Interesting essay. I must admit, until I read this essay I never thought of social media as the latest iteration of the tabloids except this time the readers are providing their own copy–but I suppose that’s what it is.
Surely we are, at long last, truly scraping the bottom of the publishing barrel if we view social media as a “publication”. Is there anywhere to go but up?
Michael Keating
1 year ago
I fancy myself a writer. I read the DM regularly because it highlights the dramatic, the absurd and the outrageous…the nuts and bolts of literature. I can do without the Royals, the Kardashians, and the constant barrage of nearly there bikini shots which have made the female derriere almost banal. Would I pay for it? Never. Have I ever clicked on an ad? Never. Would I ever send a link to a DM story to a friend? Never, because they would think I was a complete idiot. So yes, the DM is a pleasure to read, but a secret one. I am grateful for its presence but wouldn’t miss its absence. There’s always the NY Post which is also free.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
As the current Lord Rothermere said to an investment banker at a deal signing luncheon a few years back, The Daily Mail attracts advertisers , and revenues, as it attracts readers in their droves who want to read what they think that they believe: this was in response to said banker who confessed that he did not read, and could not stand the Daily Mail…” That” said Lord Rothermere allegedly ” Is why you are here, and we you want us as your client”… touche ?!!! Said banker was managing a DMGT investment in then North Sea oil.
… and the incredibly dim Prince Harry should remember the old Fleet Street adage, again allegedly a quote from a silk who had just demolished an entity that had the temerity to take on the newspaper giants in The High Court.. ” One takes on the Harmsworth empire at one’s peril”…..
This is total cobblers. What you gain from such a pathetic lie i have no idea. Rothermere doesn’t see himself or his family or the business in such cynical terms.
Because the investment banker at the lunch was my father….He headed up Citi non US debt, and it was a big loan syndication deal… but clearly you know better!! Engage brain and research before you make a fool of yourself in public, but I thank you, as it had provided me with a tad of entertainment on an otherwise dull day!
Intriguingly the Wikipedia article says he was married and had 4 children (illegitimate). Which suggests all the latter day Harmsworths are not direct descendants.
They are direct descendants, just “bar sinister” descendants.
Geoffrey Hicking
1 year ago
“Northcliffe’s attackers are snobs, he concludes. This man was a self-made genius who spoke for the people. If you don’t like him, comes the implication, perhaps it’s his readers you really don’t like.”
Didn’t Heffer think differently? Would Roberts call him a snob?
I hate it when conservatives target their guns on the left, and then fail to address the disagreement within their own ranks. We can agree with one conservative, but get told we’re left-wing snobs by another.
Most people don’t like giving artifacts “back” to colonial societies, but Tombs praised an imperialist that did just that- something which is either a betrayal or hypocrisy (or makes the “never give anything “back” crowd” wrong to a degree).
“One small episode is intriguing in today’s context. As reforming governor of poverty-stricken British Honduras (now Belize) in the 1930s, Burns got the British Museum to return Mayan relics that had been recently discovered by a British doctor and sent to London. His plan was to set up a local museum to foster Mayan self-respect: “We see that the people have their bread but too often forget to let them have some butter with it”.” (Tombs- “In Defence of Defending Empire”- Unherd, 19th November, 2021.)
No criticism of him “returning” those artifacts at all. How can we toe the patriotic line when conservative commentators flout it themselves?
Someone please get conservatives to have it out and agree some sort of “approved version” so us people caught in the middle aren’t tarred with socialism. Sick of this.
Last edited 1 year ago by Geoffrey Hicking
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
they’re only giving us what we want
Perhaps what some people want. I know it will sound nannyish, but, to reference The Stones, perhaps we shouldn’t always get what we want, but what we need, and what we don’t need is Twitter or the Daily Mail.
Interesting essay. I must admit, until I read this essay I never thought of social media as the latest iteration of the tabloids except this time the readers are providing their own copy–but I suppose that’s what it is.
Surely we are, at long last, truly scraping the bottom of the publishing barrel if we view social media as a “publication”. Is there anywhere to go but up?
I fancy myself a writer. I read the DM regularly because it highlights the dramatic, the absurd and the outrageous…the nuts and bolts of literature. I can do without the Royals, the Kardashians, and the constant barrage of nearly there bikini shots which have made the female derriere almost banal. Would I pay for it? Never. Have I ever clicked on an ad? Never. Would I ever send a link to a DM story to a friend? Never, because they would think I was a complete idiot. So yes, the DM is a pleasure to read, but a secret one. I am grateful for its presence but wouldn’t miss its absence. There’s always the NY Post which is also free.
As the current Lord Rothermere said to an investment banker at a deal signing luncheon a few years back, The Daily Mail attracts advertisers , and revenues, as it attracts readers in their droves who want to read what they think that they believe: this was in response to said banker who confessed that he did not read, and could not stand the Daily Mail…” That” said Lord Rothermere allegedly ” Is why you are here, and we you want us as your client”… touche ?!!! Said banker was managing a DMGT investment in then North Sea oil.
… and the incredibly dim Prince Harry should remember the old Fleet Street adage, again allegedly a quote from a silk who had just demolished an entity that had the temerity to take on the newspaper giants in The High Court.. ” One takes on the Harmsworth empire at one’s peril”…..
This is total cobblers. What you gain from such a pathetic lie i have no idea. Rothermere doesn’t see himself or his family or the business in such cynical terms.
Because the investment banker at the lunch was my father….He headed up Citi non US debt, and it was a big loan syndication deal… but clearly you know better!! Engage brain and research before you make a fool of yourself in public, but I thank you, as it had provided me with a tad of entertainment on an otherwise dull day!
‘Is why you are here, and we you want us as your client”’
I don’t understand this sentence.
go back to primary school
That was a comment. It would have been better ,and certainly more polite, to have just elucidated on the sentence so that Sophy T could understand it.
The accusative form is increasingly under threat nowadays, it seems. In this case the problem clearly goes all the way back to primary school.
I have heard so many American journalists referring to the Daily Mail over the last year that it seems to me it is now taking over the US.
I intend to send a letter to the Twitters demanding to know what Northcliff’s actual name was. Or I could just look it up on Google.
Alfred Harmsworth.
Thanks, Dougie.
Intriguingly the Wikipedia article says he was married and had 4 children (illegitimate). Which suggests all the latter day Harmsworths are not direct descendants.
They are direct descendants, just “bar sinister” descendants.
“Northcliffe’s attackers are snobs, he concludes. This man was a self-made genius who spoke for the people. If you don’t like him, comes the implication, perhaps it’s his readers you really don’t like.”
Didn’t Heffer think differently? Would Roberts call him a snob?
I hate it when conservatives target their guns on the left, and then fail to address the disagreement within their own ranks. We can agree with one conservative, but get told we’re left-wing snobs by another.
Most people don’t like giving artifacts “back” to colonial societies, but Tombs praised an imperialist that did just that- something which is either a betrayal or hypocrisy (or makes the “never give anything “back” crowd” wrong to a degree).
“One small episode is intriguing in today’s context. As reforming governor of poverty-stricken British Honduras (now Belize) in the 1930s, Burns got the British Museum to return Mayan relics that had been recently discovered by a British doctor and sent to London. His plan was to set up a local museum to foster Mayan self-respect: “We see that the people have their bread but too often forget to let them have some butter with it”.” (Tombs- “In Defence of Defending Empire”- Unherd, 19th November, 2021.)
No criticism of him “returning” those artifacts at all. How can we toe the patriotic line when conservative commentators flout it themselves?
Someone please get conservatives to have it out and agree some sort of “approved version” so us people caught in the middle aren’t tarred with socialism. Sick of this.
they’re only giving us what we want
Perhaps what some people want. I know it will sound nannyish, but, to reference The Stones, perhaps we shouldn’t always get what we want, but what we need, and what we don’t need is Twitter or the Daily Mail.