spurious and hyperbolic articles.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the 3rd paragraph it should be 'why, you may ask?', you missed out the comma. My older brother and I are also trying to convince our dad to stop buying the Daily Mail BUT its honestly not all bad. The sports bit is really good, they do some really good essays and I must admit to enjoy reading Peter Hitchen's shamelessly right wing articles. Furthermore, my mum likes the women's fashion and health type bits. Having said that, I hate Liz Jones.
ReplyDeleteBetter education would be good but would it stop people reading the Daily Mail? I'd like to think so but I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for correcting my grammar Tom -the irony!
The trashy science articles rely on you being both ignorant of the topic and not willing to follow sources in order to convince you of the made up subject of the day. If critical inquiry as well as better basic science education was prevalent to a greater degree in society the facade would be more transparent to potential readers decreasing the amount of people who would take it seriously. Not to mention that more educated people of every academic persuasion are more socially liberal and thus more likely to be disgusted by the attitudes the Mail prints up.
ReplyDeleteIT IS THAT BAD, they have made transsexual teachers kill themselves and think prostitutes that got murdered were basically asking for it!
ReplyDelete