Daily Mail Gone Woo?

[Nosi]

When one reads British newspapers, especially The Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html), one would think that the UK is going to Hades in a hand basket. Not a day goes by with out a story about incompetence in hospitals killing patients, especially the Elderly. Here is an example of this sort of story:

Diary of despair of pensioner who died in 'zoo' hospital after 'catalogue of blunders by staff' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197819/Sprightly-pensioner-dies-zoo-hospital-catalogue-blunders-staff.html)

How much of this is Woos gone bonkers, Journalists dumpster diving for sensational stories, or is the UK really going to Hades in that handbasket? Why am I pursuing British papers? Well, the United States is looking to 'reform' health care to a single payer system, rather like the UK's medical system, the NHS.

[peteweaver]

The Daily Mail is not a newspaper I would trust.

[brodski]

Gone? When was it not?

[richardm]

It's journalists dumpster diving for sensational stories. It's always possible to find cases where things have gone wrong, and you can probably never eliminate mistakes entirely.

I can trump the Mail's anecdote with one from my mother in law who died last year. The treatment she received from an NHS hospital was really very good. Was the ward as nice as what she'd get in a swish private hospital? No, it wasn't - but it was clean and the quality of care was spot on, and that's the most important thing. Without the NHS she wouldn't have been able to afford quite a lot of the treatment they gave her.

[8den]

2 of every 3 front pages of the daily mail will be about
A) The Labour party. B) The BBC. or C) The NHS. And they'll usually be complaining.

[Comsat Angel]

I spent Christmas in hospital 5 years ago, having an emergency appendectomy. The staff were fantastic and I don't think a private ward could have done better.

[chillzero]

On the flip side I spent a terrible week on a private ward a few years back, and was relieved to get home. Just 'cos it's private doesn't necessarily mean better.

[Kiosk]

The NHS is a wonderful thing, but it's been badly handled by successive governments. Its failings are not the result of the single payer system. In fact, it's very arguable that creeping privatisation is responsible for much of what's going wrong in British hospitals right now. A properly-funded NHS run by medical professionals would work far better than what we have (by "properly-funded" I don't so much mean "given more money" as "given the same amount of money, but that money being spent correctly").

My one stay in a private hospital wasn't so great, anyway. The food was very nice, and the room was decorated rather like a mid-range hotel, but the standard of care I received there was low indeed. Needles breaking off in my arm, wrong dose of painkillers, etc. I appreciate that this is probably not the norm, but I've never had anything to complain about in NHS hospitals - except the food and the decor, of course.

Americans hear enough nonsense about the NHS from American media, without having to read the Daily Mail. I'm often surprised when I meet otherwise well-informed people from the US, convinced that NHS patients with cancer have to wait two years for treatment, that there is no private health insurance for British people who want it, that doctors over here are barely paid a living wage, or that British hospitals look like something out of M*A*S*H.

[Travis]

The NHS is a wonderful thing, but it's been badly handled by successive governments. Its failings are not the result of the single payer system. In fact, it's very arguable that creeping privatisation is responsible for much of what's going wrong in British hospitals right now. A properly-funded NHS run by medical professionals would work far better than what we have (by "properly-funded" I don't so much mean "given more money" as "given the same amount of money, but that money being spent correctly").

My one stay in a private hospital wasn't so great, anyway. The food was very nice, and the room was decorated rather like a mid-range hotel, but the standard of care I received there was low indeed. Needles breaking off in my arm, wrong dose of painkillers, etc. I appreciate that this is probably not the norm, but I've never had anything to complain about in NHS hospitals - except the food and the decor, of course.

Americans hear enough nonsense about the NHS from American media, without having to read the Daily Mail. I'm often surprised when I meet otherwise well-informed people from the US, convinced that NHS patients with cancer have to wait two years for treatment, that there is no private health insurance for British people who want it, that doctors over here are barely paid a living wage, or that British hospitals look like something out of M*A*S*H.

They're running ads on the TV right now that basically say "if we get NHS you'll get a doctor who doesn't care if you live or die!"

[geni]

The Daily male once ran a multi page accepting article on monoatomic gold. Long been firmly woo.

[oldhat]

My sister and her husband live in London and they tell me there is a political demographic in England called the "Daily Mail Reader," like our "Soccer Moms." Conservative, Northern, slightly xenophobic.

One of the big lurking variables in American media is Matt Drudge links almost daily to the Daily Mail...

[funk de fino]

My sister and her husband live in London and they tell me there is a political demographic in England called the "Daily Mail Reader," like our "Soccer Moms." Conservative, Northern, slightly xenophobic.

One of the big lurking variables in American media is Matt Drudge links almost daily to the Daily Mail...

We have the White Van Man

[funk de fino]

My mother started treatment with the NHS a week and a half after being diagnosed with Lymphoma.

I am in the middle of a two month wait to see a knee specialist through my Private health insurance

[Red3]

Most "red top" and a some other U.K papers take one particularly outlandish or horrific incident and then make it sound like it's a daily occurrence everywhere in the country. They just play on people's fears and insecurities to sell papers.

Unfortunately the Daily Mail isn't by far the worst paper in the U.K.

[Kiosk]

Unfortunately the Daily Mail isn't by far the worst paper in the U.K.

At the risk of going OT, I'd say it is. The Sun is at least as bad in terms of whipping up hatred and propagating untruths, and all the red-tops are worse in terms of dumbing down, but no other British paper's stupidity, mendacity, mean-spiritedness and woo come with such a convincing front of middlebrow respectability. That's what makes the Mail so poisonous - hundreds of thousands of people take it seriously.

[Red3]

At the risk of going OT, I'd say it is. The Sun is at least as bad in terms of whipping up hatred and propagating untruths, and all the red-tops are worse in terms of dumbing down, but no other British paper's stupidity, mendacity, mean-spiritedness and woo come with such a convincing front of middlebrow respectability. That's what makes the Mail so poisonous - hundreds of thousands of people take it seriously.

Yes, actually I agree. At least the others don't pretend to be something they're not.

[Nosi]

I use websites like this to keep a weather-eye on the Woo-factor...:D

[dropzone]

Gone? When was it not?I'm a yank and only know the Daily Mail from its online presence and because a local shopkeeper carries it, yet I STILL must support you.

[Undesired Walrus]

I see we are building a prison in Nigeria. At least that is what the Daily Mail front page screams today.

[Nosi]

I see we are building a prison in Nigeria. At least that is what the Daily Mail front page screams today.
Would could the possible benefit be of having a Nigerian based Britished prison be?
:confused:

[peteweaver]

2 of every 3 front pages of the daily mail will be about
A) The Labour party. B) The BBC. or C) The NHS. And they'll usually be complaining.

Or D) Immigrants taking everything.

[Alferd_Packer]

Daily Mail, is that the one with the bimbo shot on page 3?

[volatile]

Gone? When was it not?

I opened this thread to post those exact words.

They serialised The Bible Code, FFS.

[volatile]

My sister and her husband live in London and they tell me there is a political demographic in England called the "Daily Mail Reader," like our "Soccer Moms." Conservative, Northern, slightly xenophobic.

One of the big lurking variables in American media is Matt Drudge links almost daily to the Daily Mail...

Not Northern. Home-counties. Southern. Respectably Southern.

[chillzero]

Daily Mail, is that the one with the bimbo shot on page 3?
That's the Sun.