PCC rejects complaint over Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately's death

Back in October last year following the tragic and very sudden death of Stephen Gately, Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir stuck the knife in and kicked out making some wild and unjustified accusations.

I, among many of my friends, colleagues and many others blogged about this at the time, you can read the posting here.

At the time, emotions were running high and Jan Moir said;

"In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones."

This was her understanding of how the Social Media arena responded.  What this showed in fact was not an orchestrated campaign but in fact a heavy out pouring of grief for Stephen, Boyzone, his partner Andrew and Stephen's family but also a group united against a fairly solitary voice attacking Stephen Gately and making some wild accusations.

Jan Moir misread the public mood.

Following her article, 25,000 people including Andrew Cowles and Polydor complained to the Press Complaints Commission, a number never seen before complaining about one article or even a TV show, such was the anger of people out there.

Well, now the PCC has published it's findings - here.
I have read the adjudication and the Commission's ruling in full under each of the three relevant parts of the Code - Clause 1 (Accuracy); Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock); and Clause 12 (Discrimination) this you can find here.
 
I think the PCC had a difficult role here, but could have proved their worth and showed they even had some teeth, but they failed.  Instead they have backed a journalist columnist who made homophobic comments at an insensitive time and made allegations, proved to be untrue, about Stephen's death.
 
I will be honest, I think the adjudication is a load of tosh, I just found my self shouting at my laptop, (it's okay, it didn't talk back).
 
Take their ruling on Clause 12.

Clause 12 makes clear that the press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's sexual orientation. The question of whether the article was homophobic or discriminatory to gay people in general did not fall under the remit of the Code.

That paragraph to me is completely bonkers, so the PCC doesn't rule on homophobic statements, is that what they are actually saying?

While many complainants considered that there was an underlying tone of negativity towards Mr Gately and the complainant on account of the fact that they were gay, it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article. The columnist had not used pejorative synonyms for the word "homosexual" at any point.

The Commission made clear that this part of the Code was not designed to prevent discussion of certain lifestyles or broad issues relating to race, religion or sexuality. There was a distinction between critical innuendo - which, though perhaps distasteful, was permissible in a free society - and discriminatory description of individuals, and the Code was designed to constrain the latter rather than the former.

The Commission may have been uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist's remarks on the topic; it did not consider, however, that the column had crossed the line on this occasion such as to raise a breach of the Code

So, Jan Moir and the Daily Mail walk free to make any comments they like, mostly because, apparently it was obviously the view of the columnist not the newspaper.

To me, the PCC got this ruling wrong - as Jan Moir got her article wrong and the timing even more wrong.

A sad day today.

Jan Moir tries to apologise but still misses the point

Jan Moir's recent homophobic column in the Daily Mail about the death of Stephen Gately was awful and I have previously blogged about it, you can read it here.

Well, it does appear that Jan Moir is trying to apologise in her latest column, titled "The truth about my views on the tragic death of Stephen Gately."

Initially as you read it you feel there may actually be a genuine change of heart, although there are some lines it that make me feel otherwise. I have spent a lot of time since Jan Moir's first column reading some of her past columns and I have come to the conclusion that she isn't homophobic, but uses people's sexuality a little bit too liberally in the columns when it really doesn't add anything to the content.

"What had been reported about that night is that Stephen and his civil partner Andrew Cowles went to a nightclub and brought back a Bulgarian man to their apartment."

This line from the apology proves a point, the Bulgarian man, is a close friend, yet still Jan is trying to imply something sinister.

"There have been complaints about my use of the word 'sleazy' to describe this incident, but I still maintain that to die on a sofa while your partner is sleeping with someone else in the next room is, indeed, sleazy, no matter who you are or what your sexual orientation might be."

There is no proof at all that this is the event that took place, just nothing more than gossip and since then it has come out that it is in fact untrue, that Andrew Cowles and the friend in question were in fact in different bedrooms.

"The point of my observation that there was a 'happy ever after myth' surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages. "

But Jan, that isn't what you said, so surely if that is what you meant then perhaps you should have said it and it might have avoided a lot of uncertainty?

The original column also talked about other gay stars, dead and alive, again with absolutely no justification, perhaps as stars accept complete hogwash is written about them the public should too, but I don't think it is acceptable for "journalists" and I say that in the loosest term with some people to just say what they want without facts being part of their research.

Jan Moir may not be homophobic, but in my opinion the original column was and some of the content is sheer hogwash. As for the apology, nice try but way off the mark and not genuine as there are too many caveats and justifications that undo the original part.

The one part of the apology I felt was real was that about the timing of the original column - it was very bad timing indeed.

BNP or Jan Moir - is there a difference?

I have been wondering what I felt about the BNP being on BBC Question Time versus Jan Moir's column in the Daily Mail, both wind me up no end but in slightly different ways.

I do think that the BNP's elected Parliamentarians should get a slot on occasion on shows such as Question Time, but the percentage of times they appear should be in proportion to where they come in the political spectrum.

I believe in free speech and given that often the BNP end up with their abhorrent views coming out in the open it is worth it - but seriously in our democracy we have to accept that people have elected the BNP candidates so they have to have the opportunity to then participate in public debate.

However, the broadcaster or the print media has to accept if the BNP person spouts out racist, homophobic or sexist stuff the plus has to be pulled!

So, you may ask why was I so angry with Jan Moir's column in the Daily Mail?

Again, I stand by my free speech stance, but as I said at the time, she was out of order and she knew full well that she was whipping up hysteria with homophobic language, otherwise why did the Daily Mail have to remove the online advertising from the online column?

I was also upset about the timing of the column, Jan Moir had no respect for the family, partner and friends of Stephen Gately by publishing not only the content but the innuendo and she could well have left it until after the funeral.

I don't agree with those people who are calling for her to be fired, but I do think she get a proper disciplinary at the Daily Mail, I also hope the Press Complaints Commission deal with this properly and don't just brush it under the carpet!

Jan Moir's homophobic column in the Daily Mail

I have been in some General election and Scottish election planning meetings all day today so was catching up on Twitter as waiting for the bus home from the city centre and saw that Jan Moir was being attacked for her column today.

So, I saw on Caron's blog that as usual homophobia was alive and well in the Daily Mail in the form of a column by Jan Moir and that during the course of the day online advertising had been removed from the site, such is the power of the internet these days.

Anyway, unlike a lot of my friends and colleagues on the web I am going to link to it because people need to read this crap that the Mail's columnists get paid to write and hopefully they will stop buying it because of articles such as this.

Surely, Stephen Gately's family, partner, friends and fellow Boyzone members deserve some time to grieve and therefore as a mark of respect Jan Moir should have kept her trap shut, we don't all need to know her opinion, her poisoned thoughts and innuendo and implication rather than basing her column on fact.

She says; "Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one." What makes her think this? Just a feeling or a hunch, certainly not fact unless all of a sudden she has become a first class doctor.

She goes onto say; "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."

What myth is this she speaks of? I am sorry, but marriages don't last forever either so what exactly is her point? No people I know who have had a civil partnership have claimed it is going to be happy ever after, but like any relationship you have to work at it. I have been with my partner for 16 years and we have not had a civil partnership, yet, my only regret about not having had it yet is that my Mum won't be there to see it.

Then earlier this evening Jan Moir has bitten back against the backlash she has received since the article came out, she makes some points in the piece such as the point above about the happy ever after myth of civil partnerships, in the statement she says that they have proved to be as problematic as marriages - but Jan Moir you didn't say that in your original article, you cannot whinge afterwards if you couldn't be bothered to put it in the original.

The original piece has generated some 1,000+ complaints to the Press Complaints Commission, To read Moir's full statement, see below;

Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions.

However, the point of my column – which I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read – was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all. Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.

The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned. On this subject, one very important point. 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. 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.

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

Well Jan Moir, I did read your original article, three times in fact and I am afraid your choice of words and language leave me in no doubt that you were trying to whip up hysteria, with homophobic comments and innuendo.

I hope Stephen's partner, friends and family can bury Stephen and grieve in private knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of us with them in spirit - gay, straight, bi and those who have no idea.