21,000 Complain over Stephen Gately Article
An article written by Jan Moir and published by the Daily Mail has sparked a lot of controversy, with her being branded a homophobed for what she said about Stephen Gately’s death. It has become such a big deal that more than 21,000 complaints (a record) have been issued to the Press Complaints Commission for the publication. This is more complaints than what the whole newspaper industry normally generates over a 4 to 5 year period.
The columnist published comments about the circumstances surrounding the death of the beloved and openly gay singer, who was part of Boyzone before they broke up and he went solo. She describes his unexpected death as being sugar coated so much that it clouds the bitter truth underneath. Then she went on to say that everyone needs to admit that the circumstances of his untimely death are more than a little sleazy.
Needless to say, Gatley’s family probably isn’t very happy about the article’s contents - much like the people who have complained about it - but they haven’t formally complained about it themselves. However, news columnists are prone to stating their opinions bluntly and without any regard to those who will read it. Most of them have the mentality that their opinion is “the” opinion and everyone will agree with them, so this really shouldn’t have come as such a big surprise. There is always at least one person out there that will drag someone’s name in the mud - there were even some who did it to Michael Jackson after his death.
It’s very likely that the surge of complaints will continue rising as more people hear of the article through the media and on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The last record for the most complaints about a single newspaper article was 500.