Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Get out as early as you can

So, 80 jobs are being axed at Express newspapers. So workers there face a stark choice: stay and enjoy the new 'Woodwing' system of journalism, or get out into an uncertain world where journalists are being thrown on the scrapheap all the time, but at least with a little bit of cash to try and start afresh.

Get out. You have to get out. If you want to leave with any dignity at all, go now. The Express has been a disastrous comic for years - witness yesterday's abysmal front page, truly one of the worst things in the world ever, though maybe the news of redundancy meant people weren't trying their hardest I guess.

But it goes beyond that. The Express has had millions of pounds pumped into it by Richard Desmond. It could have become a viable alternative to the Mail, in terms of quality, entertainment and news - and who knows, perhaps an alternative, if not with differing political views necessarily, at least with greater journalistic integrity.

Instead, the Express embodies the very worst characteristics of the Mail. It's a caricature of everything that's bad, nasty, sniping and shameful. And it does everything worse, with less polish, with less flair: it's less good.

The Express may blame the 'credit crunch' for having to sack so many employees. Perhaps I may offer an alternative reason: by targeting Muslims, by lying about immigration, by seeking to be a newspaper for the far right, by pursuing a racist agenda, it has actually pissed off a lot more readers than it has gained. Perhaps people aren't really as racist and hateful as the Express had calculated. Perhaps 'middle England' isn't like that; I'd like to hope it isn't.

Whether that's the case or not, it's hard to have sympathy for the Express. Some of those journalists who will leave will be people who have put together lying front pages, knowing they are being deceitful, but doing it anyway. Some will be people who have concocted deliberately misleading stories about immigration and race, knowing they're not telling the full story, which goes against all their journalistic training.

Sadly, I imagine the people driving this poisonous, vile agenda will remain exactly where they are - the architects of the Express's shift to the far right will be unaffected by this 'credit crunch'. But when pointing the finger, those employees leaving shouldn't just blame the economy or 'Bungling Darling', as their own newspaper refers to the chancellor, but those at the Express who chose to alienate so many readers by chasing the racist pound.

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