Petition to ask theatre industry to boycott Daily Mail

Surely you want to speak to those people?

You want their money to keep more of the industry working?

Wellcome to the real world, complicated isn't it?

I think the Mail is a terrible newspaper so I don't read it at all. This seems to put me in a small minority of the people posting here. Shouldn't the first step be you all stop reading Baz ?

Many read it simply in order to be offended as far as I can see. Anyway, unfollowing Baz on Twitter would be an excellent and visible way for the theatre industry to express their disapproval ? Where's the petition for that ? I assume BB is still there because he gets well paid and doesn't object to their politics - simplest explanation. 

My guess is a lot of people are clicking on their on-line site to get offended by stories they publish and those clicks bring them advertising revenue. As an extra lever unfollowing him on Twitter will help persuade theatre PRs not to use him. Of course both these things require actual action on the part of those complaining. 

My guess actually was that many of those who thought they might be offended by the Tom Daley article had gone over to the Mail website and actually read the thing. The purpose of the protest seems to be to have fewer people read what BB writes by lobbying PRs to stop giving him information, but a far more direct approach which could be done in parallel is just to stop reading what he writes, but it seems people here don't want to do that and are creating improbable scenarios to justify it (hands up who looks at Baz's Twitter feed every week but doesn't follow him ?). Another idea would be to lobby BB directly and tell him he's a disgrace - why not ?

I should emphasise that I'm occupying the moral high ground on this one - I never read the Mail in any form and I never see anything Baz writes or tweets. 

Even if you follow Baz that doesn't mean you have to read any articles - the info is in the tweet after all. It's also his personal account so the Mail gain nothing from it.

And nowadays you don't have to read the original article to get the gist of what the controversy is about as it is reported on by other sources. I often see people on twitter directing people away from reading Mail articles to specifically avoid giving them clicks.

I don't read any articles by the Mail ever but I usually am aware of what the latest nonsense they have come up with is.

It is indeed about Oxfam.

People don't necessarily learn to distinguish though. There's an understanding that newspapers present fact, but any look at the (teeny tiny hidden-away) corrections boxes reveals that newspapers peddle whichever lies suit their agenda. And let's not forget that they've spent YEARS dismissing Media Studies as a Mickey Mouse subject, and yet people are surprised that people are less able to tell fake news or political opinion from a baseline fact. Also make no mistake, you can present a fact (for example, Isabel Oakeshott's "there are a lot of disabled spaces in this car park and they are unoccupied") in a way that utterly warps the context and misleads the audience (yes, Isabel, but only 4% of the car park, which is also the population of the UK who are Blue Badge holders, and it's a huge car park, and also when you start ragging on the disabled then you're not the one who's going to come off smelling of roses).

I don't have any ideas on how to fix wide-scale lack of journalistic integrity, but I think the idea of left-wing arts organisations actively dissociating themselves from publications that they don't agree with politically isn't exactly an anti-free speech/pro-censorship stance. The Mail can and does print what it wants, but that doesn't mean advertisers or PR agencies have to support, condone, or even associate with them.

Question. Do you think publicly funded arts organisations should be “Left Wing.”? If they fund themselves then why not, but you didn’t specify who should ignore them and many Arts organisations receive some public funding. I note the publicly aided Southbank Centre are said to have withdrawn.



If I really have to take sides on this I agree with theatre monkey. The Daily Mail allows an outlet for certain people’s views which could be much more rabid if somehow you forced it out of business or at least persuaded it to only print your views. Some people on here need to Google Tommy Robinson, who has a large social media following all of whom believe his views are censored by ALL mainstream media. Hint you won’t like what he says at all.



Further I am concerned by the no of people who say they never read the Daily Mail. I am convinced that one of the reasons why Hillary Clinton lost is because her people did not listen to the views of enough people. They cocooned themselves inside their own little bubble, talking only to their supporters and tame PR outlets.



Ignore/sideline the Daily Mail at your peril. Make their readers feel they are shunned and you open their ears to Tommy Robinson/Donald Trump.

Isn’t it inciting gay hatred to state that heterosexual parents are better/best? Where does it end? To hold the opinion personally is one thing but to assert it from the platform of a newspaper is quite another.