Reply from the Daily Mail
Yes, after three emails I have finally received the most pathetic response I have ever seen to the emails that I’ve sent.
(For those who haven’t looked a bit further down my original email can be found here, my first chaser here and my second chaser here.)
To: Ethan Kristopher-Hartley
From: managingeditor@dailymail.co.uk
Date: 22/10/2009 17:23:47
Subject: Jan Moir article
Thank you for your correspondence regarding the Jan Moir article. We
welcome feedback-whether positive or negative – about the paper and our
writers.
Our Columnist’s views have prompted a widespread response and debate, and
as formal complaints have now been taken up by the PCC, we will be
responding to them directly.
However, thank you for taking the trouble to send us your own point of
view.
Yours sincerely,
Managing Editor’s Office
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Email to Paul Dacre et al
Dear Mr Dacre
I am aware that you have received a number of emails from people about the awful homophobic, disrespectful, badly researched and ill-conceived article written by Jan Moir that the Daily Mail decided it was appropriate to publish on Friday 16 October 2009 – the day before Mr Gately’s funeral! I know that many of these are extremely well worded and clearly make a number of points. I’m not sure that my verbosity allows me to be as concise as those people but I must make myself clear.
Don’t get me wrong. I have never, and will never, buy a Daily Mail in my life. Your stance on immigration, homosexuality, crime, gender differences and your general politics jars the very core of my being. But – and I think even you must agree with this – the article written by Jan Moir was distasteful at best, and at worst it was a clear and shrewd act designed to make the author a martyr to the “heavily orchestrated campaign” that she mentioned in her clarification.
It has been 4 days now since the article was written, and yet still the feelings that I have about this piece scream out to me that I cannot stand by and let this lie. And nearly 30,000 other people on Facebook, and goodness knows how many on twitter and out in the real world feel the same. Contrary to what Ms Moir may think, I have indeed read the article that she wrote, both the original (“Nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”) and the slightly sanitised “A strange, lonely and troubling death…”
It seems clear to me that you, as the head of the Daily Mail, seem to have decided to revel in the further notoriety that the article has gained you. It is disappointing that – despite what is clearly a feeling that is shared by much of the general public (and indeed it seems, a large proportion of your own readership) – Neither you, your publication nor Ms Moir have seen fit to publish even an apology. Personally I feel a full an unreserved retraction is in order. I have seen that you have however decided to mobilise Janet Street-Porter and Suzanne Moore to try to mitigate the damage. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but IT HASN’T WORKED. We’re still here, we’re still appalled by the article and we’re still angry.
If you want to know what to do it’s simple. Stand beside Jan Moir and apologise – both of you – apologise for the timing of the publication (come on – even you can’t agree that the day before the man’s funeral was appropriate! Was this a time-sensitive piece that simply couldn’t wait two or three days? I think not!) and the distress that it could have caused for a grieving family. I understand from more reputable and thoughtful publications that it seems many of the family have chosen not to read the article – you should be very grateful for this.
Ms Moir’s apology should then continue to apologise to the family, the medical professionals who performed the post mortem, the public and her profession for the incorrect, ill-informed and baseless allegation that she made when she said “Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.” As I am sure you are more than aware, the results of the post mortem confirmed he died of “natural causes by acute pulmonary oedema”. A court reporter confirmed, “Stephen’s death has nothing to do any alcohol he drank that night, it has nothing to do with drugs and he did not choke on his own vomit,”.
This would also be an excellent opportunity for Ms Moir to use her notoriety to raise the profile of the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (c-r-y.org.uk) who use their freedom of speech to raise the profile of this sort of situation. In fact, according to the charity, twelve apparently fit and healthy young people die in the UK from undiagnosed heart conditions every single week.
Of course, once the personal apology is out of the way, I would then expect you both to apologise to those people who have been justifiably outraged at the underhanded assault that Ms Moir made against the Gay Community. The article insinuates that Gay men have ‘dark appetites’ and ‘private vices’. This, combined with the idea that if a partnership of consenting adults choose to invite someone home (whether it be for a game of canasta or even for sex), and that partnership is Gay then the circumstances become “more than a little sleazy” is a direct and blatant attack on the Gay community.
I have seen a number of people discuss this part of the article, and many of them state that most Gay couples don’t involve themselves in threesomes and more. Personally I think that the argument is a moot point and entirely irrelevant. What consenting adults choose to do in the privacy of their own homes is their business. And I think that even your readership will have to agree with me as it is them that discuss the use of male escorts in your own Femail forums: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/chat/r/t-10008606/index.html?threadIndex=13.
But of course, the attack on the Gay community doesn’t stop there. She chose to continue with “Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. … Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.”
I have read this section a number of times and I still do not understand what questions that a suicide by the FORMER husband of Matt Lucas and the unfortunate tragedy that affected Stephen Gately may raise. The only question that these two disparate deaths raise in my mind is “how on earth can anyone link the two?” But of course it did allow Ms Moir (who is allegedly on the record as supporting Partnership Registration you know!) to explode the “happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships”. She is however correct, equal rights activists (not just the gay ones Jan!) are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same -sex relationships because they are just the same as heterosexual ones. We laugh, we cry, we argue, we make up – we even (believe it or not) raise well ajudsted and supported children who turn out to be heterosexual! Certainly sometimes Gay men and Lesbians stray, sometimes the couples choose to do something to “spice up the relationship” – in exactly the same way that heterosexual couples do. But one thing that we have not said is that Partnership Registration is a ticket to happy-ever-after.
I understand that the PCC will investigate the matter in response to the unprecedented number of complaints received about the article. In recognition of this, and of the fact that this article was at best ill-judged and at worst, malevolent, I urge you to consider your position and retract the article in advance of that investigation.
Yours sincerely
Ethan Kristopher-Hartley
Please note, I have published this email on my blog – you can find it at http://efan78.com/140/JanM2. I will also publish any response that you send to this email.
Jan Moir – A more in-depth opinion
Taken from http://www.nmauk.co.uk
There’s probably very few people who would possibly read this who haven’t heard about the furore caused by Jan Moir’s article “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death“. Granted, The Mail then decided to rename the article to “A strange, lonely and troubling death” but haven’t changed the copy text in any way, shape or form. I was in a training course on Friday so, although I had seen some sketchy info on twitter and facebook on my mobile, because 3G isn’t ideal I didn’t read the article until I got home.
I was gobsmacked. In the 21st Century the idea that someone could write such vitriolic bile in the name of journalism is disgusting. Now, I just want to make something clear – I am not, nor have I ever been, a Boyzone or Stephen Gately fan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of bubblegum pop and boyband-y type stuff so I like their music but (unlike my Kylie collection) I have one Boyzone album and A New Beginning – One of Stephen’s solo singles. However I do believe wholeheartedly that unwarranted personal attacks on a person, disagreeing with the official announcement of the cause of death, and using this unfortunate tragedy to further a homophobic cause, is wrong. I wrote an Open Letter to Jan Moir over on my Posterous blog (as it’s where I put the less detailed posts) which is nowhere near as insightful and witty as Charlie Brooker‘s fantastic response (the man is a legend!) but it was the most polite response I could give at the time.
Of course, when the stars got wind of the story they too waded in and were able to make sure that the story reached even more people to allow them to make their own decisions. Stephen Fry, Darren Hayes, Gok Wan, Antony Cotton and Pam Ann along with many others. This however led to what Jan Moir said in her apology/clarification was a “heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.”
Image from www.pinknews.co.uk
Now, come on – heavily orchestrated? Is it not possible that Jan Moir’s story actually hit home with a number of people who wanted to make their voices heard? No, it seems that the gays have been “mischievous in the extreme” and decided to rally together to fight her, because they simply haven’t read or they have misunderstood her fair and balanced article.
A few of the people that I’ve come in contact with on twitter and facebook have also commented on this. I think everyone’s probably heard about the “The Daily Mail should retract Jan Moir’s hateful, homophobic article” facebook group but I’ve also seen one of my twitter friends (Snedwan) who updated his blog with this opinion piece as well as JaeKay who has just written this excellent and thoughtful piece decrying the community’s lack of focus until this comment. But I think that’s kind of the point – The huge swell of support against this article and also (whether right or wrong) against Ms Moir herself – has had the effect that we’ve been noticed. If this sort of concerted effort happened all the time then there would be a couple of issues, firstly most people wouldn’t be able to keep up a concerted effort for very long, it’s not only emotionally draining, but can be mentally and physically too. And of course it wouldn’t get the rest of the press to sit up and take notice, it would simply be a *sigh* “Look at what the gays are whining about again…” moment.
I can however see why Snedwan may have mistaken the homophobic nature of the article, Ms Moir has certainly worded her comments in such a way as to cause the very “misinterpretation” that she decried. Personally, I think this is because she doesn’t have the courage of her convictions and so she felt it necessary to give herself a way out in case those “mischievous” gays decided to orchestrate an internet campaign against her. But Snedwan, if you read this I can show you exactly why we’re offended. And exactly why this piece is homophobic…
The original title of the article was indeed a suitable one for the type of article that Jan Moir wrote. By using the term ‘natural’ in inverted commas she manages to remind her Daily Mail readers that the gays aren’t natural. The words that she chose to open with also clearly show her agenda. After the coroner clearly stated that Stephen Gately died due to fluid on the lungs caused by a congenital heart disease she starts by comparing this tragic death of a young man to those of Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson (both of whom died as a result of drugs) but just in case we don’t quite get what she’s saying she decided to ram home her point by talking about the “dark appetites” and “private vice” of the stars.
Later in the article she shows her support with the phrase “In the cheerful environs of Boyzone, Gately was always charming, cute, polite and funny.” - How could she possibly be using this story to forward her own agenda? She called him charming, cute polite and funny! But of course she then goes on to say that “he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk.” She seems to forget that he not only played Joseph in Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at The New London Theatre but also The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at The London Palladium. Of course anyone can get a leading role in the West End so this doesn’t in any way suggest that she was wrong, does it?
Then, as Snedwan mentioned, she talks about the fact that Stephen was “smoked out” of the closet instead of choosing when and how to come out himself. But did she use this opportunity to show that sexuality is irrelevant? Or did she instead decide to state how reluctant he was to be a beacon for those scared gay people out there?
Taken from www.whatsonstage.com
Of course the warm and welcoming way that she decided to discuss Stephen’s relationship “In 2006, Gately entered into a civil union with internet businessman Andrew Cowles, who had been introduced to him by mutual friends Elton John and David Furnish.” wasn’t in any way a clinical and dispassionate description designed to skim over the fact without all those awful emotive adjectives in the way – really! She’s even on record as supporting partnership registration!
But then we get to the detail of the story – her opinion on the reasons that Stephen Gately’s death was not ‘natural’. This is where her journalistic skills can come to the fore, where she can show – in support of what is obviously going to be a controversial article – her true mettle. Where she can demonstrate her skills in collecting and presenting information. She decided to start this part of her article with the phrase “All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances. The Gately family are – perhaps understandably – keen to register their boy’s demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident.” This is an excellent opening line, throwing doubt into the readers mind without actually stating that they were wrong. Surely her expert medical training and access to hidden information will be able to blow this myth completely out of the water…
But no, there’s no hidden information, no evidence to the contrary, only a snide aside about how quickly the family had stated how they thought that Stephen’s death was due to natural causes. (No inverted commas here strangely.) Followed by Jan’s opinion that this was all spin. And then we get to one of the most confusing points that she decided to make, “Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.”
Wait a moment, what was that? That’s great news, I think Jan should take her vast medical knowledge across to the people over at C-R-Y (Cardiac Risk in the Young) so that they can be aware of this and ensure that they can leave their misguided charity work and do something more suitable. But she does go on to say “Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.” OK Jan, what yardsticks are you talking about, because the phrase “natural causes” is a clearly defined medical term meaning that the cause “was a naturally occurring disease process, or is not apparent given medical history or circumstances.” (from Wikipedia). But we don’t have to wait too long to find out what yardstick she’s using – it’s “that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy.” Ah, there we go – we’re reading the Daily Mail – I just wanted some confirmation and thankfully Jan has been able to remind us of this.
And what was so unnatural about the death? Why the fact that Stephen and his partner had met a man and decided to take him home. Now Jan seems to be a little squeamish – she doesn’t want to say the word threesome to her bigoted, close-minded readers, so instead she simply states that “a game of canasta … was not what was on the cards”. So? What consenting adults choose to do in the privacy of their own homes is entirely up to them! And this isn’t just something that affects the gays – in fact, if you Let Me Google That For You, you’ll see that the primary responses are for heterosexual threesomes. But that doesn’t phase our Jan, oh no! She finishes her skirting around this issue with the phrase “What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone’s guess.” That’s absolutely true Jan, it’s also COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the cause of death.
Taken from www.disneystore.com
But now that she’s picked apart the poor man’s demise she decides to attack Partnership Registration. Now this is obviously a subject that worries the Daily Mail’s readership – I mean it almost gives the gays the same rights as “Normal Folk”! But thankfully this tragedy along with the recent death of Kevin McGee (the former partner of Matt Lucas) “strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.” The Happily ever after myth, which one is that Jan? I’ve never heard this one I must admit, maybe you could provide us with the source of this myth? If not then surely, as someone who is on the record as supporting partnership registration (read “throwing a scrap of perceived equality to the gay community”) you should be showing that this is no better or worse than the thousands of marriages that have problems?
But, as Jan helpfully pointed out – before Stephen Gately was even buried – “the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.”
News Corp V BBC
The Guardian has generously provided a PDF of Murdoch’s speech here, and the BBC’s response here.
So, James Murdoch has decided to join his father in attacking the BBC. Although I strongly believe that most people in the world will be able to see just how hypocritical this attack is, it worries me. While the BBC has a strong presence around the world this is down to the respect that it has garnered over the decades. If you speak to most people around the world about what they think of the BBC I think you’ll find that most of them consider it to be good quality programming with a minimum of bias. Note I say a minimum of bias – all news has bias, but the Murdoch family’s News Corp are probably some of the worst.
In fact, the recent #WeLoveTheNHS row over on Twitter brought us a number of blatant examples of the Fox News bias:
Now, the reason that the Murdoch family are unhappy with the BBC is that they offer free web services such as the BBC News website and Rupert Murdoch recently announced his decision to start charging for access to all his online news sites. Yes people, you too can PAY Mr Murdoch for this crud instead of visiting the free news offered by the BBC. And the Murdochs think that people will actually choose to do this. Really guys – you haven’t got a clue.
The sustainability of journalism is a huge subject to tackle, and there’s lots of people discussing it all of the web. But this isn’t a sustainability of journalism row, this is a row over how much profit NewsCorp, and by extension the Murdochs, will lose. They’re trying to paint it as something else entirely, trying to say that the BBC is stifling free speech and freedom of the press, but I think the MPs’ Expenses Scandal proved that freedom of the press isn’t affected by the BBC. And on the subject of stifling free speech? Get real guys – just because they don’t fit into the same right-wing views that you do doesn’t make them bad or wrong. If you can get enough people to llok at the pictures in The Sun, and watch The Sun on TV (Sorry – I mean Sky News!) then good luck to you. Just please, please, please don’t give us Fox News – whatever you do!
Oh, and Rupert, James…? – leave the BBC alone!
It’s only answering the telephone…
This is a response to @AngryBritain’s “Helpless Centre” Beef.
OK, @AngryBritain – I love your tweets, you help to keep me sane on my way to work and I often find myself nodding and agreeing with you HOWEVER… I really need to put the other side of the Call Centre story across.
It’s Monday morning, like most of the country I’m off to work. My mission? To help customers, solve problems and generally make them feel good about the company I work for.
In short, I work in Customer Relations, we’re a team of people who’s purpose is to rescue a situation once everything’s gone wrong and help customers in the hope that they’ll return. Now this means that we deal with people after they’ve travelled. In the mobile phone industry we’d be called “retentions” in the car industry we’d be After Sales Care, but the important thing is we are a post travel team.
We have one of those touch-tone thingies that asks you to select which department is best for you. Why? Because otherwise we’d have to hire a team of receptionists to direct your call, and that would mean you’d have to pay for them. But in these credit-cruch recessional times you want to save money, so we need to automate it. I think that my company’s menu’s quite straightforward, for Sales press 1, Flight times 2, Help with your booking 3 and if you have recently travelled and want to talk to us about it? Option 4. It’s not difficult.
So I leave the house and, like @AngryBritain I have the joys of the UK Commute. buses that arrive if and when they want, smelly passengers beside me, coffee shops that aren’t open early enough on a Saturday, Big Issue sellers on every corner and a corner shop with an owner who has two speeds, slow and reverse. But, like the millions of others, I fight my way through to the office and sign in to the numerous systems that I need, reservations, emails, complaints log, check-in, the list goes on…
Then 08.00 kicks round and I signin to my phone, start writing a reply to one of the passengers that I emailed last night and a call comes through. ”Good Morning, you’re through to Ethan in Customer Relations, how can I help?” I’m bright, I’m breezy, I smile down the phone and sincerly want to help this person…
“Oh! Are you a real person, Steven was it?” comes the sharp, clipped voice at the end of the line. ”Absolutely Sir, and it’s Ethan by the way.” Still smiling, still bright – I’m sure we can get this sorted if the customer needs me. ”Well Euan, I’ve been waiting for 15 minutes to get through to you!” I look at the clock, it’s 08.03, the department’s been open for 3 minutes. ”I’m sorry to hear that sir, let’s see if we can get things sorted for you…”
“I want to make a booking but your website’s broken, you’ve got no helpdesk number and I can’t get through to sales…”
Ah… never fear, I know just the person that can help, we have a helpdesk AND a sales team, so let’s just see how we can get this guy to understand…
“I’m sorry to hear that sir, it’s very rare for the website to not work at all so I think the best thing to do would be if I pass you through to the helpdesk who’ll look into it for you. Of course I’d like to give them some details so if I could just take your name…”
“WHAT!?!” The tone is raised, the frustration is building, and who better to take it out on than a voice at the end of a phone? I mean really, it’s not a real person there, sat listening and trying to help, just a voice. They don’t have a face so it’s easy…
So it’s time to let this person have his rant, about how awful call centres are, about how it’s all my fault that he selected the option to come through to the wrong department, about how he hopes that we go bust and that I lose my job. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, and – while I know he’s just frustrated – it can be a little disheartening when I was only trying to help.
“I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to upset you… yes I realise that you’ve been on the phone to me for half an hour now (it’s 08.07 now, but what’s 25 minutes or so between friends!?!) and I’d like to get this sorted as quickly as possible for you so, could I just take your name, where you want to go, and the problems you’ve had? That’s great Mr Angry, thanks very much, now I’m just going to pop you on hold for a minute while I introduce the call and then one of my colleague’s in the web team can help you. If you need them in the future their direct number is 00000000 and they’re open from 08.00-20.00 daily.
So there’s the first victory, but do you thing Mr Angry will be happy with that, or do you think that he’s going to blog about how awful call centres are because of the touch tones and the departments?
I know there are bad call centres out there, with a multi-tiered touch-tone (Sky TV, BT and T-Mobile – I’m looking at you!) and staff who can’t be bothered. In fact, there are staff that can’t be bothered in every job, not just call centres. I know there are call centres who outsource, granted their English is better than my Punjabi, but it can be difficult to understand.
But we’re not all like that, honest!
