"the sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath"
Oh well, I guess the next step is going to have be for someone to take the old poison-pen welding pie-munching munter (if she can do it - so can I) to court for plain old libel. Sue her and the Daily Mail for damages. If the PCC had done their job properly - she would have got off lightly and just had to have to written a proper apology.
Just to point out - The Daily Mail is signed up to 'The Editors' Code of Practice'
Well, let's have a little run through it here:
1. Accuracy
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
[Oh where to begin - it'd be a shorter list to point out where Moir wasn't inaccurate, misleading and distorting information? Otherwise that's a description of her article from beginning to end really.]
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and - where appropriate - an apology published.
[Moir never published a follow up apology - merely a self-pitying self-justification for her obnoxious outpourings.]
Get out clause:
iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
[Mmmmmm. Can't help if she'd written something similarly inflammatory concerning race - or religion - she wouldn't have got off so lightly from the PCC. But then, the gays, along with the working class, single mothers and 'chavs' -oh and now bankers are among the few groups that's it's deemed ok for everyone to be nasty about. (Although bankers really do deserve to be pilloried.)]
| 3 | *Privacy |
i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications. |
[Intrusion into grief - and calling the circumstances of someone's death 'sleazy' -is showing respect is it?]
talking of which:
| 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. |
[oh, but she did say sorry to his family for the timing of her article a whole week later - so that's OK then. Get that - an apology for the timing but not for the contents. Classy.]
| 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. |
[Wow. Complete fail overload here.]
But the PCC thinks - that NONE of these points were breached. Not one.
Worse, they claim pretty much: - 'oh that Jan Moir - everyone knows what's she's like. Oh, and it was buried on page 37 - that section of the paper only the girlies read.' Which totally ignores the fact it was -and still is - up there on their website. Which also gives lie to their claim most of those people complaining had never read the article.
So. Now we see how self-regulation works. I think we can safely say bollocks to that - and get that abolished in favour of a properly wholly independent regulatory body - and definitely one that doesn't have the Editor of the Daily Mail sitting as a chair on the same Commission. Can you say 'conflict of interest'.
*Eyeroll*
'Mail' article on Stephen Gately cleared by PCC.
PCC ruling leaves press in the gutter.
Tatchell attacks PCC ruling on Jan Moir
Former Evening Standard theatre critic attacks newspaper's defence of Jan Moir.
Even the editor of Web user magazine has his say - pointing out the absurdity that while someone can get arrested and charged for just making a stupid joke on Twitter (I mentioned this only the other day) - Jan Moir gets off scott free with flaunting the Press's own Code of Practice.
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