Sunday, September 23, 2007

The Angry Mob


"We are the Angry Mob, we read the papers every day;
we like who we like, we hate who we hate
But we're oh so easily swayed."

Take Robert Murat. A few weeks ago he was the tabloids' enemy no. 1 as the only suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. His life was ripped apart in huge, headline spanning, multi page character assassinations. He was super-bad. No paper was more vigorous - because it was one of their journalists, after all, who reported Murat to the Portuguese police - than the Mirror. Matthew Paris pointed out on today's Andrew Marr programme a tiny story in the Sunday Mirror buried well inside the paper. It's substance? That Robert Murat had effectively been cleared of all suspicion. Another triumph for the tabloid task of life-ruining.

UPDATE: Of course, on a purely parochial note, we do have our own tabloid sensationalism - how many times, for instance, does the little sports rag WTSSG seek to demean worthy, hard-working members of staff over such things as the selling of their car? Ridiculous! And as for the call for more disicpline....

4 comments:

eeore said...

Yep the British media are hypocrites. The only problem is that it is their version of events that become history.

C H Daly said...

Hmmm Giles Marshall quoting Kaiser Chief lyrics, I think that you've been spending too much time with Alex Rembridge.

Anonymous said...

You can never spend too much time with Alex Rembridge...

But I am suprised you have managed to criticise tabloid press without even muttering the infamous acronym WTSSG. Good work.

MM

Giles Marshall said...

I think you'll find that little omission has now been corrected.

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