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I know people who read the Daily Mail and I understand that this makes them sad and angry. Each day they pick up the Daily Mail and are told that the country that they live in is broken, falling apart and getting worse. Each day many new things will cause cancer or will cause their painful death in some other way. Reading the Mail is a depressing, thankless task - but ultimately they only have themselves to blame. I've been busy with some educational projects recently, but I still had time to flick through the Daily Mail most days and snap a few stories that caught my attention. The topics vary, but the message is the same: be afraid, very afraid, of everything.
 Of course, a cancer scare is to be expected in nearly every single edition of the Daily Mail - the paper is famous for its mission to group all food stuffs into two distinct groups: 1 - causes cancer and 2, cures cancer. This week well done meat can 'raise risk of cancer'. Naturally the article wouldn't be complete without linking this cancer risk with an enjoyable activity that most of its readers would most likely partake in: the BBQ in this instance. So not only are we told that well done meat raises risk of cancer, we are aided to the conclusion that BBQs are therefore raising the risk of cancer - regardless of whether you BBQ your food until it is well done.  Next up, another firm Daily Mail favourite, food killing you in different ways - this time giving you a heart attack. I liked this story because it attacks something that surely is an integral part of British life, something that the Mail reader may assume forms part of their cultural identity, as well as being something everyone does.
When you think of home cooking you are normally able to romantically drift back to your youth and the food that your parents served up. The connotations associated with home cooking are normally heart-warming and the sign of a stable family life - something the Daily Mail likes to obsess over as a supposed proprietor of 'family values'. So how utterly brilliant that they publish an article that basically destroys any positive connotations about home cooking and replaces them with nightmares about heart attacks - complete with smiling mothers (pictured) kiling their families by daring to cook for them. The lead line at the top of the page helpfully points out that there is no way of avoiding death through food: 'Thought it was only fast food that was full of dangerous fat? Think again'. I love this because it clearly gives the reader no options, fast food will kill you, but so will home cooking. The message is clear: all food is going to give you heart attacks - there is no escape. 
Sticking with the food theme, next up is another new killer: ready-made sandwiches. Now, remember, home killing gives you a heart attack, as does fast food, so perhaps there is an alternative food: a ready-made sandwich. Think again, these can contain 'as much [salt] as 12 bags of crisps', and - the article cheerily informs us - they contain lots of saturated fat; the 'type which helps to produce cholesterol and clogs the arteries'. So, we can cross off another food source which we may commonly rely on. However, we could also just read the label on the front of each pack which informs us of exactly what each packet of sandwiches contain. Perhaps then we could pick healthier sandwiches than the ones picked by the Daily Mail in this article. Again, this is a common feature of the Mail, pick the worst case and make it seem as if it is the norm.  Moving on, where would a week in the Daily Mail be without an attack on the internet, in particular a social networking site that isn't Murdoch-owned Myspace. In this case Friends reunited has turned into a killer, reinforcing the Mail belief that the internet is out to kill you and rape your children. First, Facebook gave you cancer, then Twitter made you 'immoral', now Friends Reunited is planning to kill you. Notice the way that language is used to make it clear that this is just the beginning, it is not a highly unusual happening vaguely related to the use of a social networking site, but the 'first Friends Reunited murder.' The implication is very clear: this is just the start, and given the depressing tone of the Daily Mail, presumably YOU COULD BE NEXT.  No edition of the Daily Mail would be complete without blaming women (or girls in this case) for the failings of men. In this case young boys are being 'handicapped' no less by having to share classrooms with girls. I just love the use of language here, the headline could be followed by any story, it doesn't matter, that boys and men suffer at the hands of women is a universal truth in Daily Mail land. I doubt most readers made it past the headline or sub-heading. I like to imagine male Mail readers shaking their heads and tutting: 'we never should have given them the vote'.  And finally, a topic I have covered before: the 'frenemy'. The Mail doesn't want any of its readers to be happy, in particular, it does not want its female readers happy. That is why it keeps running stories about how your female friend is secretly a backstabbing enemy. This story, for me, sums up what the Daily Mail attempts to do to all of its readers. It wants to make them paranoid and deeply unhappy. It targets the very things we hold dear to us, home cooking, sandwiches, a BBQ on a warm summer's evening. Here it goes a step further and asks women: is your best friend really your worst enemy? It wants women to question the person they are supposed to be able to rely on and seek comfort in. If you cannot trust your best friend, then who can you possibly trust? The message from the Daily Mail is clear, trust no-one, eat nothing, do nothing. Everything you consume will kill you. Networking on the internet will lead to your bloody murder (or a slow death from cancer). Your best friends are your enemies and your mum is trying give you a heart attack. Welcome to the soul-destroying world of the Daily Mail. |
Anyway, back to the point, I do see your point with regards the meatball sandwich in Subway, Subway generally places itself as a healthier alternative to the traditional providers of fast food, so to see such a large amount of fat and salt is surprising. It would be interesting to see what sandwiches in Greggs and other places are like, as they sell a huge amount to office workers.
I think a more general problem is that British food is just not overly healthy. Sausage rolls, pasties, steak bakes etc all pastry based foods that contain a lot of fat.
I guess the point you are also making is that a article like this that raises a serious point about a genuine problem, is buried or lumped together with all of the other hyperbolic stories. One of the problems is, I imagine, is that people can either believe everything they read, or nothing. If nothing, then this story would be discredited simply because it is in a newspaper.
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
Off the top of my head, I am struggling to offer an example other than the Stephen Lawrence ‘Murderers’ headline – a rare moral stance against racist murderers and a malfunctioning legal system masks the constant veiled racism that the paper specialises in.
I can see why you chose the story, and how it fits with the point that you making (and how the points I just made are a little off the point!). I agree with your criticism of the ‘be scared of everything’ theme. My point was merely that looking at the story itself in isolation from the prejudices of the paper it is defensible.
Many people have little idea about salt / fat content; I think most people would find the meatball sub surprising. It is very recent that the labelling for food prepared ‘on the premises’ has to provide the kind of labelling that ‘packaged’ sandwiches have had to.
Please take it as a compliment that I decided to scrutinise and comment on quite a minor point. In general, I could get quite sycophantic about your blog.
Here they ignore the very freedoms they normally whinge about. You could be certain that if the government tried to stop all this salt and saturated fat being in sandwiches they would rant against the nanny state: 'Now we can't eat cheese sandwiches!' etc.
I do take your point though, this story does clearly highlight that an awful lot of rubbish goes into a prodcut that does not need to be particularly unhealthy. Lkewise, the story is not in the same league as MMR reporting, or any other scientific reporting that the Mail regularly butchers to suit its agenda.