I'm Tired of the Daily Mail and their "tongue in cheek" article


Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment or post about, or even email me to show their support over the article that appeared in the Daily Mail last week claiming I set up this blog for "e-venge". Whilst I am still angry with the Daily Mail about what I feel is a very personal and public attack on my character, my issue with the Daily Mail represents the wider issue of how bloggers are perceived and treated by 'traditional media' and whether 'facts' actually enter the equation in certain newspapers.

Recently Zoe (Girl With a One Track Mind) blogged about plagarism from bloggers over at The Guardian and in particular mentioned Jonny B, who found his posts in the Mail on Sunday without his permission. He subsequently invoiced them but after agreeing to pay him, they actually had the cheek to refer to bloggers as "amateur writers" and claim "
most people are happy to have their work recognised and displayed to a wider audience."

It seems shocking that a paper that's been more than around the block a bit would be so unaware of copyright laws but...t
he Daily Mail writes...for the Daily Mail. They have a Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along policy.

Which is why I shouldn't really have been that surprised by Laura Topham's hatchet job of me. When I phoned her on Wednesday reeling from the article and the scurrilous comments left by some of their readers, Laura denied that the paper had said that I took revenge online. Really?

"Natalie, like a growing number of other betrayed and deceived women, decided to take her revenge online."

I angrily read out several of the ridiculous untruths that had been published about me and her response was to tell me that it was "tongue in cheek...It's empowering..." and then in an attempt to sidestep the issue at hand she said "I can't believe they forgot to put in a link to your site and the ebook... I think readers would really love it...." and continued to repeat this musing aloud for the remainder of the conversation.

Can't you believe it Laura? I find that hard to believe considering that a link to any of my blogs would have made the Daily Mail look like they employ "amateur writers"... Unfortunately she didn't count on hundreds of their readers searching for "Natalie Lue blog" every day and finding out for themselves.

I wonder if they were confused by finding various snippets from aspects of my life, a blog full of women asking for relationship advice, or the latest hot off the shelves baby and mummy products?

So not only do the Daily Mail seem to have an aversion to dealing with the facts that are given to them about a story, but they will actually deny the printing of their own 'facts', and then in the face of confrontation, chalk it up to "tongue in cheek".

Who gets to decide what is tongue in cheek? Is it me, the person lined up with two other women under a headline about "e-venge", even though I said that I hadn't and would never take revenge and repeatedly stated that I didn't want to be in a revenge article?

Is it the reader, who judging by the comments that were placed before the Daily Mail halted publication of them, didn't see it as "tongue in cheek" and some of them were quite nasty?

Or is it the Daily Mail newspaper?

But then, if you're going to refer to my article as "tongue in cheek" should people who read glaring, sensationalist, often offensive headlines on the front of the Daily Mail, never mind inside it, then perceive all editorial in the Daily Mail as "tongue in cheek"?

Should Daily Mail readers buy it to find out the "tongue in cheek" humourous side of their sharp stance on immigration, the scaremongering stories about health issues, or their reporting about various murders? Maybe after they've finished reading it, they should then buy a proper paper to find out the facts...

Where do you draw the line? How do you determine which editorial will be factual and which will be a made up story, suitable for one of those 'real life' magazines?

Is providing "tongue in cheek" content the Daily Mail's editorial policy?


"Can you believe a thing you see on ITV?" Fridays front page roared. Well, based on their recent form, I think the bigger question is Can You Believe a Thing You See in the Daily Mail?

The Daily Mail thinks that they are in the driving seat here.

They write their stories to suit their own agenda, shouting their twisted views, shaping their readers opinion on it, allowing readers to jump all over the bandwagon and comment about it, and then when confronted, claim it's "tongue in cheek".

They take content without permission from bloggers
 and when confronted refer to them as "amateur writers" as if a blogger should be grateful for their work to appear in their paper...without their permission...

What if Jonny B had his own editorial policy which said that he only wanted to appear in certain media outlets and that he didn't want his work in there? What if they'd asked his permission and he'd said no? Well I guess they'd have gone ahead and published anyway because his view doesn't matter.

In fact, nobody's views but the Daily Mail's matter because from the moment that you build an editorial policy around spoonfeeding to an audience of people who clearly don't know the difference between fact and "tongue in cheek" works of fiction, the Daily Mail is doing a huge disservice to their readers.

Is there no story in facts? There are a lot of shitty, horrible, devastating, exciting, wonderful, REAL things that happen out there in the world - Why do we have to be subjected to works of fiction and embellishment?

I don't know what it was that governed the Daily Mail's decision to publish that tat full of 26 inaccuracies but it feels very targeted and personal and it leaves me with a couple of burning questions:

There are 3 people in the feature and they've made up a story about me. If I am to take the situation at face value: Why when you have two other people who have called up wives, used their exes email accounts and hacked into websites, would you lead the article with and consistently refer to, the one person who you've made up a story about?

Or is the whole thing a work of fabrications, embellishments, and omissions about all three of us?

Whatever the motivations are for the Daily Mail to show such a blatant disregard for the facts, a persons character and their family, and the work of bloggers, one thing is for sure - the only amateurs here are the Daily Mail.


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