Are they little angels or migrant hordes?
Of all the British newspapers, perhaps the most hypocritical is the Daily Mail. As with other papers today, the Mail seeks to have it both ways, lamenting the death of a child they wish had stayed in a warzone.
But the Mail’s methods are a special case and a class apart.
Visitors to its website MailOnline this morning will have seen two stories. One was headlined:
“We can’t cope with this tide! Europe’s despairing leaders bring back border controls with free-movement zone on brink of collapse”
The second:
“Father of migrant boys washed up on Turkish beach arrives at morgue to say farewell to the family he lost as it emerges he ‘tried to hold onto his sons after boat capsized but saw them washed away‘”
(Click to enlarge)
Aside from the usual over-the-top tone and creepy use of someone’s grief, the thing to avoid here would have been the water metaphors.
Papers often speak of a ‘wave’ of migration, of migrants ‘pouring in’, or as today, a ‘tide’. Might this not seem insensitive when children (and hundreds of adults) are drowning in the sea?
The placing of these two stories together ironically exposes the key contradiction in the Mail’s coverage: using the emotions of the father of a drowned family, while still describing them and their countryfolk as a tide or wave ‘engulfing’ Europe.
It gets worse.
When posted on the Mail’s Facebook page, the first story was headlined:
‘Europe abandons open borders in face of migrant hordes‘
Nice!
But just hours later they were sharing tributes to the boy who drowned, under the headline:
‘God be with you, little angel’
So which is it? Are they little angels or migrant hordes?
Or do they switch from being one to the other only when they die?
The Daily Mail ought to make up its mind. Otherwise it will be open to the charge of just doing whatever pulls in advertising revenue. Perish the thought!
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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17 Responses to “The Daily Mail’s hypocrisy on refugees knows no bounds”
JoeDM
Millions of Kurds live and prosper peacfully in Turkey. The problem is the extremist Kurdish nationalist terrorists who are a very small minority that get lots of publicity.
Cole
Let’s remember that the Mail opposed Jewish refugees coming to Britain in the 1930s. It was ‘an outrage’ they said. Nothing has changed apparently.
jj
I really dont see the issue with reporting on the issues of the crisis? At least there are two sides to the story, the fact that many European countries simply cannot cope, Hungary for instance, and quoting leaders who are rightfully worried, but also reporting on the emotional side of the crisis as well? Surely that’s what journalism should be about. Left Foot Forward doesn’t report on a non biased platform either (obviously), so its a rather hypocritical report.
The Daily Tang
Those defending the Mail – it does not report ‘both sides.’
For probably about a decade and a half it has run a program of dehumanising migrants of any kind as much as possible. To claim that the Mail has been in any way ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ is absolutely laughable.
They have found sympathy because of a chance photo which happens to be particularly heart-wrenching but have insofar as now promoted the idea that people like him are ruining our country when they arrive.
G
Maybe the mail will stop spending its time bashing charities now… or perhaps it will convince itself its been doing good work to help refugees rather than contributing to the problem. Whatever sells papers, and let’s worry about the consequences later