Plagiarism shock!
Eagle-eyed reader Chris spotted this quote in a Mail story about computers in schools:
Fancy that! Widespread plagiarism. Outrageous. Which of course is entirely unadjacent to the practice of a certain media group, who when confronted by Just Do It about lifting Twitpics, snappily retorted:
Elliott Wagland, Pictures Editor for the Mail wrote back: "Unfortunately we cannot pay the amount you have requested, these images were taken from TwitPic and therefore placed in the public domain, also after consultation with Twitter they have always asked us to byline images by the username of the account holder.
Is it computers in schools that have led to 'widespread plagiarism'? Or are these kids just copying the Mail?
The hangover
Yesterday it was me who was hung over - a few too many beers while avoiding the election debate (and the 'arseoisie') while on a night out in Bristol. But a look at today's front pages makes me think it's our friends in the inky press who are hung over. The stories are lame, unappetising, bland. Dry white toast news. They overdid it a bit the other day in the Get Clegg frenzy, and now the dead-tree screamsheets are licking their wounds, nursing a headache and feeling pretty sorry for themselves.
So much has been said already about the astonishing events of Thursday. But read Tabloid Watch for a good summary, and this article by Kevin Marsh from the BBC College of Journalism, who compares and contrasts the tabloid frenzy with the built-in fairness rules of broadcast:
I am writing this after reading most of this morning's election press online and while watching party news conferences and interviews on live and continuous TV - I cannot reconcile the two.
They are glimpses of different universes.
I think the problem, the terrifying problem for the dead-tree press and the 'Murdochracy', is that this election has been electrified by the television debates in a way that no-one could see coming; the expectations were that smooth operator David Cameron would blow everyone away, but it hasn't quite worked out like that. So now the press are reduced to trying to tell you that what you saw on television wasn't what you saw: yesterday David Cameron's cheerleaders on the news-stands claimed he had clearly won the second debate, despite viewers not seeing it that way. Who do I believe, my own eyes, or what someone else is telling me I saw with my own eyes? Newspapers have been reduced to someone standing in front of you while you're watching a film or a football match, telling you what to think about it; all you want to do is shoo them out of the way - you can see for yourself.
Today, then, in the wake of all that, and seeing that a four-pronged attack on the Lib Dem leader failed to produce a significant dent to his popularity, the papers have crawled back into their kennels. The Daily Mail has written so much about Lib Dems recently that even their own readers are starting to wonder if he's the messiah; today they go back to an old classic, and a time-honoured bogeyman: the wheelie bin.
There is a 'Cameron in surge past Clegg' attempt on the right-hand side*, but largely this front page is about bins. Let's get panicked about teh evilz of recycling, and it's a shoddy shambles of a campaign that they've been cranking on about for an awfully long time (see 'Bin there done that', 'Oh fucking grow up' and 'It's wheelie bin a shit campaign' for the backstory). You could be forgiven for thinking, as this blogger did, that there are more important issues in the world than wheelie bins, but not if you're the Mail. When in doubt, go for the bins! If making Clegg the bogeyman didn't work, then bring back one you know and love: the horrors of having to sort out your rubbish and wheel bins out to the kerb! Wasn't it better when we had massive dustbins to lug around, or you could just chuck your bin bags all over the place and get them ripped up by foxes? Those were the days!
And, yet again, from the newspaper which criticised Clegg (in 2002) for saying that the British had some kind of obsession with the Second World War, is a massive advertisement for a Second World War 13-DVD set. Obsessed much?
The Telegraph, while talking about the election, is much more sombre.
Though it still can't resist a bit of a scare story about how a hung parliament will cost 'you' £5,000 (it won't, you'll be utterly unsurprised to hear). It's very downbeat though, almost waving the white flag for their chosen candidates. That massive front page the other day about a rather unexciting expenses story on Clegg which had been blown up and puffed up well beyond what it actually was seems such a long time ago already. This is more gloomy, reflective, still trying to scare you away from a Conservative overall majority, of course, but starting to wonder if that's really going to happen, preparing themselves and their readers for the possibility of Tory defeat, or at the very least a lack of Tory convincing success. Which for me makes the 'relax... it's going to be a beautiful day' all the more delightful a juxtaposition. But that is a long, long way away and I am sure that a lot of things may change.
The Express, meanwhile, have abandoned politics altogether and have gone for the ashpocalypse.
The trouble is, what are readers going to think about that front-page headline? Are they going to think: "Yesterday you told me that David Cameron had won the TV debate, when most people I'm talking to, even among Conservative Party supporters, think he didn't win it. So why am I meant to believe this stuff today?" - or are we meant to think that Express readers are credulous ninnies thinking "Oh, OK Mr Express, whatever you say!" - who knows.
The Sun, meanwhile, has turned its fire from Lib Dem to Labour. Having failed to sink the Clegg battleship, they're now trying to blow Gordon Brown out of the water. Oh, the irony, the irony, of the DON'T STOP DECEIVIN' headline, on the Sun of all places; the double irony of attacking someone else for printing lies; the triple irony of attacking someone for saying that printing lies is OK. Maybe it isn't a headline at all, but the Sun sub-editors misunderstood the memo they'd been sent.
It's the Mirror I feel for most in all of this really. They've had to try and convince their readers that Gordon Brown has been performing best in the TV debates, when even the staunchest of Labour supporters must have suspected that wasn't really the case. They've also got to try and reconcile the fact that their chosen candidate is being abandoned by many people on the political left for someone else. No wonder they can't be bothered to keep that pantomime going this weekend, preferring instead to tell you that, in a television programme, something will happen, and it will be on TV. Thank goodness for that exclusive! Of course, they could well be judging - accurately perhaps - that many readers are fed up with the election now, and simply want the vote to happen as soon as possible. Even so, you could have hoped there might have been some kind of news-style story to present, instead of a "Wuurghgghh, telly" effort. No...? No, apparently not. Sigh.
So are they running out of steam, or are we? Have they decided that we've made up our minds and there's no point in trying to influence us any more? Or are they redoubling their efforts for fresh salvoes to be launched in the direction of their opponents next week? I would imagine it's probably the latter - but the good news is I'm on holiday next week, and I intend to have no contact with newspapers, or television, or anything. Which makes me very lucky, and means you're going to have to suffer, I'm afraid.
* I don't think they're referring to the poll on their website which was pulled down when it showed Nick Clegg winning, then reinstated with a sudden and mysterious lead for David Cameron, but you never know.
Even Slovenians!
Even Slovenian women live longer!
Why might that be? A combination of highly complex lifestyle and environmental factors? Or is it the evil NHS killing our women?
Yeah, it's the Mail we're dealing with, so:
Experts said the difference can be put down to NHS failures to spot cancer and heart disease early enough - as well as the fact that the British diet is worse than in other countries.
But then of course, it's forgetting that some people in the rest of Europe are immortal:
Much of this is because, as the report shows, female heart attack and cancer victims are more likely to die than in most western European countries.
All right, cheap shot. But here comes that phrase 'experts' again:
Experts say the failings on cancer are down to the fact that patients and GPs are still failing to spot the signs quickly enough.
Although note the subtle shift: it's patients and GPs here, not just teh evilz of the Stalinist monstrosity of the NHS this time. Anyway, instead of a quote from 'experts', which you might be expecting given the use of the word twice, we have instead a quote from the Taxpayers Alliance, who are experts in nothing apart from manufactured outrage about whatever the Daily Mail wants them to be annoyed about:
Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said last night: 'It is shocking that England is falling behind other European countries - and even more that we are falling behind a country like Slovenia. We spend a vast amount on healthcare but we don't get the results that we should.
There is a quote from a real health expert underneath, but it's not what the Mail said the experts would be saying:
Professor Field said: 'This is good news for England - and even better news for Slovenia. Slovenia wasn't the poorest part of the old Yugoslavia, and the standard of living is excellent, so it is no surprise to me that it is doing very well.
'We have made progress on cutting deaths from cancer and heart disease, but we can do more.
'Britain might start to slip back if we don't do more to tackle young girls smoking, for example. We need to do more to diagnose cancer earlier, to persuade people to improve their diet by eating more fruit and veg, and alcohol is still causing societal problems.'
Is that really an expert blaming the NHS? Um, no. But I find the 'even the Slovenians' kind of language clumsy at best. There are all kinds of reasons why people are healthier and unhealthier between different countries, with different populations, different habits, different diets, and so on.
It's another one of those classic stories. Generally it's the 'sick man of Europe' story, which the Mail trotted out a couple of months ago, as now complaining about the billions spent on the NHS without recognising that any other factors might be involved - this time it's the 'sick woman'. Of course it may well be an ineffective NHS which could do better, and we shouldn't rule that out; it's just that there doesn't seem to be the evidence to prove what the Mail said was there.
* Or England, rather, in this instance.
Blooming cheek 2
In all that Maily Day excitement yesterday, one of my entries was about how the Mail reported the Government being censured about misleading climate change adverts.
This despite the fact that they'd been ticked off by the ASA themselves previously, regarding claims on the front page about 'free' bulbs which required readers to pay for postage and packaging. A story that didn't trouble the scorers in the Mail.
The ASA said back then:
"We considered the cost of postage and packing was a significant condition that could affect a consumer's decision to purchase the paper, and should therefore be stated on the cover. Because it was not, we concluded the ad was misleading."
Despite that, in the same paper in which they were reporting the Government's ASA upbraiding, they carried a new front-page plug for 'free' flowers... for which readers had to pay postage and packaging costs. That sounds almost exactly the same kind of thing that they got in trouble for last time, doesn't it?
And today...
I wonder if readers have to pay P&P costs this time? It's certainly not mentioned on the front page... ?
And I wonder if anyone will write to the ASA to complain about these ads?
Mail Day, part 13: The end
So, we did it. And there's a nicely completed feeling to it all, because the Mail, which bleated on so pathetically yesterday morning about putting rubbish in the wrong place, is now in exactly the right place: the recycling bin.
A £1,000 fine for chucking the Mail away? I should get a £1,000 reward. But it's been fun, these past 24 hours of scouring through the dead-tree edition. Monkey, as inscrutable as ever, will confirm that I definitely read it from cover to cover
and I can confirm that I didn't really tremendously enjoy it.
But what did we learn? Well, in part 1 we learned that the Mail keeps pursuing its rubbish agenda, while giving undue credence to people like the Taxpayers Alliance.
In part 2 we learned that the ads are the most (unintentionally hilariously) enjoyable part of the paper. And now I want a fumble-free off switch for my glow-in-the-dark temperature-telling alarm clock!
In part 3 I discovered that Quentin Letts is more horrific a prospect than Liz Jones, who is either deliberately or unwittingly creating a comic persona of a ditsy idiot who doesn't understand why she might upset other people.
Part 4 saw me try, and fail, to decode Jonathan Cainer's horoscopes, which had a 3-2-1 feeling about them.
Part 5 - my favourite - saw me discover that the Mail were cheerily reporting the Government being ticked off by the ASA, while seemingly repeating a type of promotion that saw them ticked off by the ASA themselves a short while ago. Naughty!
In part 6, it was my sad duty to report that the Mail's attempt to represent Gordon Brown looked like a mid-vomit Adrian Chiles, and that Fred Bassett was bewildering shit.
The dark oozing heart of the Mail came to the fore in part 7, where letter-writers were allowed to blithely tell stories about immigrants and label them all as dirty; and someone else could quite cheerily slag off fat people. There was a bonus bit of Straight to the Point, or as I like to call it, No Fucking About With Niceties.
Part 8 - Can't be fucked to Google it? Scared of the internet? Don't worry, the Mail has a lo-tech crowdsourcing option for you.
Part 9 was something I actually enjoyed. More of this, please!
In part 10 we learned about the sheer bathetic banality of the Ephraim Harcastle diary column.
Part 11 looked a the word 'foreign' and a couple of scary stories about doctors who aren't from *whispers* around here.
And then there was Women! in part 12.
What else did I learn? I learned that writing 14 blog posts in a day is tiring on the brain and on the fingers. I learned that the dead-tree Mail is something which seems dusty and outdated, and you have to wonder whether it's going to survive tremendously well in the next 10 or 20 years, given the demographic that its advertisers are targeting. I learned that the things that should encourage you to pay that 50p to get the paper, rather than just read it online for nothing, don't seem that great - though perhaps the puzzles pages, which I didn't try, are worth it. Leaving aside the political differences someone like me is bound to have with the Mail, it just didn't seem that much fun to read at all. There wasn't much that was gripping, or interesting, or that I felt I wouldn't get elsewhere; and what original unique content there was left me pretty nonplussed.
I don't know. I think I had been secretly hoping that the dead-tree Mail was really better than it really was. At least then you could understand people buying it for the quality. But I don't think they do. I think they buy it out of habit more than anything else, out of routine and familiarity. It gives them something familiar, it provides a dailiness. And, yes, I suppose it reinforces those well-honed expectations and prejudices as well.
But that's all for now. If you enjoyed all this, please share far and wide. I'm knackered now, it's 2.39am and I'm going to bed. And I won't be buying the Mail tomorrow. And probably never again.
Mail Day, part 12: Women!
Nearly there, my friends. Just this, and one more to wrap it all up, and then we're done.
I always struggle to understand why the Mail has such a high female readership, given that an awful lot of its content seems - to me, anyway, and I am a man after all - to be ladyhate. The Mail I chose to spend 50p on and buy contains Femail, a section so angle-grinder-in-the-face-ingly painful that you keep trudging through it, wearily sinking into the quicksand, fearing that you will be swallowed whole and will never be found again, except when some archaeologist a million years from now brushes a bit of mud off your skeleton and wonders why you died at a desk, surrounded by whisky and tea, with a monkey next to you, and a strange piece of crumpled paper...
That's just a straightforward "X has said this, I disagree with X" piece about when women should become mothers, but there are slightly more bizarre references to women throughout the Mail
Tattooed lady? What is this, a fucking Victorian funfair?
And then you get this:
To which I must apologetically reply: But I really don't give a flying one how you do it, I'm afraid.
There's an artilce about Claudia Lawrence, the missing chef from Yorkshire
who you may recall was the subject of a quite appalling atrocity of journalism some time ago in the Mail, under the pretence of helping to find her but really a prurient bit of sleaze which, as it turns out, probably wasn't true either, regardless of whether it should have been published at all. Back then, they described her as having '40 mystery lovers and a thing for married men'; now, the police say she had 12 relationships in five years. Hardly the same, is it? Ah well, we move on, I suppose; if you read the dead-tree Mail I imagine you've forgotten about that other story already, and don't have a way of checking, since you need to write a letter into a newspaper to find something rather than looking it up on Google.
There's a bit of tedious sniping at Kate Winslet
in which we learn that, apparently, "all famous women that appear to be holier than thou, who wear their gym kit and kabbalah bracelet with pride, are roundly disliked". Are they? I didn't know these rules of ladyhate. I really am behind the curve on this one, I'm afraid, so will read on for more tips on how to know which women I should hate and which ones I shouldn't. They say you live and learn!
In Femail there are articles by women who have the common touch
a quick hand-grenade lobbed in the general direction not of the evil Manuel-botherer Wossy but his wife Jane Goldman
and, as ever, something to feast on your insecurities like a nest of hungry ants pouncing on your marmalade-covered face
Is this really what women want? I can't honestly tell you, because I'm not one. Maybe it is. I'd be surprised if it was, but you never know. You just never know.
Mail Day, part 11: Foreigns
Suspicion of foreigners is always something the Mail is accused of fomenting. But is there any evidence that could lead you to that conclusion? Any clues that might help us understand why they have that reputation?
Some clues there. Now you may say to me: "Pah, Vowl, what the hell do you know? There's nothing wrong with this, you know nothing of newspapers. Headlines are just a shorter way of saying what's in the story!" and I have a degree of sympathy for that point of view. A bit. But the thing is, if it were 'foreign' doctors that were the cause of concern, then that would be understandable that they should be described that way. But it's not 'foreign' doctors at all: it's specifically European doctors, who can be locums in this country in the NHS without having certain checks on their performance.
Having read the story, it seems clear that foreign doctors outside of the EU are subject to an understandable checking procedure, and that's where the perceived problem lies. I can't help wondering if that wouldn't be as scary for readers as thinking that all foreign doctors were 'untested' as the headline implies, and that the key word 'foriegn' has been used again and again, as I understand it was for the original article on Wednesday which these stories are following up; I was in my non-Mail phase then.
That was the story of one bungling doctor, from Germany, who made tragic mistakes. There's no suggestion that other doctors from the EU and Switzerland (or 'foreign' doctors, as the Mail would call them) are making similar mistakes, nor that they are any less competent in general. British doctors make awful mistakes too, let's not forget. It may have nothing to do with his qualifications, or lack of them. It may be the case that the doctor would have passed whatever checks are in place for doctors from outside the EU and Switzerland. We just don't know. But, as is the case with so many of these stories, that unknown is minimised to virtually nothing, and the one example extrapolated to cover everyone, whether that's right, or fair, or not.
So. you get it again and again: foreign, foreign, foreign. Untested. Inept. Except this was just one bad doctor, who happened to be German. If we know this kind of thing is going on all the time, then by all means let's see the evidence. I'm quite willing to keep an open mind, especially if it can be shown that lots of doctors from the EU and Switzerland are making proportionally more mistakes than their British or non-EU/Switzerland counterparts, which would be prevented by more stringent checks. Until then, is it perhaps totally accurate, or fair, to ramp up fears about 'foreign' doctors?
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