03/11/2009

Are we the baddies?

A nice video for you. Words below the jump.


 I have a visitor who comes here from Associated Newspapers.  Hello, Associated Newspapers person.

Associated Newspapers person has been here to look at 'Who doctored the picture, the Mail or the BNP?' and 'Daily Mail comments and the milk of human kindness'.  The things I talked about in those posts either disappeared from the Mail website or got amended.  I don't flatter myself to think that this was because of me - plenty of other people mention this sort of thing too - it's  not likely to be my fault.

But I do have a question for Associated Newspapers person: do you ever have the same thought as David Mitchell there in that sketch?  I don't mean 'do you look at your SS hat and wonder about the skulls?' I'll leave the comparisons with Nazis to your commentators, whether they're saying liberals are fascists, binmen are nazis or all scientists are Josef Mengele.

What I mean is, do you ever reflect on the things you have to fix in your paper -  and some of the things you don't - and wonder, 'are we the baddies?'

Record complaints to the PCC for an article that seemed to suggest Stephen Gately died of gayness, having to amend an obviously doctored photo and caption that made the BNP leader look like a victim, approving publication of comments that express joy at a man suffocating to death and the desire for millions more to die.  Those are just a quick couple of examples from the last two or three weeks.

There are others that don't get changed - like moaning about black people being on television, worrying about the number of white people leaving the country, scaremongering about vaccines that can save the lives of many people or calling for the compulsory sterilisation of undesirables.*  Click the 'Mail' link at the top for more.  Or look at this post from Enemies of Reason.

Good guys just don't do that kind of stuff.  Aren't they a bit of a signal, like a skull and crossbones on a hat?

Just wondered, like.

*Thanks to Pete hague in the comments at the Daily Quail for that last one, which I added in after the original publication of this post because it was too good a one to leave out.

10 comments:

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Brilliant analogy, I often think that of those that are the 'baddies' can they not tell by the people they surround themselves with and the imagery they use that they are on the wrong side, so to speak?

PH said...

Hadn't seen the Black Friar Tuck article before. Fantastic quote:

"But the radical transformation has sparked fury among professors who believe the portrayal is historically inaccurate."

HA HA HA!!

Because Robin Hood productions are usually historically accurate - that's because we know so much about him!

Vicky said...

Good post, you'd think people would get a slight stab of guilt just once in a while.
And I'm sure they didn't find a single, respectable professor who felt anything like 'fury' at the Robin Hood issue, although some of the commenters were certainly frothing at the mouth.
Blogged about one of them, but I'm starting to wonder if there's really any point: http://violetta-crisis.livejournal.com/9573.html

God is a DJ said...

Yeah man, funny! Tell you what always does my head in ‘doh is that the red banner and hammer’n’ sickle of the extemey leftys has been the symbols for the worst human atrocities ever but it never seems to be dissed and vilified.

F*$! ‘nows how many mills they’ve done in, innit?

PH said...

Ah yes, of course. People who make observations about society that don't conform to the Daily Mail's view are not only like Hitler, but like equally evil tyrants Mao and Stalin too.

Just like all people who are left of centre, who all love Mao and Stalin and never criticise them. Apart from when we do, of course.

Ernie Goggins said...

It is a bit like when you were at school with someone called Dick, then when they get older they insist on being called Richard but it turns out they are more of a Dick than ever

PJ said...

The Black Friar Tuck article also says:

But for the latest instalment of the BBC show, producers have reinvented Friar Tuck - as a black marital arts expert.

Which is unusual for a monk.

Five Chinese Crackers said...

@ God is a DJ: That's either a great way to miss the point ir great satire. Great either way.

@ Ernie: And on that very night, going home and having an old man strike up a conversation who turns out to be a holocaust denier. True story.

@ Philippa: Depends on the kind of monk! It would also be unusual for a Friar to be in England during the reign of King Richard at all since there weren't any for another couple of hundred years. The surviving early ballads set the story much later (hence the friar), and much of what we're familiar with - King Richard, Maid Marian, Robin being Earl of Locksley - was added later. Something gets changed about Robin Hood virtually every time the story is told. I don't think it was the 'martial arts expert' bit the Mail was bothered about though.

Five Chinese Crackers said...

Hey Philippa.

My missus - who I may have mentioned is quite clever - has pointed out that I missed the main bloody point of your comment in my haste to show off that I read a book about Robin Hood once.

Marital arts indeed.

God is a DJ said...

Na man, I might not have done much school but I know whats what, cuz. What im saying is that yeah, dees symbols are bad, and the shit behind them is bad, no doubt man, fully, and course I see the joke in realsing it. Wot im saying is dat symbols dat have blooded much more r not seen in the same light of revulsion by the gen pop ‘n should be, man. Dees people still campaign under the banner of dees symbols and we got people on high in our gov that are past members, n I just thing that people should recognise the sheer bloodyness of their beliefs and where it ahs lead in da past, man.

That’s all. wots wrong with dat man?