Daily Star - absolute filth

Except, you know, it isn't

When I started this blog, nearly five years ago now, I was very angry with the way papers like the Mail, Express (and surprisingly less often) the Sun dealt with immigration and race. I hardly ever looked at the Star, since it exists primarily as a vehicle for selling pictures of tits to stupid people. Or at least it did at the time.

Watching the papers dog-whistle with stories about 'migrants' illustrated with the burkha-clad woman flipping the Vs or swarthy men standing about on street corners was a pretty hideous step towards something ominous.

Tabloid bullshit of the month - January 2011

It's the last Saturday of the month, and we all know what that means!

No, it's not the day I stalk the streets with a hammer. That's not even funny, stop it.

It's time for the 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award! Stick a conical party hat on and start drinking warm lager from a plastic cup while 'Lily the Pink' plays in the background and your aunt embarrasses herself on the dance floor.

It was a very wide field this month, but I've said why in the email to the lucky winner so I won't make you read that twice.

Littlejohn and stereotypes

As a bit of a teaser for the weekend's post(s) about Littlejohn's books, here's a quick look at today's column.

'What kind of dinner parties do you go to, Baroness?' looks at Baroness Warsi's comments about Islamophobia being widespread.  He seems to start by trying to contradict her and imply that people aren't actually that bothered about Muslims.  He blaps on about how no-one mentioned the subject in any of the dinner parties he went to and then reproduces a few of her claims with 'really' or 'do they' underneath - but then:

‘And in the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burka, the passers-by think: “That woman is either oppressed or is making a political statement.”

Are you sure?

Most of us just think anyone who wears a burka in Britain is barking mad and wonder why someone who so utterly rejects our society and our liberal values would want to live here. Surely they would be much happier in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Priceless.  

Tabloid bullshit of the month award December 2010

Break out the tinsel, jingle bell music and strong, strong booze - it's time for the December 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award.

A bit of a disappointing field this month, what with a couple of numpties providing the tabloids with juicy quotes about banning Christmas so they didn't have to make shit up themselves. Maybe uponnothing's excellent demolition of the Winterval myth had something to do with that. I bloody well hope so.

We did have the Mail worrying about the number of black and brown people in the country and then having to point out it's not racist or anything; the same paper pretending Blue Peter had burnt something it hadn't; snow PANIC; the Star pretending some shit about Jordan again. That's the sort of thing.

The winner had to be Guy Patrick of the Sun with 'Al-Qaeda Corrie Threat'.  There's no link because it's gone already!

Even the BBC needs to tone down the shrill

Muslims, Muslims, Muslims! It must be difficult for the bottom-brow press. So desperate are they for scary stories about angry swarthy types shouting and threatening to take over the world that they have to resort to exaggerating and making stuff up when reality refuses to provide them with the copy.

Three lonely thickoes with bits of A4 can become a mob of protesters. Someone mentioning Muslim friends in an offhand way when complaining about a vent chugging out cooking smells into his flat can be turned into a story about Muslims forcing the vent to be banned. When pigs are taken out of toy farmyards because of some misguided fool wanting to protect Jews and Muslims, the mention of Jewish people can be ignored in favour of saying they were taken out because of Muslims. Job done.

The Daily Mail upset by 'racist smears'

Most of the time, looking at the tabloids is a pain in the arse. Seriously, I don't know why I do it to myself. I wouldn't waste a single minute in real life listening in to some farting bore drone on about the same old cobblers day in, day out so quite why I do it here is anyone's guess.

Occasionally though, I come across stuff that makes me cackle with delight. It's a guilty cackle though, like when you laugh at someone tripping up the pavement. The hypocrisy of the Mail is often worth a chuckle, so much so that if you wrote a sitcom about a paper behaving the same way it'd fail because no audience would be able to suspend disbelief for long enough to believe in it.

'Muslims tell British: Go to Hell!' Should Bill Maher be alarmed?

In yesterday's post about how Bill Maher seems to have been suckered by the less than honest UK press, I wondered:

Imagine reading the British papers without knowing the main aim of most of them is to rile people up for no reason, or that they frequently lie through their teeth. Jeez.

Today's Express front page is reproduced there on the top left, with its screaming headline reading 'Muslims tell British: Go to Hell!'. It's enough to make anyone frightened and want their mummy.

Bill Maher, Mohammed and tabloid bullshit

A couple of people have tweeted about Bill Maher in connection with the 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award from last Saturday. I kind of like what little I've been able to see of Bill Maher in the UK, so I had a bit of a dig around to see what the fuss was about.

It's this:

Tabloid bullshit of the month award October 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's here. It's...

Fanfare please...

...the 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award.

This has been a short month for me since I've been away for half of it, but I've been paying attention to blogs and keeping my eye out for particularly good bullshit. I considered breaking the rules for the first award and presenting it to MigrationWatch for being particularly rubbish this month, but rules is rules so MigrationWatch just get a raspberry blown in their direction.

'Debunking the 'Islamisation' myth' could have debunked other myths, too

Edmund Standing has produced a report, 'Debunking the 'Islamisation' myth', which is well worth a look.

Now, I might have problems with some areas of the report (like cousin intermarriage and congenital birth defects, and perhaps the overall tone) but I won't be going into those here. Of more interest to this blog is section headlined 'The myth of Muslim power in Britain is largely fuelled by sensationalist and inaccurate media reports'.

The dark heart of the Mail's immigration coverage

Today's post is going to open with a 'no shit, Sherlock' moment. Ready?

You know when the Mail scaremongers about 'migrants'? Usually, that's just a dog-whistle. What the paper often really means is - come closer and I'll whisper it - brown and black people. Shocking, huh?

The Daily Star: ferty percent out of ten more stupider

I knew it was a mistake. I looked at the coverage of the 'Mulsim drivers banning guide dogs' story in the Star and now I am ferty percent out of ten more stupider.

'GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS ACTION OVER MUSLIM CABBIES' DOG BAN' is the headline, whch shows that even hacks the Star have managed to see through the 'bus driver' nonsense. Well, either that or they're too stupid to join in with the other papers' tricks.

When someone might be Asian but you're not sure

A Reading man, George Herridge, has apparently been the victim of hostile reactions to his guide dog.

The local paper, in 'Blind passenger hounded off bus because of his dog' told early last month of four occasions in which people have overreacted to the sight of his dog.

Richard Littlejohn is a ridiculous bozo

I always thought people pushing for racial profiling were just a little naive.  Did they really think that police and airport security don't already target people who fit racial profiles? 

But it seems I've misunderstood the argument, at least as it's presented by Britain's highest paid columnist and favourite bellowing oaf, Richard 'Smellyface' Littlejohn.

The tabloids and right wing extremism

Just who are these blackshirted fellows?
The relationship between tabloid reporting and the increase in the BNP's popularity is an interesting one to look at.

Straight from the Mail to the BNP

A couple of things set my Crackers sense tingling this week that I wanted to follow up, but didn't have time. Luckily, Jamie Sport has taken apart the laughable Daily Mail investigation that shows there are more dirty foreigners looking for work than locals in 'Mail compares apples with oranges, comes up with bananas' at MailWatch, and MacGuffin has taken apart the scary story about there being one rule for Muslim customers at Lloyd's TSB and another for everyone else in 'Shameless Mail stirs up anti-Muslim hatred' at TabloidWatch.

But...the Express likes sharia law

I don't just head over to the 'Have Your Say' section of the Express for fun, you know. I had actually waded over there in search of wisdom from Express readers regarding the news that there are 85 sharia courts in the UK. Well, at least there are alleged to be 85 by the man responsible for the spiffy Policy Exchange study that appeared to have manufactured evidence to suggest that loads of Mosques were actually selling nasty books to evil baddies - you know, the one that had to be withdrawn - so maybe a pinch of salt is needed when looking at this current news. Especially as the press release looks a bit shonky.

I'm going away for a while

Hello people.

With a large number of people (over 100 of them) forced out of their homes by racist thugs in Belfast and some stuff going on in Iran that seems like it might be a little bit important, the Mail is using its front page to maximum effect by, er, crusading for the banning of wheelie bins, and the Sun - the world's biggest selling Enslish language daily newspaper - is doing similar hard-hitting stuff by including a traditional 'OMG! TITS! ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS! TOILET PUN!' front page.

Why you shouldn't vote for the BNP on Thursday

You've probably read half a dozen 'why you shouldn't vote for the BNP on Thursday' articles and blog posts by now. You know about the foreign actors in the leaflets. You've heard about Nick Griffin saying there's no such thing as a black or Asian Briton. You've heard how he said that a big chunk of the England football team and Amir Khan aren't British. You've witnessed the embarrassing climbdown when he proved too much of a pariah to be welcome at the Queen's garden party. You know that life wouldn't be very nice for ethnic minorities if they got into power.

What happens to minorities who can't or won't sue the papers?

Well, they all look the same, dun't they?
Via Rhetorically Speaking, Liberal Conspiracy, Tabloid Watch, the Enemies of Reason and Angry Mob (sorry if I've missed anyone) comes the fantastic news of the Mail being sued for blatantly and deliberately making stuff up.