AOB-4 - (Music Press) Representation

Stephen Gately Article

The Daily Mail’s journalist, Jan Moir had released an article about the death of Stephen Gately in November 2009 just a day before the scheduling of his funeral in Dublin and this caused a massive stir on the web. The article reads thats Gately did not just die at the age of 33 in his sleep of natural causes, but he wasn’t murdered either, it reads that he was out partying with his husband and went back to their apartment with a bulgarian man as well. It also states that on the night of his death he was constantly smoking cannabis. However there is a constant reference to his homosexuality throughout the article and other celebrities who are homosexuals. Also there is a lot of references to other celebrities who died to substance abuse.

The article of Jan Moir's created one of the biggest stirs with the Press Complaints Commission's  with 22,000 complaints in a single weekend which had caused the computers to crash and is also the most complaints that they have ever had put together in the five years that they have been up and running. Also watchdog got a record of 21,000 complaints to them. The journalist was accused in every direction so the PCC had to launch an investigation whether or not Jan Moir's Article had violated parts of its code that deals with intrusion into grief, accuracy, discrimination and homophobia. The amount of public hatred this article got was phenomenal, even celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Derren Brown socially slashed her on twitter where they had accumulated thousands of followers, as well as all of this, the Daily Mail’s rival The Independant had an article written by Charlie Brooker slagging Jan Moir and her article off. Moir did try and cover herself up by saying “When I wrote that 'he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine,' I was referring to the drugs and the casual invitation extended to a stranger," she said. "Not to the fact of his homosexuality. In writing that 'it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships' I was suggesting that civil partnerships – the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting – have proved just to be as problematic as marriages." Despite of Moir trying to explain herself to the public, they decided not to listen to her.

‘Ultra right-wing, populist, nationalistic, xenophobic, isolationist often hysterical and notoriously obsessed with the immigrants and house prices and, lately, campaigns against same sex marriage and claimants of state benefits’, this is the daily mail’s standpoint whereas the independent standpoint is more left wing and often tends to cover environmental issues. Once all the criticism came in for the daily mail the independent saw it as a chance to view their opinions and attract an audience who would support them.