Should We Shoot The Messenger?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2832793/Tearful-frightened-young-girls-lined-villagers-undergo-tribal-circumcision-ceremony-Kenya.html

On Answerbank we periodically see the Daily Mail criticised for sensationalising, and also called The Daily Wail.

It that case are they wrong to highlight matters such as this?

Would some rather bury their heads in the sand and rather it not be discussed, hoping that it will go away?

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

/// No argument there - but as Ludwig says, it does appear slanted on the primitivism of the practice, ///

Surely only to those who thoughts are slanted in that direction, I myself never interpreted the report in that way, more of an Exposé I would have thought?

[andy-hughes]

AOG - "Seems funny then why it is the world's most popular newspaper web site, and the newspaper comes second in it's UK circulation figures."

If popularity was a basis for measuring the worth and success of a newspaper, then the Sun must be right up there - but that doesn't make it a good paper does it? Appealing to readers' baser instincts will always push up circulation, but that is not what we are using as a yardstick here.

"Regarding the shapes of female celebrities, I have never noticed them simply because I don't go out of my way to look, just as I don't look into the Femail section or some of their other numerous speciality sections.

If you don't want to be offended by such things Andy, then the answer is simple, just don't look."

I am seriously offended, hurt, outraged, and furious at the concept of FGM - should I similarly avoid looking at your link?

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

/// I am seriously offended, hurt, outraged, and furious at the concept of FGM - should I similarly avoid looking at your link? ///

No because that is what my thread and the debate is all about, but one does not have to let one's eyes wander over to looking at the shapes of female celebrities.

[andy-hughes]

AOG - "andy-hughes

/// I am seriously offended, hurt, outraged, and furious at the concept of FGM - should I similarly avoid looking at your link? ///

No because that is what my thread and the debate is all about, but one does not have to let one's eyes wander over to looking at the shapes of female celebrities."

Fair enough - but in the wider context, because I am so upset by the concept of FGM, i will not be reading your link, or my Mail when i get home - letting my eyes 'wander' anywhere is not an option I exercise anywhere!

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

/// Fair enough - but in the wider context, because I am so upset by the concept of FGM, i will not be reading your link, or my Mail when i get home - letting my eyes 'wander' anywhere is not an option I exercise anywhere! ///

Wow Andy, you don't take delivery of that paper do you? and after all you have said about the Daily Mail, even I don't have one delivered.

[Zeuhl]

Any 'newspaper' that briefs its Reporters to especially look out for stories that will show specific minority groups in a bad light has to be of questionable value.

Particularly when their standards of validating story accuracy are lowered for any that fit the 'agenda'

Just because they also cover 'worthwhile' items is a poor defence;

" Yes he is a crook and a conman, but you know he always puts some change in the collecting tin."

[andy-hughes]

AOG - I do, and have for the last thirty years-plus.

[ludwig]

TTT // any group theat thinks FGM is ok ludwig, needs atacking. //

Absolutely. That goes without saying. I was just addressing AOG's wider point about the Mail ie 'We periodically see the Daily Mail criticised on here for sensationalising'.

[Hypognosis]

What gets my wick is that all the DMO's T&A pages have headlines which…

so you have to click on them to find out what the end of the dmn sentence says and then it's on your browsing history… which isn't a good thing if you're 40+ and ogling Miss XYZ, "23, looking curvaceous in her [fashion house name drop] bikini"

Anyway there's a jarring contradiction between all that objectification of women and this specific story.

If there is genuine concern, among DM journos, that these women are to be deprived of ever achieving orgasm for the rest of their lives (as a means of social control by - supposedly - discouraging unfaithfulness) then that is a step in the right direction but it is, at the moment, running against the grain of the abovementioned T&A material which scrolls forever down the side of every page. (I'm not yet OCD but I hate departing a page if there is a risk that I've missed an interesting link, lurking way down the page)

Getting earnest individuals to visit for that one serious story is gold dust to a click-revenue site. If you can get some of them to wander into the tittle-tattle section for an hour or so, maybe share what they find on Facetwit then there's easy money to be made.

Not wrong to print the story but look at the reasons why they're doing it.