Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

More Express awfulness

Look, I know a lot of decent human beings work for the Express. I don't blame you if you're one of them. I imagine you joined the paper when it might have had a thread of respectability left; when it was something more than a hopeless hate machine attacking immigrants and Muslims (but never Jewish immigrants, curiously enough), perpetuating bonkers conspiracy theories about Princess Diana and, latterly, talking utter shit about Madeleine McCann's disappearance. I know there are journalists at Express Newspapers who took a stand against a disgraceful article proposed for the Daily Star slurring British Muslims and saying 'what Britain would be like under Sharia Law'. But no-one can pretend any more that they think things might change, or that the Express might mellow its stance; if anything, it is getting more and more extreme as it desperately tries to cling on to its remaining readers.

The Express recently had a sick-making advertising campaign where it said 'We stand for X, Y and Z' - you know, family values, good clean fun, nice things, furry kittens, being decent and lovely. But we all know the truth now. And I have to say, once again, that if you work for the Express, you cannot ignore what this newspaper really stands for: lying about immigrants; attacking Muslims; hounding ordinary people when they have not even commmitted crimes, or when they have committed crimes and served their sentence.

Monday's front page has got the lot. Obsolete has done the business on this one before I got there, by the way.

Let's start with MIGRANTS SEND OUR CRIME RATE SOARING. I'll try not to get as worked up with this purulent corpse of a story as I did with 'You lying dirty stinking fuckwitted Express cunts', but it won't be easy. It's the same shit of course, just a different day, just another set of statistics contorted to make migrants look bad and immigration, therefore, A Bad Thing.

The most interesting aspect for me is the use of 'us' and 'them' in the story. 'We' are, by definition, not migrants. 'They' are the ones who are sending 'our' crime rate soaring. 'They' aren't 'us'. They are alien to us. They aren't human beings, quite clearly; they are other, and they are hostile, and they are bad. It says two things about the Express: (1) They don't want migrants reading their paper; and (2) They assume that 'we' don't want to have anything to do with 'them'. As Obsolete points out, the actual 'us' in the headline is 'people in Kent', but never let that stop a bit of wog-bashing.

Next, Maddieballs vol 2,983,104. Look at the cack-handed way in which the blurb's been written. Anyone who's ever worked in a newspaper will tell you that awful moment when the editor says: "Right, I want it to say this". And even though 'this' doesn't actually make sense, 'this' is what gets printed. Usually this sort of thing happens because the editor is surrounded by fawning brown-noser careerists or doesn't ask for opinions, but instead demands what should go in the paper, and woe betide anyone who might say they've got something wrong. I can't obviously speak for what happens in Expressland, as thankfully I'm never going to work there for a multitude of reasons - which is a good thing for everyone because I'd probably be tempted to chuck a grenade into morning conference for the sake of humanity. Anyway, I digress.

Let's just study the words for a moment.

MADELEINE. Amazing lookalike: 'I did not kidnap and kill her'

I'll try not to be naughty and say he looks nothing like Madeleine(!). Oops, I've said it. Smacked wrist for me. Anyway, they're talking about the fella who was fingered by the News of the Screws as looking a bit like the Dave Hill/George Harrison photofit that came from the Metodo 3/Clarence Mitchell box of tricks a week ago. See The Maddie hokey-cokey and The Maddie hokey-cokey II for more. But since the chap in question says he's never been to Praia de Luz, and no-one has a single scrap of evidence to prove anything to the contrary, that should be the end of the story, and not worth a front-page blurb, shouldn't it? No, it shouldn't. Obviously not. We have to go through the same fucking pantomime every day. NEW SUSPECT! NEW WITNESS! New crock of shit dreamt up by the McCann PR machine to deflect suspicions from the strongest suspects in the case, I'd say.

And who says: 'I didn't kidnap and kill her'? Anyone you know? Wouldn't you say 'I didn't kidnap or kill her'? So what's the implication of that 'and'...? That she was kidnapped and killed. No question about it. No debate, despite the lack of evidence. Case closed! The Express have solved it! Or rather, they haven't. I almost get the feeling that if Madeleine McCann walked into the Express offices tomorrow morning, there'd be a groan of disappointment rather than a sigh of relief or an expression of joy. It'd be: "There goes our golden goose".

So, a couple of candidates for 'worst thing on an Express front page ever', but the title goes to the atrocity aimed at Maxine Carr. SOHAM OUTRAGE OVER MAXINE CARR'S BABY. And the story itself is, if anything, even worse.

Maxine Carr, as I remember it, lied to protect her boyfriend. That is her only crime. She didn't kill the kids. There's no evidence she knew Huntley had killed the kids. So how does the Express treat her?

MAXINE Carr, the woman who lied to protect her Soham child killer lover Ian Huntley, is expecting a baby.

Didn't know he was a child killer at the time. Police have never said she knew. No-one's ever said she knew. Except tabloid scum.

Carr, now 30 and living under a secret identity with a new boyfriend, has told friends she is two-and-a-half months pregnant.

Do you know a woman who's just told you she is two-and-a-half months pregnant? Does she look a bit like this photo we've dredged up of Maxine Carr?

She is said to be 'excited',

A pregnant woman, excited. Whatever next? You mean because she committed a crime a few years ago, she's actually entitled to bear children? BAN IT! IT'S A DISGRACE!

but agonising over how to keep her involvement in the Soham killings hidden and has vowed never to tell her child who she really is.

Again, she lied to protect Huntley. Didn't kill the kids; no evidence she knew; nothing linking her to the crime.

'Vowed never to tell her child who she really is'. What? I think it'll be fairly fucking obvious, i.e. mummy. But I wonder why she might never reveal she's Maxine Carr... because of cunts like the Express stirring up hatred against someone who merely lied for their partner and has served jail time for the criminal offence they committed?

Last night the news sent shockwaves through the Cambridgeshire village where Ian Huntley murdered 10-year-old friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the summer of 2002.

One said it was disgraceful that the taxpayer was subisiding Carr’s lifestyle, adding: “It’s outrageous that this woman keeps demanding money from ordinary people. Has she no shame for what she did?”

'Last night the fact that we fucked around in Soham sent shockwaves through the village pub where our hack turned up trying to stir some shit.' And is Carr really demanding money from ordinary people - or would she rather just get on with her life as an ordinary person? And if so, whose fault is it that she can't?

Her actions delayed his arrest for a fortnight, adding to the distress for Holly and Jessica’s families. She posed as somebody trying to help to find the girls – all the time knowing that he had already killed them.

Bullshit. She didn't. Or if she did, prove it Mr Clever Express Man. What's that, you can't? Oh well, just put it in the copy anyway... doesn't matter if we lie about Maxine Carr, does it? She's one of 'them', just like the migrants.

Another insider said: “The child will get the same protection as Carr for life, and we will all be paying for it.

“If she has another six we’ll be coughing-up to hide them, too. It’s not the kid’s fault but it’s still a disgrace.”

I'll stick my neck out here and say this is made-up shit. The sort of thing the Express hack had tried to get someone to say: "So would you say that the child will get the same protection as Carr and we'll all be paying for it...?" - but failed. So just pretended some 'insider' said. What fucking 'insider'? Inside of where?

The most hated woman in Britain reportedly had a miscarriage in summer 2006, when she was at the same stage of pregnancy that she is now.

I think there are others vying for that title, but let's not get bogged down. Calling her that is simply appalling. Is she really? I don't think so at all. Take a bow, Chris Riches. Even for the Express - a poison-filled rag of lies and prejudice - you've managed to be hateful, vile, disgusting and deceitful in one article to an extent I have rarely seen. I'm sure you're very proud of yourself, but you should know that every single word of shit you wrote in that story chips away at the integrity of journalism in this country. It is sick and twisted garbage that should be nowhere near a national newspaper.

In other countries, journalists fight to tell the truth; in this country, they are paid to tell lies. It is sometimes said we get the newspapers we deserve. But seriously, what the hell have we done to deserve this?

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