Outrage over Mail's Gately article
Outrage over Daily Mail's Stephen Gately article
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By Matthew Champion. |  |
Friday, 16, Oct 2009 03:54
An opinion piece in the Daily Mail about the death of Stephen Gately has sparked online fury, with internet users calling for the writer in question to be dismissed.
By Lewis Bazley.
In an article entitled 'Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death', journalist Jan Moir links the former Boyzone star's passing to his homosexuality.
The title of the article - in which she refers to the apparent pitfalls of his "very different and more dangerous lifestyle", as well as mentioning the recent suicide of Matt Lucas' former civil partner - was changed on Friday afternoon to 'A strange, lonely and troubling... death... ', following the uproar over Moir's writing.
She also writes: "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."
After a court injunction preventing the publication of a parliamentary question was reversed in no small part thanks to the efforts of users of microblogging site Twitter, the same site has become inundated with expressions of disgust at Moir's article.
She has since issued a statement regarding the matter - read remarks from it here
Twitter user amyvangar had earlier written: "Dear Jan Moir, you are a loathsome, obnoxious individual. There is nothing natural about your lack of tact and judgement."
Stephen Fry, meanwhile, wrote of Moir: "I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane."
Her name has become a top 'trending topic' on Twitter - indicating the frequency with which it is mentioned - and users have started petitions urging readers to contact the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) regarding the Mail piece.
Moir has been labelled "vile" by several Twitter users while others have opted to reduce the Mail's potential publicity for the matter by publishing the article as a Google Document, denying the Daily Mail website potentially thousands of online hits.
To read Jan Moir's article as a Google Document, click here
And in a remarkable instance of consumer power, other members of Twitter sent messages to the BT, O2 and Marks and Spencer Twitter pages asking if the companies intended to remove their advertising from the webpage showcasing Moir's offending article.
The Twitter uproar appeared on Friday afternoon to have been successful, with all adverts removed from the article after half past three.
Though the article remains on the Daily Mail website, the majority of reader comments are negative, with the article labelled "disgraceful", "hateful" and "poisonous".
The PCC website was struggling to contain a stream of traffic on Friday afternoon, with pcc.org.uk appearing to have crashed due to thousands of internet users visiting the site to complain about Moir's article.