The Daily Mail & Stephen Gately

[marshlander]

Marshy,
My complaint was not so much as what she said about Gately, I agree that someone who has through their career made money through publicity is, these days, public property. My complaint was what she was saying about us, using his death without a shred of evidence for her assertions.

That is the burden of the protest, but when I read the article, and I've just re-read it, I thought she was making most of her generalisations about celebrities, rather than making pronouncements about gay men in general. You know, Fred, that I have no problem with anyone who needs to protest about the injustices of this life, but I would love to have seen the same publicity being given to this afternoon's protest against the vicious new laws being brought in in Uganda as this appalling piece of journalism has stirred. Her comments, [COLOR="DarkOrchid"]"Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.
Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages."[/COLOR]
are not brilliantly written and one can see why there is a spot of outrage. What she fails to go on to say, but which would be a corollary of her argument, is that relationship problems are endemic in hettie-land too. She has also taken a lazy journalist's way out by inventing the myth on which she rests her case. Whoever said, or expected, that same-sex partnerships would be any more "happy-ever-after" than straight ones? It's certainly not a rational or serious point that has been made by anyone I know. Trying to make a connection between the sad deaths of Kevin McGee and Stephen Gately where there is clearly no such thing was one of many low punches she threw in her article, as was her assumption that "it is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death." It is only important for those who need to know and certainly not for the prurient curiosity she is trying to stir. Her judgement in writing the article is certainly off-kilter. She has stirred up a shit-storm by gratuitously sensationalising the life of someone even before a grieving family had a chance to bury him.

I believe she was the first 'victim' of a Twitter based storm, now termed a 'Twirlwind'.

Nice to see history in the making ...

There is a line and Moir clearly crossed it. She wrote the article, her name is attached to it, she should not be surprised to be the target of the responding vitriol. However the un-named editor that approved the piece has equal culpability, but will sadly likely weather the storm.

Naturally, 'twas ever thus. The sad fate of managers and generals everywhere is to find ways of dealing with guilt of having to take the money while the workers make the sacrifices.

I agree that Ms Moir crossed a line, but I'm not sure it's the same one the protesters see. Perhaps I am missing something in the coding of her words, because she mixed-up and made-up up so many assumptions throughout the article. I find it hard to identify with any "accusation" she has herself been accused of making. I took the final paragraph, "For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see" to be part of her sensationalist comment on celebrity, rather than a continuation of the reference to gay men in the previous paragraph. Maybe I'm just thick!

I do think the editor is at fault for allowing such an insensitive and sloppy piece of invective to pass for journalism.