18/12/2010

Mid-Market tabloids ban religion

Critics reacted with fury as popular newspapers that like to think of themselves as better than red-top tabloids airbrushed Christ out of Christmas in recent days.

In several headlines, the Daily Express and Daily Mail BANNED the word 'Christmas' and replaced it with the more 'inclusive' words, 'festive' and 'seasonal'.

The Express even went as far as including one politically correct term on its December 13 FRONT PAGE with the headline, 'OUR £6BN FESTIVE SHOPPING BONANZA', and has replaced 'Christmas' THREE TIMES in the last two days in 'LOTTO PLANS 25 FESTIVE MILLIONAIRES', 'SCOTS IN LATE STAMPEDE FOR FESTIVE HOLIDAY SUN' and 'SIX OF THE BEST FESTIVE DRINKS'.



In the last few days, the Mail has published a number of stories with headlines such as 'Festive cheer...without the hangover', 'Not got that festive feline yet? Try these animal crackers!' and 'Seasonal cheers! 1 in 5 workers drink so much at the office party they 'call in sick the next day'.

Critics claim the switch to the more inclusive terms are evidence of political correctness at work and are a further example of how metropolitan liberals are attempting to downgrade Christmas for fear of offending Muslims.

"It's ridiculous," some Bishop or other might have said if we'd spoken to any, "this is yet another example of the trend of stripping the religion out of Christian festivals."

If we'd spoken to him, Stephen Green of Christian Voice may well have said, "the situation is caused by editors subscribing to political correctness and the idea that in some way the word 'Christmas' is offensive to other religions. This is simply not true."

Five Chinese Crackers was not contacted by a reader who said they were disgusted, and they bet the papers didn't rename Ramadan or Eid or that other Muslim one, Diwali.

A spokesman for one of the two sillypapers would probably have said something like, "We haven't banned the word 'Christmas', we've used it several times in other stories and even in the same ones you've mentioned, below the headline. The Express even used the word in the front page headline the very day after the headline you mention. There are other words you can use to describe Christmas you know. Sometimes people want to describe the wider season, or just want a bit of variety in their language now and again. Honestly, this is all a fuss about nothing."

3 comments:

Daz said...

Perfect!

Kate said...

Oh, that's just poetry.

Luke Temple said...

haha, ace. Though, where are they TaxPayer's Alliance?!