Another Voice

24 October 2009

We should think most carefully before calling for censorship in any quarter

If you’re me, one of the ways you know that broadcasters are getting desperate for a ‘balancing’ voice to counter a popular point of view is that large numbers of them start telephoning you. You realise they must be scraping the barrel. Never more so, of course, than when what’s sought is that elusive beast, an articulate right-winger who isn’t totally Neanderthal. I generally tell them (always good advice in a tight corner) to try Peter Hitchens or Janet Daley.

But unless (perfectly possible) I’ve missed their broadcast interventions, neither these, nor any of the rest of the small stable of stalwarts on the media right upon whom Britain has to rely for a volume of ‘balancing’ commentary out of all proportion to our numbers, has sprung to the defence of the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir.

Ms Moir last week wrote an entertainingly viperous attack on the late former-boy-band singer and openly gay celebrity Stephen Gately, ‘while his corpse’ (as Ms Moir’s innumerable critics keep protesting) ‘was still warm’. Moir’s column was slyly and nastily — but I must say expertly — done; and if it hadn’t been exceptionally well written it would have needled fewer readers and caused less offence. Moir even contrived to craft her column into an attack of civil partnerships generally, on the grounds that poor Mr Gately was in one.

The Press Complaints Commission has received a record number of complaints — thousands — and in due course will no doubt issue their judgment according to their code. I’m unversed in the PCC code and have no idea whether the Mail has breached it. I would be sorry, though, if Moir gets no support — not for an unpleasant piece of journalism, but for the right to publish it.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next page

More articles from: Matthew Parris | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (1)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

emjaydub

October 22nd, 2009 9:57pm Report this comment

This isn't about taking offence. Most of us as individuals can turn the other cheek to Ms Moir. What I question is the right of anyone (not only Ms Moir but her editors) to go uncriticised for spouting homophobic views in a world where - by way of a recent example of an unisolated incident - a man was kicked to death in Trafalgar Square by teenagers shouting homophobic abuse. Jan Moir and her editors bear a particular responsibility because the Daily Mail is a high circulation newspaper which has a certain influence on the general public.

Post comment