Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Daily Mail caught out lying again & turning into your Dad

When I was growing up my father banned newspapers from our house. He said that they were all biased and we should get our news from the BBC TV at 9pm. He knew that the BBC (bless it) was not perfect but he was satisfied that they meant well and usually got their reporting right most of the time.

I disagreed and use to love reading newspapers. As a teenager I worked in a Newsagents and in the school holidays would try and read every paper in stock. I found it fascinating how different papers would report the same story. Over the years I have become more and more disenchanted with newspapers and have now pretty much stopped buying them.

The latest example of lies and smears published in the Daily Mail last week about Gordon Brown MP just beggars belief (see rare retraction above). You would have thought with the current phone hacking criminal trial and unease about the proposed press regulation charter they would have been just a little big careful about what they publish?

The broadsheets are better but not that much better.  Leaving aside the Sunday Times which I don't believe anything it says anymore. They all seem to be aimed at wealthy middle class elites who obsess over super expensive cars, Waitrose cooking ingredients and exotic holidays in the Seychelles. I exaggerate slightly to make my point and I do on occasions read something interesting and well written but I usually get bored reading them and end up throwing most of it away unread.

Provocative and opinionated stuff you can nowadays get very easily on the Internet. 

I will still read the local press and specialist weeklies but I find myself in yet another way, turning into a slightly updated version of my old Dad. I have decided not to buy daily or Sunday papers and rely on the BBC for my main news.  Now of course largely via their website and PC, tablet, laptop and smartphone.

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