Friday 21 October 2011

A Country Of Mary Whitehouses

No pictures to prove Osama Bin Laden was dead? Outrageous. Wall to wall pictures of Gaddafi's death? Please, won't somebody think of the poor British chiiildren!

"We're all glad the tyrant has been toppled, but I will be avoiding newsagents with my 5 year old rather than try to explain such ugly images. [...] they could put the images inside the paper if it's in the public interest to see them; but don't put it on the front page for children to see."

"I do not want those images in my head let alone the heads of kids."

"I think it would be in order to print one photo (on an inside page) to prove that he is indeed dead, but the media go well over the top with too graphic photos."

"It is horrible. I sure won't be taking my son to the shops later on, he does not need to see pictures like that. Neither do I, for that matter."
Good grief. And this is the country whose citizens stubbornly stuck it out in two world wars? When did it transform itself into an anaemic collection of risk-averse, perpetually effete nerve endings which would quiver if prodded with a lime jelly?

On another note, our tabloids really are lagging behind our US cousins. Here's the offending Sun front page.

Tabloid? Pah! Far too sensible and restrained.

Now that's more like it!

H/T copyranter


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some people just cannot accept reality.It was a clinical kill,i expect the young son had seen footage put out on the MSM of mssiles hitting a tank or truck looking like something out of a video game fact is there were people in those tanks just as clinical but impersonal.

Zaphod Camden said...

I've seen a lot of people on Twitter moaning about this. "What about the children?" Well, newspapers market to adults, not to children. When I was a child, I got my news from John Craven's Newsround. I'm pretty sure the programme or something like it still exists.

I've said this before on many occasions and if you'll permit me, Dick, I'll say it here…if society at large has to be made totally safe "for the children", what's the point of growing up and becoming an adult? What do you have to look forward to?

Fools.

Carl Minns said...

That could qualify as one of the greatest headlines ever :-)

banned said...

"Gotcha!" would have left more room for a bigger picture.
These moaning minnies were all over the Ministry of Truth, I had to turn Jeremy Vine off.

Anonymous said...

If it was someone smoking a cigarette displayed on the front page cover, the public outrage would be even louder, you can bet on that. This is probably the kick-off for the Obama re-election campaign anyhow.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Zaphod: "if society at large has to be made totally safe "for the children", what's the point of growing up and becoming an adult?"

Spot on. Surely there's a way of claiming entitlement for ourselves with this. When we were kids, the world was all about adults and we had to live with it. Now older and with kids ourselves - having looked forward to the shackles being cast off in childhood - the rules have changed and the world is now all designed for kids.

Shafted, I think is the term. Outside the pub with a lemonade and a packet of crisps in chilhood. Now outside having a fag while kids are running around unleashed inside.

An accident of birth timing, I suppose. ;)

Anonymous said...

It is quite interesting to see
the liberal West applauding
regime change and summary excetution,not forgetting the
widescale bombing of defenceless
villages and towns.
Me thinking only those awfull Nazis
Fascists and Japanese Imperialists did thatsort of thing
Just a thought did Ghaddafi upset the West.Nato and UN because he
refused to implement a total
smoking ban in March
Oh by the way has Somalia got any oil
PS
What jerkoffs still buys paper
just how sad can one get

Miss Nowt

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of the killing of the two corporals at casement park belfast,gruesome.Listening to the disgusting,hypocritical western politicans turns my stomach.To the original point children should be made to watch to see the horror of war.

Anonymous said...

And I bet some of these people would have no problems for their kids to see the new medical pornography soon to be printed on Canadian cigarettes: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/consult/_2011/label-etiquet/messages-eng.php#a1

Iro Cyr

Jill said...

I wonder if people are simply gulled by propaganda terms such as "collateral damage" and the like and can't quite believe that war is an exceedingly unpleasant occurrence in which people do depraved things - even the ones on "our" side. If you don't want them to do depraved things, don't have a war. Actually, I find the text of the Sun headline more distasteful than the image.

neil craig said...

In both cases the official story makes no sense and in both cases the media ignore minor stuff like that.

Bin Laden was allegedly shot, DNA tested and buried at sea in 6 hours despite the fact that DNA testing takes days at a minimum and the helicopters that carried the body away don't have the range to reach the sea nad must have returned to Afghnaistan - in fact the evidence is that bin Laden was killed years ago and this was merely an unknown al Quaida leader.

For Dadaffi to try to make a run for it, in a large conoy, carefully waiting for daylight so that the circling planes could see him more easily is clearly rubbish - he had agreed, with the US government to surrender under a white flag. When he did so the USAF opened fire.

But whoever said news papers and broadcasters are anything about real news?