It’s hard to cheer when a newspaper closes. Even one you’re slightly scared of, like the Daily Mail.
Yet despite being a malevolent ink-and-paper succubus that will devour your firstborn – seriously, chuck a baby at a copy of the Mail, and watch as the paper roll its eyes back and swallows it whole – the Mail deserves its voice. At the Leveson inquiry, when seething Daily Mail orchestrator Paul Dacre was quizzed about Jan Moir’s notorious column on the death of Stephen Gateley, he acknowledged that she’d possibly gone too far, but added that he “would die in a ditch” to defend a columnist’s freedom of speech. Whatever you think of Dacre, that’s a brave and noble thing to say, although disappointingly he failed to indicate precisely when he was planning on doing it.
(That’s a joke, so please don’t be offended on his behalf, especially because it’s precisely the kind of robust commentary on death he’s dying in that ditch to defend.)
Charlie Brooker’s column this week is excellent.
