Daily Express & Daily Star racism: It’s not going to stop
It's not going to stop, but that doesn't mean that it's pointless to be angered by it; or that there's no reason to try and stop it.
It's been going on for some time, as 5cc chronicles today, this pandering to racists, this out-and-out fearmongering about the scale and impact of immigration, this filthy stain on an already tarnished profession of journalism. And it's going to carry on. It's not just one accidental putting of the wrong word in a headline box, or a few mealy-mouthed liberals getting their knickers in a twist over some transgression of the arbitrary lines of political correctness; this is a deliberate policy*.
There's no way that by expressing our anger at the Daily Express and the Daily Star, or by correcting the falsehoods when they appear, or by declaring that we don't want to have anything to do with this kind of lowest-of-the-low reporting, that we're going to change anything. This is the policy. The people who run these businesses believe their readers want to be fed a diet that appeals to racists. They may well be right, but that doesn't make it the truth. And it's not going to stop.
But still, you have to try. We have to try. I'm assuming here that you think racism is a bad thing, and that newspapers misrepresenting minorities to pander to people's very lowest dregs of humanity is not a good idea. I may be wrong, but I like to hope that I am right; without hope, there is nothing. And so while it's unlikely that any of us, individually or even collectively, can stop any of this disgraceful excuse for journalism from appearing on our news-stands, or from making millions of pounds from it, there's everything to hope for.
Today's Express is at it again, of course. Of course it is. After yesterday's atrocity using the archaic racial slur 'ethnics' in a headline - with an accompanying editorial complaining about ethnic minorities being 'over-represented' in professions and linking crime with immigration, while also saying that people who said that Britons were being taken over in the 1960s and 1970s were wrongly labelled as racists - and last week's abomination saying NOW ASYLUM IF YOU'RE GAY - backed up by the memorable NO ROOM FOR GAYS headline in the Star - comes today's little effort.
Is there really 'mounting pressure' for Britain to ban the burkha? I suppose it depends on what you call 'mounting pressure', really. If you think 'mounting pressure' is 'a significant and growing number of people demanding something', then probably not. If you think 'mounting pressure' is 'some rentagob Tory zealot wanting to make a name for himself', then yes, it certainly is. You have to see the front page in the context of the others; it's the policy, it's the pattern, and it's not going to stop.
But that doesn't mean anyone should stop bothering about it. Easy to dismiss the Express and Star as just a couple of nutters shouting in the precinct; but they're 20% Britain's daily newspapers. In the same style as yesterday's Express front page, you could say ONE IN FIVE NEWSPAPERS IS RACIST GARBAGE - but then that would ignore the similar stories being churned out, albeit with a half-ounce more of subtlety, by the Daily Mail and the Sun, and even the Telegraph. It's probably more than 20% of newspapers that happily trot out this vileness on a fairly regular basis, if truth be told.
It's a big and influential target to try and attack, then. And it's not going to happen overnight. We're never going to knock Richard Desmond out of the park in one hit, or smash his polished desk of oak, or stop his boring dirty joke and make him yell. But that doesn't mean it's not worth fighting back. Will targeting advertisers make a difference? It's hard to tell, but Glenn Beck staggers on in the US as brands desert him. Will targeting readers work? It's hard to win the hearts and minds of racists; but there are plenty of people, no doubt, who pick up the Express or Star because it's what they've always done - or because they're cheap - and don't necessarily buy into the politics. There's still a chance for them, and it would be wrong to alienate them by calling them all racist scum - although some undoubtedly are.
But we are many, they are few. And we've got a long way to go before this kind of bilge is regarded as being unacceptable. I don't want to censor anyone; I just want this kind of thing to be seen for the naked racism it is, and for readers not to want to buy it. This isn't about freedom of expression; this is about some people's expression being seen as influential, and important, and somehow representing the truth, whereas in fact it's far from that. The more these newspapers are allowed to keep peddling this awfulness, the more eroded the image of journalism is as a whole, and the less credibility the real, decent, honest reporters have, purely by association.
And I think it's important for very simple reasons. I'm pleased I live in a multicultural society, where people from different backgrounds, beliefs and nationalities can exist together. I feel almost apologetic about saying this kind of thing, as if it's somehow naff or cliched or will be scoffed at as being naivety of the highest order, but do you know what? It isn't. It really isn't. I don't care what the racists say, or do, or try to tell me is the truth; I know what I think, and I'm not going to be part of their lies. Now we're in a recession it's more important than ever that minorities aren't seen as scapegoats or parasites - it's very easy for them to be portrayed as such.
I have limited skills and I am afraid I am not very good at organising people, or things, or anything. All I able to do, as able as I am to do it, is to write about this stuff and to challenge it when I see it, and to call it out for what I believe it to be. It may make no difference at all; it may be a tiny drop in the ocean. But I can't just sit back and let it sit there unchallenged.
It's not going to stop, but sales of newspapers are declining - apart from the cut-price Daily Star, which is why it's important not to dismiss it as simply some kind of comic that no-one reads. People are getting their news from other places now, and they're more and more sceptical about the printed page. It's going to take time, and it's going to be a slow process. But anything that fights it is worth it. Don't ask whether it's worth it or not to try; just try. We may not get anywhere, but let's try.
* It could have been even more explicit. It was only staff standing up to their employers that saw the "Daily Fatwa" edition of the Star fail to make it into print, so we were spared the 'hilarious' sight of "What Britain would look like under Muslim rule".
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July 14th, 2010 - 13:23
Take out a full page advert in the paper. “Are you sick of the way the country is run?” etc.
Give it a very prominent URL – SickOfIt.com – for example. Make sure there’s a nice, generic page to back it up.
On the morning that the paper is printed, switch the URL so it points to a page which in simple terms points out the lies told by the paper.
Might be costly – but could work.
July 14th, 2010 - 14:06
Bravo.
July 14th, 2010 - 16:06
I said this yesterday, but will say it again today. The most densely populated country in the world, of those whose land area exceeds 500 square miles, is Bangladesh. Its population density is around four times that of “overcrowded, full up” Britain. Its population is 90% Muslim.
This week, the High Court in Bangladesh outlawed, without any furore or outcry, all religious punishments by fatwa, but you won’t see a single word about THAT in the Express or the Star, as it simnply does not fit with their “ALL MUSLIMS WANT TO KILL YOU” agenda.
July 14th, 2010 - 18:07
And, of course, when people bang on about how democracy and Islam don’t mix, they fail to mention places like Indonesia, the country with the largest muslim population of any. It may be an imperfect democracy (which ones are anything else?), but its mere existence (and that of other democratic states with musllim majority populations) is the sort of inconvenient fact that gets avoided, because it doesn’t fit the “they hate our way of life” narrative of many newspapers.
July 14th, 2010 - 19:35
England has been ‘full up’ since the seventies.
http://www.mediawise.org.uk/print.php?id=647
July 15th, 2010 - 19:17
Similarly, there was high-ranking cleric also a fatwa on terrorism a few years ago, in Pakistan. That didn’t make the news either.
July 14th, 2010 - 16:28
“Will targeting advertisers make a difference?”
They have no political allegiance to the papers, merely like the audiences they deliver. Boycotts do work, and (as the animal rights campaigns of recent years have amply demonstrated) the companies that connect to a target are often the weakest spot to hit. They have other contracts and no stake in the issue.
“Will targeting readers work?”
It wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Having worked in places where people read red tops, I’ve seen that the readership is often drastically at odds with the editorial line. People buy them as a breaktime comic rather than to be informed about the world. Throughout the 80s, the Sun had a huge Labour voting readership. So, pointing out to such people that their rag of choice has gone to far could pay off.
July 14th, 2010 - 19:15
If only the many of the newsagents who are owned by Muslims or even just Non-racists took a stance and said, nope, we’re not going to collaborate in something that promotes intolerance.
yeah, I know, freedom of the press and all that, but it’s not banning those papers, just refusing to sell them.
July 16th, 2010 - 10:32
I’m not quite sure how easy that is for some of them. I recall that it took a pretty long struggle for Hamdy’s newsagent in Stoke Newington to persuade WH Smith (in their distribution capacity) not to send him porn mags that he didn’t want to sell.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who runs a newsagent exactly how the dailies are supplied – do you get totally free choice, or do you get certain quantities, regardless of what you want? And in the latter case, what does your contract say with the distributor regarding sales?
I certainly would be supportive of local newsagents refusing to carry the Express while I prints racist rubbish, but I think it’s not quite as simple as the idea may sound. I certainly recall articles about The Sun in Liverpool which imply that it’s still in the newsagents there, even though no one actually wants to buy it.
July 14th, 2010 - 20:16
Direct action will work. If I can help I will. A ‘template’ email to be sent to advertisers etc will work as long as people tailor it slightly to make each message stand out.
Twitter campaigns, facebook campaigns – they work. I can help with that also.
I love Terrance’s idea by the way, it is bloody genius.
July 14th, 2010 - 21:43
In my limited understanding, France has a different set of cultutal/historical reasons for wanting to ban veils/headscarves — the old ideal of laicite for instance – so any tabloids saying Brits should follow French had better get to work calling for the banning of crosses in schools, &c.
July 14th, 2010 - 23:17
The “man” who owns these papers is called Richard Desmond who’s publishing empire contains such thought provoking titles like OK! magazine where they indulge in that weird cult of celeb stalking.
He also owns a tabloid so low grade called The Daily Star that it makes the New York Daily News read like a novel by Hemmingway as well as such enlightened porn magazine titles such as “Readers Wives” and “Pregnant Asian Babes”.
He did this back in 2004:
Which was during a feud with the owner of a rival right wing publication where he was trying to nail down the bigot vote, as well as happily regurgitating any Princess Diana conspiracy story fed to him by Mohammed Al Fayed.
The really ironic thing is that when the leader of the Facist BNP party was to aooear on UK tv his paper had the audacity to join in the condemnation forgetting that his papers are what they use say to their knuckle-dragging minions that the country is in whatever bad state it is due to immigrants.
July 15th, 2010 - 16:00
Has this type of reporting always been around or is it a new thing? I dont understand the reasons for these kind of lies. I was thinking of checking a tabloids front pages from two days each month all the way back to say, 1960, to see if there is a pattern emerging, or if racist bile has always been the norm….
July 15th, 2010 - 18:44
@Terence: your full page ad is going to cost about GBP 28,000 in The Sun. (I just happened to have looked at their rate-card recently). The rest of it’s easy.
Probably a better idea to work the Google search algorithms so that your site crops up in the first page of obvious search terms.
July 16th, 2010 - 10:12
Interesting.
I just looked and we do advertise in the Express (not surprisingly).
And Mail, Mirror, Sun & Star, all today.
Think I’m going to mention all this to someone senior…
July 16th, 2010 - 13:02
Good article, apart from this bit:
“Is there really ‘mounting pressure’ for Britain to ban the burkha? I suppose it depends on what you call ‘mounting pressure’, really. If you think ‘mounting pressure’ is ‘a significant and growing number of people demanding something’, then probably not. ”
Actually there might be more than a shred of truth to it:
http://pewglobal.org/2010/07/08/widespread-support-for-banning-full-islamic-veil-in-western-europe/
I found that survey via the New Statesman which is asking the fairly important question of *why* people feel so threatened by full-face coverage.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/07/religious-burqa-europe-social
There’s a delicious irony in the fact that on this issue, some of the rabid red-tops are on the same side as some of the radical feminists.
Personally, I think they scare people because you can never be sure it’s not a ninja under there.
July 16th, 2010 - 17:37
i think the real problem is that the readership don’t think about it as much as liberal bloggers.
probably a good thing really. maybe not though.
July 17th, 2010 - 11:37
“I’m pleased I live in a multicultural society, where people from different backgrounds, beliefs and nationalities can exist together. I feel almost apologetic about saying this kind of thing, as if it’s somehow naff or cliched or will be scoffed at as being naivety of the highest order, but do you know what? It isn’t. It really isn’t.”
I don’t have any great tactical insights into how to fight a racist press, but thought you should know that this passage cheered me up no end after that depressing assortment of headlines. Well said! We shouldn’t be afraid of standing up for multiculturalism – and nor should we shamed by the self-serving rubbish that only a ‘liberal elite’ support it.
Newspapers like the Express don’t just hurt minority groups – stirring up resentment on the basis of, essentially, lies – but their readers and supporters too. It’s not just that meaningless rage is bad for you, although of course it is, it’s that real (difficult, and complicated) solutions to society’s problems are ignored and passed over. It’s a travesty, and an utter waste of human talent. I am astonished that anyone who works for these newspapers is able to sleep at night.
July 23rd, 2010 - 17:27
So as of today, Richard Desmond owns Channel 5…this’ll be interesting. I mean, how does he propose to drag their standards any lower when they’re already the UK’s trashiest terrestrial station? Short of sacking all the newsreaders and drafting in replacements from his, ahem, other channels I don’t see how it’s even possible…
July 23rd, 2010 - 18:40
Daily Express owner Richard Desmond has just bought ‘five’ (Channel 5).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10746025
It started life as a channel famous for soft core porn and back to back documentaries about Hitler.
Is it about to turn into a channel famous for its soft core porn and back to back documentaries about how out of control immigration killed Diana?
A bad day for the British media.
February 9th, 2011 - 22:14
Ironic that Desmond(Jewish) is using the language of hate to attack other races akin in manner to Hitler’s propaganda.