The Mail simply threw Samantha Brick to the wolves | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Great piece by Hadley Freeman about the Samantha Brick article that has sparked plenty of internet discussion this week (if you’ve missed this somehow, Brick wrote an article entitled ‘There are downsides to looking this pretty’: Why women hate me for being beautiful’ which was followed today by the pictures above)

Samantha Brick writes in her inevitable follow-up article about the reaction to her piece, “Until this week I never really understood the term ‘Trolling’ – used to describe when anonymous people viciously attack others on the internet. Now I do!” She sure does, but not in the way she thinks. The real definition of an internet troll is someone who posts something outrageous purely for the sake of getting a reaction – and the commissioning, editing and publishing of Brick’s article is trolling, pure and simple.

The Daily Mail uses its female writers in precisely the same way it uses its female readers and celebrities: frequently, centrally and, always, cruelly. Like an abusive husband, the Daily Mail courts women and needs women, but will always turn around and punch them in the face. Because the Daily Mail hates women.

via The Mail simply threw Samantha Brick to the wolves | Hadley Freeman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Pottergate: we publish the secret tapes – Telegraph

If you’ve been looking for an article that combines two of the big media stories of last week, the News of the World and Harry Potter, then this is the one:

Tues, Sept 11, three hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers: Begley is told to turn up at tomorrow’s news conference, dressed as Harry Potter.

Wed, Sept 12: Still feeling stunned, he phones his newsdesk editor Neville Thurlbeck for confirmation.

CB: Hi, Neville. I just wanted to check, given the enormity of events in America – will the editor still need me dressed up as Harry Potter for conference?

NT: Well, she knew exactly what was going on yesterday afternoon and she still wanted you to dress up then. I think you should just assume she wants you to do it now.

via Pottergate: we publish the secret tapes – Telegraph.

New Statesman – What a frightening world it must be if you only read the Daily Express

With today’s headline being ‘Britain’s 40% surge in ethnic numbers, the Daily Express is repeating one of its favourite ideas: that ethnicity means non-white. This New Statesman article considers exactly what they mean.

This kind of thing goes back to an “us and them” distinction that has been apparent in the Daily Express and Daily Star for a while, usually in relation to Muslims and British people, as if the two could not possibly be the same. In this instance, the “us and them” narrative is that this country’s population is composed of two types of people: white and non-white. The assumption is that “we” are white and “they” are non-white, and there isn’t anything in between.

via New Statesman – What a frightening world it must be if you only read the Daily Express.

Charlie Brooker: Q: When does a tabloid become crude propaganda? A: When it starts printing it | Comment is free | The Guardian

Uncharacteristically sober piece from Charlie Brooker looking at the representation of Muslims in the Daily Star. There are blogs pretty much entirely devoted to this topic and The Star’s ongoing flirtation with the EDL. Depressing stuff that makes the other tabloids look like the New York Times by comparison.

Charlie Brooker: Q: When does a tabloid become crude propaganda? A: When it starts printing it | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Richard Desmond and the PCC

This week saw the news that Richard Desmond‘s Northern & Shell publishing organisation are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

The PCC is funded by contributions from the publications they regulate, and N&S have decided not to continue to pay. This means that there is no one to complain to if you disagree with a story in The Daily Star or any other N&S titles.

The story is well covered by Tabloid Watch: Tabloid Watch: Richard Desmond and the PCC.

Following the move, the PCC have dropped all outstanding complaints against N&S.

A long list of complaints upheld against The Express and Star since March 2008 are listed here, along with payouts.

Rockstar vs Daily Star: a landmark moment in games coverage? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Earlier in the year I posted about the Daily Star’s baffling GTA Rothbury article, where they apparently invented a story about the next Grand Theft Auto game being based on the Raoul Moat case.

They apologised shortly afterwards and have just paid undisclosed damages to Take 2 Inc, the publishers of the GTA series.

When it became abundantly clear that the story was nonsense, however, the piece was quickly removed from the Star’s website, and replaced with a grovelling apology, which included the following confession: “We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.”

This raises interesting questions about how the games industry is represented in the media.

In part, what the story typifies is a doggedly persistent belief that the games business is some sort of shadowy black market operation, rather than a major entertainment industry that contributes many millions to the UK economy. It is tempting to believe that, thanks to the rise of the family-friendly Wii console and the gigantic explosion in social titles like FarmVille, games are no longer demonised as essentially evil and corrupting in nature. But this fear and loathing appears to exist to this day, at least in the agendas of media purveyors who are happy to exploit the perceived technophobia of their audience if it means an easy scare story.

Of course, it would be cynical of me to suggest that some of the scaremongering and criticism of the games industry is because money spent on games is not being spent on magazines, papers, films, music or other forms of media.

Rockstar vs Daily Star: a landmark moment in games coverage? | Technology | guardian.co.uk.