Do you think Morrissey is right to sue?
- Thread starter Danny_
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Dave
Guest
Theo, I believe that if he wanted to Morrissey could shut this site down or to change the name. But you bring that subject up as a tactic anyway, so it's not really worth going into.
As far as you being victimized for your views, you are dishonest. It's a common tactic to restate the opposition's views or argument in a way that emphasizes the weakest points and ignores the strengths but you take this to ridiculous lengths, and portray people as having beliefs that they don't have, and put words in their mouths that they did not say. I know this because you've done it to me. So the personal section of your argument is just you attempting to use common rhetorical tools, in a transparent way.
But let's forget the personal stuff. I'll give you credit. The idea had also occurred to me that silencing the NME is one thing, but that there are deeper issues here, like freedom of the press. However, if they lied, then freedom of the press is not the issue. Although it happens less frequently here, newspapers can be and are sued successfully when they print stories they know to be untrue. Carol Burnett sued the National Enquirer for something they printed about her family, and she won enough money that it got a lot of coverage. It did not affect freedom of the press, though, and if anything the whole gossip genre is more blatant now than it was at the time.
Anyway, that's what court is for when a legal issue is involved and a settlement can't be reached. They are not in court yet, and odds are they won't be, but it won't be because Morrissey is afraid of them proving him as a racist.
As far as you being victimized for your views, you are dishonest. It's a common tactic to restate the opposition's views or argument in a way that emphasizes the weakest points and ignores the strengths but you take this to ridiculous lengths, and portray people as having beliefs that they don't have, and put words in their mouths that they did not say. I know this because you've done it to me. So the personal section of your argument is just you attempting to use common rhetorical tools, in a transparent way.
But let's forget the personal stuff. I'll give you credit. The idea had also occurred to me that silencing the NME is one thing, but that there are deeper issues here, like freedom of the press. However, if they lied, then freedom of the press is not the issue. Although it happens less frequently here, newspapers can be and are sued successfully when they print stories they know to be untrue. Carol Burnett sued the National Enquirer for something they printed about her family, and she won enough money that it got a lot of coverage. It did not affect freedom of the press, though, and if anything the whole gossip genre is more blatant now than it was at the time.
Anyway, that's what court is for when a legal issue is involved and a settlement can't be reached. They are not in court yet, and odds are they won't be, but it won't be because Morrissey is afraid of them proving him as a racist.
lux girl
In Moz We Trust
Mmmm. 'Funny' is not the word I'd use in these days of political correctness. Things can get mis-construed, blown out of proportion and very nasty when it comes to matters of race. I hope Morrissey is successful in clearing his name and even winning a libel case if it comes to that.
moz'art girl
oh la la
The new album is already written, so you will have to wait...D
Just a technical point and nothing to do with what morrissey has said. But that is not what freedom of speech is.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Yes. There is no way the NME didn't cross the line with this article. The surrounding details as revealed by the solicitor's letters and Merck's emails only add colorful details to the main offense, the actual NME article, which we can all read for ourselves. The NME didn't innocently report his answers.
Sure, but as a general comment to the forum, let's not insult the NME by making this out to be a case of a rich pop star closing down a rag-tag band of truth-seeking journalists. They're professionals. They can defend themselves. It probably won't go to court, but if it does, those arguing for protecting the NME's standing as a professional news agency can take comfort in knowing that if Jonze and McNicholas followed the rules of their profession they will have no problem swatting the case away. This isn't Rome v. Jesus.
The liberties society extends to journalists must be repaid by their professional commitment to presenting their subjects as free from bias and distortion as possible. Laws against defamation exist to check the power of the press, and rightly so as you point out, Dave. Here, McNicholas and his crew acted maliciously and irresponsibly, not only adding sharply-worded editorial content to the final published piece but re-arranging and even re-writing the interview portions to suit their purposes. P.C.-inspired witch hunts carried out against public figures do not serve the cause of either journalists or society as a whole.
Personally, I objected to the article not only as a Morrissey fan but even moreso as an avid reader of good journalism. It was so clearly a hatchet job, but what made it galling is that it wasn't even well written. A better writer-- or, to be fair to Jonze and McNicholas, a writer who had more column inches in the magazine-- would have written a more subtle, narratively detailed account of Morrissey that got the same message across without resorting to bald, self-serving editorializing. Off the top of my head, had I been assigned to the interview, I would merely have added detail after detail showing how out of touch Morrissey is with everyday reality (if I genuinely observed him to be so, of course). That alone would have made the case against him. Readers would have put down the issue thinking he was a middle-aged pop star estranged from the real world. Instead they were told he was such, patronizingly and without wit, and given hints in glowing red neon that he was a hypocrite and a racist to boot. Awful journalism.
I'm not saying bad journalism should be punished. God forbid that should happen, the newsstands would be full of empty, cobwebbed shelves. But in cases like this one you can see straight past the shoddy journalism to all the ugly motives and devices of the culprits. It's not a freedom of press issue when you have agenda-following editors carving up a sacred cow merely to boost their own causes and (glaringly) to sell more papers. So no, the lawsuit doesn't depress me. It's the parlous state of the NME and print journalism in general that put McNicholas into a such a position that he thought he had to take those vile actions-- that depresses and concerns me.
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Yes, for me that's what it comes down to. This wasn't an innocent mistake. This is attention seeking pure and simple. Making something out of what is (relatively speaking) nothing for their own ends. Exploitation. That's why I hope they have their asses handed to them in court though it may well not come to that.
Augustus
Junior Member
The NME is a busted flush. Only recently IPC was forced to deny industry rumours that it will cease publication. If McNicholas deliberately misconstrued, or worse still, fabricated, the quotes to "sex it up" (to coin a phrase) and sell more... some... copies it is possible that this will that break IPCs patience with the NME once and for all and they will pull the plug on the once indispensable, once mighty organ.
Then Morrissey with have the great honour of having an epitaph that includes not only being the greatest and most important songwriter of his generation but also the man who put the New Musical Express out of its loathsome, putrescent misery.
Then Morrissey with have the great honour of having an epitaph that includes not only being the greatest and most important songwriter of his generation but also the man who put the New Musical Express out of its loathsome, putrescent misery.
Personally I would settle for a complete apology and McNicholas being fired rather than the end of the NME... there's still a good idea in there somewhere, it's just being poorly executed at the moment. Of course, the other side of the argument is that perhaps NME can only survive as an Indie Smash Hits in this internet day and age. In which case, I won't shed a tear in the event of its passing.
aboyisstabbed
New Member
I think he should sue them thats twice they have done that too him now and suggesting it is just the cowards way of saying it danny and most journalists are f***ing cowards i am boycotting NME as i have done since they slandered him over a f***ing song title The National Front Disco they should know that morrissey has alway wrote about things people don't normally talk about it does not mean that morrissey is a KKK member or a member of any other racist viewed organisation. In the national front disco he was talking about how certain hardcore northern folk feel about england belonging to the english the title again was people not understanding his irony. And what he stated was perfectly true back in the 60's and 70's the society he grew in was very british and our society has changed a great deal since then it is true that britain is not longer truly british because of the diverse range of nationalitys living here that is fact like it or not. I am not saying its wrong or right but its fact. Morrissey was making that point.
