The Sun's editorial(s) on Norway

In the aftermath of the tragic events in Norway on Friday, several media outlets began to speculate as to who was responsible and, predictably, fingers were pointed at Muslims.

The front page of Saturday's Financial Times referred to 'Islamist extremism fears', while the Sun mentioned a 'homegrown al-Qaeda convert' and a 'homegrown Islamic convert' in its coverage:

(Every British national newspaper put this atrocity on the front page on Saturday except the Mail and the Express. What stories did they consider more important? The Mail went with '150 human hybrids grown in UK labs', while the Express led on 'Cleared: Man who killed burglar'. They also included a story on their front pages about the exhibiting of the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress at Buckingham Palace.)

But if you visit the Sun's website, it will appear that yesterday's editorial about events in Norway read:

Norway's pain

Carnage in a city centre. A massacre at an island youth rally.

Terrorism brought slaughter yesterday to the friendly and civilised streets of one of Europe's most peaceful nations.

The Sun and its readers grieve today with the people of Norway, stunned by the assault on their capital Oslo and the island of Utoya.

How well we remember, from London's 7/7, the shock and misery when an ordinary summer's day turns into a nightmare of smoke, flames and bodies in the street.

Just as on 9/11 in New York and in Madrid in 2004, horror came when everyone least expected it.

The gentle nation best known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize suffered its most violent attack since World War Two.

But neither al-Qaeda nor any other extremist group has exclusive rights to murder and mayhem.

The picture emerging in Norway last night was of one blond-haired, blue-eyed man being behind the Oslo bombing AND the island camp massacre.

Acts of terror can be an easy resort for any loner who believes their own personal grievance against the state is justification for indiscriminate violence.

Take Timothy McVeigh, a US Army veteran whose warped world view was all the reason he needed to kill 168 innocent people in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.

Or Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who waged a 17-year mail bombing campaign that left three dead and many more injured because he didn't like modern American life.

Whatever the "reason" behind the terrible attack on Norway, whoever is responsible shares one thing in common with all terrorists.

Their evil is matched only by their cowardice.

Today, sympathies lie with Norway, our loyal friend and trading partner across the North Sea for centuries.

We share their pain. We salute their courage.

But for readers of the print version of the newspaper, the editorial looked quite different. The sections in bold are the words removed from the current online version:

Stand strong with Norway

Carnage in a city centre. A massacre at an island youth rally.

Terrorism, the scourge of the West, brought slaughter yesterday to the friendly and civilised streets of one of Europe's most peaceful nations.

The Sun and its readers grieve today with the people of Norway, stunned by the assault on their capital Oslo and the island of Utoya.

How well we remember, from London's 7/7, the shock and misery when an ordinary summer's day turns into a nightmare of smoke, flames and bodies in the street.

Just as on 9/11 in New York and in Madrid in 2004, horror came when everyone least expected it.

Why Norway? The answer is simple.

Because it is brave. It is a loyal member of NATO and plays its part in Afghanistan and Libya.

It has courageously stood up to Muslim fanatics trying to stir up hatred in Norway, where Islam is the second largest religion.

Recently it refused a grant to an Islamic leader demanding that those who did not observe Ramadan should be decapitated.

By daring to oppose terrorism, Norway has become a victim of it.

Attack

The gentle nation best known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize suffered its most violent attack since World War Two.

We do not know if yesterday was the work of al-Qaeda, which has threatened Norway before, or Libyan madman Gaddafi, who has vowed revenge on NATO. Last night one extremist Islamic group had already claimed responsibility.

The lesson for us are clear.

Osama Bin Laden may be dead. But the tentacles of al-Qaeda, and groups linked to it, spread deep into the heart of Western nations.

That is why our security cannot be relaxed, especially with the London Olympics only a year away.

The Government must keep its promise to change the law so our judges can no longer free terror suspects on human rights grounds.

Muslim hate preachers must be arrested, as the law allows. We need the decent Muslim majority to help stop their impressionable young men being recruited as bombers.

We must find every penny our security services need.

We must ask ourselves whether – like Norway – we offer too cushy a life to bogus asylum seekers.

And we must recognise that quitting Afghanistan with the job only half-finished will put Britain in peril.

But neither al-Qaeda nor any other extremist group has exclusive rights to murder and mayhem.

The picture emerging in Norway last night was of one blond-haired, blue-eyed man being behind the Oslo bombing AND the island camp massacre.

Acts of terror can be an easy resort for any loner who believes their own personal grievance against the state is justification for indiscriminate violence.

Take Timothy McVeigh, a US Army veteran whose warped world view was all the reason he needed to kill 168 innocent people in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.

Or Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who waged a 17-year mail bombing campaign that left three dead and many more injured because he didn't like modern American life.

Whatever the "reason" behind the terrible attack on Norway, whoever is responsible shares one thing in common with all terrorists.

Their evil is matched only by their cowardice.

Today, sympathies lie with Norway, our loyal friend and trading partner across the North Sea for centuries.

We share their pain. We salute their courage.

So despite admitting they did 'not know' if al-Qaeda was reponsible, they put ''Al-Qaeda' massacre' on the front page anyway.

This version of the editorial has been deleted from the Sun's website and the 'new' version contains no mention of the fact it has been amended.

(Post updated following Terry's comment to correct the Duchess of Cambridge's title.)

Littlejohn reacts to the tsunami: 'the Japanese people are militantly racist'

You know that when Richard Littlejohn begins one of his columns sounding as if he's being sincere and caring, it won't last long:

No one with a shred of humanity can fail to be moved by some of the pictures coming out of Japan, whether an elderly woman being rescued from the rubble or frightened, bewildered schoolchildren waiting in vain for parents who will never return.

The devastation is on a biblical scale. Comparisons have been drawn with the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But:

Despite filling our homes with Japanese electronics and our garages with cars made by Nissan and Toyota, despite the vivid images on TV and assorted social networks, it remains a faraway country of which we know little and understand less.

Anyone who has visited or worked in Japan will tell you it is like landing on another planet. Beyond the baseball caps and Western clothes, the Japanese people have a distinct culture of their own, which is entirely alien to our own values. They are militantly racist and in the past have been capable of great cruelty.

Clearly Littlejohn was so moved by the devastation, when he came to write about it a week or so later, he thought he'd label the whole country as not just racist but 'militantly racist' and then mention the war. 'Shred of humanity' indeed. (In the online version, the subs have even included a picture of two emaciated prisoners of war.)

Of course, when Top Gear got into trouble recently for calling Mexicans 'lazy, feckless and flatulent' the Mail called this a 'slur' and an 'insult' and churned out six (very similar) articles about it within five days.

And the Mail leapt on another 'diplomatic incident' caused by a BBC programme, when QI made some jokes about a man who had survived the atmoic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The programme had caused a 'furore', 'insulted' one man and been 'Quite Insensitive'.

So, if the BBC makes jokes about all Mexicans or one Japanese man, it's an 'insult'.

If a Mail columnist says with a straight face that the 'Japanese people' - presumably all 125 million of them - are 'militantly racist', then that's, apparently, acceptable. To the Mail, it's 'powerful and provocative'.

He drags into this column his wife's dead grandfather, who had suffered as a POW and:

would never have joined a minute’s silence for Japan...Were he alive today, he would have remained doggedly in his seat if requested to stand in silent tribute to the dead of Japan.

Which may or may not be true - since he's dead, we'll never know. Yet when some people remain seated when asked to stand in tribute to one person who is alive, the Mail gets angry.

Littlejohn uses his wife's grandfather as a way to rant about when we should pay tribute:

I often wonder what our fathers and grandfathers would have made of modern Britain’s ghastly cult of sentimentality and vicarious grief. Ever since the hysteria surrounding the death of Lady Di, when half of the nation seemed to take leave of its senses, a section of the population seizes any excuse for a sobfest.

Showing ‘respect’ has become institutionalised. Before every one of the weekend’s Premier League football matches, for instance, fans were forced to stand and observe a minute’s silence for Japan. Why?

Why? Because over 9,000 human beings were killed and over 13,000 are missing, perhaps? But to him, a minute's silence for those people is 'any excuse for a sobfest' and part of a 'ghastly cult of sentimentality'?

'Showing ‘respect’ has become institutionalised.' How awful.

And 'forced'? More likely they were asked to, and thought it an appropriate thing to do.

Littlejohn explains:

I have no objection to honouring the dead in public, if the occasion or sense of loss warrants it.

For example?

At White Hart Lane we’ve recently said goodbye to some of the stars of Spurs’ double-winning side from the Sixties. There was genuine sadness over the loss of men many in the crowd had known personally. But how many of the hundreds of thousands of supporters corralled into grieving for Japan could even point to that country on a map?

So silent tribute to a few footballers is 'warranted'. But for tens of thousands of victims of a natural disaster?

...an excuse for a self-indulgent display of cost-free compassion.

He really doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people might feel 'genuine sadness' over the deaths of those we may not know personally.

He uses this to launch into a slightly strange attack on the Premier League:

Like most monsters, the Premier League has a sickening streak of sentimentality. Barely a week passes without yet another minute’s silence before kick-off...Of course, there is a commercial incentive here for the Premier League. No doubt the Japanese TV rights are up for renegotiation soon.

But there were silences before last weekend's Six Nations rugby games. And before football games elsewhere so this isn't just a Premier League, or even just a British, thing.

Then comes a paragraph of such mind-numbing nonsense, it's little wonder Littlejohn has a reputation for being less than rigorous with his research:

But why Japan and not, say, those massacred in Rwanda or starved to death by Mugabe in Zimbabwe? I don’t remember a minute’s silence for Haiti, although I may be mistaken. I’m sure we didn’t have a minute’s silence for our earthquake-hit Commonwealth cousins in Christchurch, New Zealand, before the Milan game. Maybe we did.

Firstly, it takes some nerve for him to invoke 'those massacred in Rwanda' when he said about the genocide there:

'Does anyone really give a monkey's about what happens in Rwanda? If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them.'

But look at the rest of that paragraph.

'I don't remember...although I may be mistaken.'

'I'm sure we didn't...Maybe we did'.

It really is quality journalism, isn't it?

A very quick use of Google would have proved there were minute silences for the victims of both the Haiti and New Zealand earthquakes in various places. He may be right about the Milan game, but there were silences at other sporting events for New Zealand, including at the Six Nations rugby, the cricket World Cup and at football matches.

Of course, had he bothered to find out about those silences, his argument of 'why a silence for the militant racists and not our Commonwealth cousins?' would have fallen apart.

He adds:

Do you think the Japanese held a silent tribute for the victims of the London Transport bombings in 2005? Me neither.

Well, in response to those terrorist attacks, the then Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, issued a statement saying:

I would also like to extend my deepest sympathy to the victims of the attacks.

On top of that:

At around noon on July 8 on behalf of Prime Minister Koizumi currently visiting the United Kingdom, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hosoda visited the British Embassy in Tokyo to express the sympathy of the Government of Japan for those who were sacrificed in a series of explosions in London.

At the Embassy Mr. Hosoda expressed the deep condolences of the Government of Japan to the Government of the U.K.

Moreover, according to the American Government, the response to Hurricane Katrina was that:

Japan has pledged more than $1.5 million in private donations. The government of Japan has donated $200,000 in cash to the American Red Cross and some $800,000 in relief supplies -- from blankets to generators -- already are arriving to aid the most needy.

That's those 'militantly racist' 'alien values' in action.

According to figures on Wikipedia, 77% of the Japanese population is between 0 and 64 years of age so wouldn't have been born until after the war ended. And Littlejohn claims that he believes that:

It is wrong to visit the sins of previous generations on their modern descendants, although that doesn’t prevent the British Left constantly trying to make us feel guilty for centuries-old grievances, from the slave trade to the Irish potato famine.

And yet here he is, faced with the 'biblical-scale' devastation of the recent tsunami, dragging up decades-old grievances about the actions of some Japanese people. If he thinks it's wrong the visit the sins of previous generations, why mention the war at all?

Littlejohn jokes about suicide

A few days ago, details emerged of a complaint against the Sun and its use of the word 'schizo'.

As if to prove shoddy journalism around mental health issues isn't confined to just one paper, here's Richard Littlejohn making jokes about suicide last Tuesday:

Fourteen workers at the Chinese factory that makes iPhones have committed suicide.

In Britain, elf ’n’ safety would have closed the plant for years while the windows were hermetically sealed; every employee would be given compulsory counselling and issued with hard-hats and hi-viz protective clothing. Blame Direct would be pumping out claims for com-pen-say-shun.

The Chinese have come up with a simpler solution, which keeps the production lines running. They have rigged up giant nets to stop workers jumping to their deaths.

Back of the net!

More on Tuesday's Littlejohn column from 5CC and Minority Thought.

Groundbreaking news from the Mail

Today's Mail has an absolutely fascinating news story on the right-hand side of its front page:


Girl who married Anne Diamond's husband leaves him...for a woman.

So a woman who is married to someone who used to be married to someone who used to be on telly starts a new relationship.

Astounding stuff, isn't it?

The rest of this tale of the utmost national importance is on page seven.

Just for comparison, remember the Mail's coverage of the Haiti earthquake? They never put it on the front page of the paper - which even the Daily Star managed to do - and the day after the disaster struck, the Mail's coverage was on pages 12 and 13.

But this drivel is on pages one and seven.

Mail Editor Paul Dacre gets paid well over £1m a year for making decisions like that.

Not front page news

Today's Mail on Sunday is a very good example of what not to put on the front of your newspaper:


Ignoring the cheap watch giveaway, we'll start at the top of the page, which is, ironically, also the bottom of the barrel.

Piers Morgan. Talking about celebrities. Urgh.

Morgan and inanity go together like 'Viglen' and 'dodgy share-tipping'. The only surprise is he didn't put himself as the number one celebrity who 'matters most'.

Instead, he chose Simon Cowell, which has absolutely nothing to do with Cowell being Morgan's boss on Britain's Got Talent.

Morgan says Cowell:

constantly takes risks.

Really? He came to most people's attention with Pop Idol, based on the already 'successful' format of Popstars. Pop Idol was an ITV 'talent' show where hopefuls performed in front a panel of judges and gradually got eliminated based on a public vote.

He then did The X Factor, an ITV 'talent' show where hopefuls performed in front a panel of judges and gradually got eliminated based on a public vote.

And then he took a huge 'risk' with Britain's Got Talent, an ITV 'talent' show where hopefuls performed in front a panel of judges and gradually got eliminated based on a public vote.

And that's not even mentioning his involvement in American Idol and America's Got Talent.

Morgan and Cowell's fellow Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden turns up in 24th place, while X Factor tear-factory Cheryl Cole is 3rd.

It's almost as if Morgan is just trying to impress his famous friends and show how terribly important he is - if you can possibly imagine him doing such a thing.

His definition of 'celebrity' for the purpose of this list seems to be anyone who is British and famous. You would be hard pushed to class Sir Michael Caine, Sir David Attenborough and Jeremy Paxman as 'celebrities'.

He includes Attenborough at number 96. So according to Morgan, Sir David 'matters' less than Coleen Rooney (67th), JLS (59th), James Corden (41st), Susan Boyle (37th) and Jordan (28th), and only matters slightly more than Heather Mills, who he puts in at 100 because she's:

brilliantly talentless.

It is an absolutely missable read.

The main story on Mail on Sunday's front page isn't much better. David Cameron's wife 'might' have voted Labour in the past and 'might' do again this year, it says, rather incredibly. It's based on a claim made by Shadow Culture Spokesman Ed Vaizey in an upcoming Andrew Rawnsley documentary about David Cameron.

As a front page news story, it's thin gruel. And it doesn't say much for the Mail on Sunday. Either they put this on the front page without properly investigating the claim. Or they had three fairly firm denials, and decided to go ahead with it anyway.

Whichever is true, it reflects poorly on Editor Peter Wright and Editor-in-Chief Paul Dacre.

The online version contains Samantha's denial:

‘I did not vote for Tony Blair in 1997 and I have never voted Labour.’

And then Conservative Central Office's statement that as Samantha had taken five weeks off work in 1997 to campaign for the Tories, it's highly unlikely she would have then voted Labour.

And there was Vaizey himself:

'I haven’t a clue whether she voted for Blair and I would be very surprised if she did. She married David in June 1996, so of course she voted for him in 1997...I don’t think Sam ever voted for Blair.'

Of course, they all would say that, wouldn't they? But it doesn't really seem very likely and certainly doesn't seem worth splashing all over the front page of your paper.

The same is true of the other story the Mail on Sunday decided was more important than anything else going on in the world today. What is it?

Dog ate my pearl earring.

Yes, really.

Remember how the Mail newspapers never once put the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Haiti on their front page?

But a spaniel swallows a piece of jewellery?

Now that is important...

[Update: the above has been corrected, based on the comments. I'm glad to say my knowledge of crappy reality shows isn't that good.]

The priorities of the Daily Mail

In the last seven days, the Mail has had the antics of John Terry on the front page six times:

(Hat-tip to Political Betting for the above pic)

In the last 23 days, the Mail has had coverage of the Haiti earthquake on the front page this many times:







(That's...umm...none.)

The Mail clearly regards the sex life of a footballer as more important than the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

The Mail just doesn't care about Haiti

Today, the Daily Mail was the only national newspaper not to have a mention of the Haiti earthquake on its front page. It chose to plug its Poirot DVD giveaway instead:


It's an astonishing editorial decision to relegate the biggest news story of the year so far to the inside. How did Editor Paul Dacre and his henchmen come to that conclusion, when even the Daily Star thought it important enough to put on the front page?

So where, exactly, did the Mail place its coverage in the print edition?

Flicking through, there are stories about:

• Conservative Party plans on alcohol and teachers' pay.
• Swine flu.
• Nick Clegg, faith schools and homosexuality.
• The BBC and U2.
• A 106-year-old woman 'forced to leave the home she loved'.
• Gary McKinnon.
• Britain being out of recession (buried on page 6).
• Madeleine McCann.
• The Chilcot Inquiry.
• Weather warnings.
• Lawyers trying to gag an MP.

And there are also articles about:

• A policeman who is 5ft tall.
• How women's handbags are 57% lighter than two years ago.
• Dannii Minogue being pregnant.
• A review of the Legally Blonde stage show.

And it is only after all that, on pages 12 and 13, that the Mail finds room for the Haiti earthquake.

Even then, page 12 is half taken up with a Tesco advert for Bold washing powder. 'Lighten the load' it says, next to pictures of a child with bandages around its head and a dazed woman crawling over rubble.

Page 13 contains the longest article of the spread - and that is a short history of Haiti titled 'Rape, murder and voodoo on the island of the damned' which hardly mentions the quake among all the stereotypes.

Meanwhile, the main article is 25 unrevealing sentences long.

So why is the Mail so uninterested?

The headline on their website earlier today gives some indication (as spotted and snapped by Megan Lucas):


Ah. So there it is. The Mail only regards this as a 'top story' when they think some 'Brits' may have died. The deaths of thousands of Haitians and the wrecking of their country is not important enough on its own, apparently.

Certainly not as important as a free Poirot DVD.

Even when they do turn their attention to Haiti, it ends up like this:


Still, with the story leading the Mail's website - in one form or another - for most of the day, surely it would make Friday's front page?


Nope. Still no room for Haiti. What Beyonce did two weeks ago, another Poirot DVD and - believe it or not - a bird feeding kit are considered far more worthy.