They're still not covering Snowdon in tarmac

Last Wednesday, the Mail reported that three sections of one of the paths on Snowdon, totalling 100m, had been covered in tarmac (and then topped with crushed stone to make it look like the rest of the path).

The paper tried to pretend this had caused 'fury' and that the amount of tarmac laid was rather more than was actually the case.

The next day, in the paper's main op-ed piece, Janet Street-Porter repeated these half-truths. She clearly hadn't read the original article properly and so sounded even more silly than she usually manages by basing her rant on something other than the facts:

...sadly — and unstoppably — Snowdon is being tamed and turned into a Welsh version of Disney Land.

Now, a long section of the ancient Miners’ Track has just been covered with Tarmac.

'A long section'? Even if the 100m of new tarmac was in one place, it wouldn't be a long section - it makes up about 4% of the total length of the Miner's Track. That it's actually in three sections proves she's another Mail columnist who doesn't do her research and bases her reactionary columns on Mail headlines.

She continued:

Laying a Tarmac path will just encourage more silly people to think they can conquer nature when they can’t.

And:

Tarmac and peaks don’t belong together. At this rate, the UK will soon be concreted over from St Ives to Ullswater.

Adding:

Park officials claim they want to make the route more suitable for those with physical disabilities. I’m outraged — they’ll be putting in platforms for the train and piped music next.

So Street-Porter sounds like she might actually be in a 'fury'.

Shame all her outrage - and all those words - are wasted on something that hasn't happened.

And she wasn't the only one to give this non-story more coverage. In his Friday column, Richard Littlejohn made light of an initiative from Kent Police's Gipsy and Traveller Action Group (GTAG) to provide 'safe caravans' to Gypsy women who suffer domestic abuse:

That's a lot of safe caravans. Quite apart from the cost, they've all got to be parked somewhere. It might explain why they're Tarmacking over Snowdonia.

Hilarious.

Recommended reading - links

Angry Mob looks at the Daily Mail's latest article on the 'exaggerated' and 'vastly over-stated' swine flu 'pandemic that never was' - conveniently forgetting their own headline such as 'How swine flu could be a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear warfare'.

Martin Moore from Media Standards Trust considers the backlash against the Mail on Sunday for its article about Lord Triesman. Last week, the News of the World's managing editor revealed that they turned down the story on the basis that it was 'too thin.' Too thin for the News of the World? Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Janet Street-Porter recently joined the lengthy list of Mail columnists who have written some ill-considered rubbish and suffered a backlash. Her 'Depression? It's just the trendy new illness!' was castigated by Musings of a phenomenologist, Andrew Brown in the Telegraph and three mental health charities, among many others.

Sian Norris and Dr Helen Mott were labelled 'hypocrites' by the Evening Post after they raised objections to a burlesque performance at Bristol Museum. After they complained the front-page story had completely misrepresented their views, the online article was removed and Norris and Mott were given a right of reply - a two-page spread on pages 16 and 17. It is good that the paper gave them the opportunity to give their side of the story over two pages.

The Media Blog has written (two posts) about the Mail on Sunday's latest attack on the interwebs and claims that firms are 'spying' on people through what they say on Twitter and Facebook. More from Martin Belam and Peter Kirwan, who was himself contacted by someone from the Mail via Twitter because of his comments - exactly what the Mail was complaining about...

In a longer post about the media and Cumbria, Matt Gardner looks at yet another feeble Georgina Littlejohn article on the Mail website about Lady Gaga and how she (apparently...) insulted the victims of Derrick Bird's rampage.

Five Chinese Crackers suggests a Sun front page headline beginning with the words 'Cannibal cops' may give the wrong impression.

Some other Mail-related fisking by Angry Mob:

• 'live' grenades at the Dad's Army play that weren't actually live
• shamelessly dragging 'health and safety' into the Cumbria shootings
• criticising a school for closing early for the World Cup
• a useless bit of churnalism about dating
• swallowing a story about a baby being stamped on
• a 'first look' at James McAvoy in the 'new X-Men' film which happens to be a still from a completely different film from two years ago

And finally, from Adam Bienkov, a picture taken back in April of two Sunday newspapers (both from the same stable) who couldn't quite decide which way Cheryl And Ashley Cole's marriage was going to go:

Mail on Sunday columnist calls Moir 'homophobic, repulsive'

It looks bleak for Jan Moir.

Mail - and Mail on Saunday - columnists are distancing themselves from her deeply offensive views. Is the paper preparing to sack her, or are they hoping publishing critical comments will dilute the anger?

Janet Street-Porter says she was:

astonished to read in Jan Moir's column last Friday that his death 'strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships', and 'under the carapace of glittering hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see'.

She points out that she disagrees with Moir, saying she:

didn't think that Stephen Gately's death was sanitised, as Jan claims.

Then she asks something many of us have wondered:

What exactly was bothering Jan?

The fact Stephen was gay, the fact he was in a civil partnership, or the fact that he or his partner might have enjoyed sex with someone they had just met?

But that was as nothing compared to what columnist Suzanne Moore had to say. Her article is damning, although conveniently - and rather cowardly - avoids referring to her by name.

But from the headline 'Whatever killed Stephen, it wasn’t being gay' it's not hard to know who she's on about. She begins:

Let's get just one thing clear: the cause of Stephen Gately’s death was not gayness...

Those who pruriently pick over the circumstances of Gately’s death will find that no doctor signed a certificate with cause of death ‘homosexuality’.

Which is exactly the implication that so angered so many people about Moir's vile column.

Moore continues:

What has been so offensive to many are the insinuations that his death is connected to the death of comedian Matt Lucas’s ex. How is it?

Or that these tragedies are somehow the result of civil partnerships – as though ‘straight’ marriages are non-stop heaven.

Again, she is giving voice to what so many people were asking on Friday. And then:

A man was kicked to death in Central London recently by two teenage girls because he was gay.

So while many of us could not care less, homophobia is alive and kicking. It is repulsive to see it repeatedly kicking the corpse of a popular young guy.

Oof. So there it is.

Moore calls Moir offensive, prurient, homophobic and repulsive.

Of course, for someone who writes for the Mail newspapers to complain about homophobia just because there has been this outcry is a little like shutting the stable door.

As Paul Dacre is Editor-in-Chief of the Mail group titles, it is likely he will have approved these two columns.

But it's still not an apology.

And, as far as we know, Moir will be writing her bile again this week...