Arguably, the best news of the year so far is Jack Monroe’s libel victory against a Daily Mail columnist,who didn’t even have the bottle to attend court and is now facing a legal bill of over £300,000. Whilst I remain concerned about our libel laws, which have often been used to quash free speech, I’ll make an exception this time. The Mail columnist used her powerful position to tweet a lie about Monroe, claiming that the food blogger condoned vandalism of a war memorial. It was among the most expensive tweets of all time.
I am going to repeat my view that it really is time people stopped funding hate and no popular media outlet peddles hate more than the Mail. It specialises in attacking those who normally have no comeback, spreading hate against anyone who doesn’t fit in with its twisted view of how the country should be. It is especially antagonistic towards anyone of a left-leaning political disposition and foreigners. The Mail would certainly not like me, hopefully.
Odious columnists who love to see their name in lights, no matter what the circumstances, will tone down their content when people stop buying the newspaper in which they appear and when advertisers stop advertising. It is the only power we have. The brilliant Jack Monroe showed the courage of a small army to take on the mighty Daily Mail and we should all savour her victory. All right, it’s not a victory for free speech in the literal sense and we must still seek to modify our libel laws to ensure free speech remains, but by the same token vicious, sleazy hacks should not be allowed to use their positions to lie about and defame people who can’t always answer back.
My main objection to these pound shop polemicists is that they are poor writers but, I suppose, they try to make up for their inability to write properly by writing purely to gain headlines. If readers are upset by what they read, it doesn’t matter because any publicity is good publicity.
As a soggy, wet, left of centre liberal type who reads the Guardian, I know that if my paper of choice started running anti migrant scare stories, doing demolition jobs on their favoured targets and the putrid, destructive journalism that demeans their own profession, I wouldn’t buy it. Whether you like it or not, if you buy the Mail or the other tawdry tabloids, you are directly funding hate. It doesn’t matter if you only buy the rag to do the crossword or because the sports section is so good, buy the Mail and you are encouraging the sort of venom that Jack Monroe was brave enough to stand up against.
My golden rule now is that if I go into a shop or supermarket that sells newspapers, I will always cover copies of the Mail with other papers. Small and petty-minded, for sure, but if they play dirty, then so can I.
