Channel 4 Outrage Continues

The attempt by the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre to use Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz Of 2012 as a vehicle to replicate the Mail’s previous success, when it went after the hated BBC in the wake of Sachsgate, has not yet let up: today has come yet more pejorative language and the as-yet unfounded suggestion that the Dacre attack doggies have already taken a scalp.

There's too much f***ing swearing at Channel 4, c***

“Sick comic facing axe: Jack Whitehall could be dropped as presenter at TV awards as Channel 4 repeats vile quiz” thunders the headline, as the Mail shows its editor is suitably incensed at not being able to stop repeats of the show. The article also reminds its readers that Whitehall is “Marlborough-educated”, thereby playing the “out of touch posh boy” card, while elsewhere slagging off state schools.

And today’s rant isn’t the only follow-up item designed to ramp up the complaint numbers: yesterday brought a broadside from “Daily Mail Comment”, which is the true voice of the Vagina Monologue, and which tackled the already known social media backlash against the Mail’s righteous moralising head-on. “When popular culture becomes a sick joke” was the headline.

“When this paper chose to highlight the gross cruelty and obscenity of much of the material on Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz of 2012, we knew we were laying ourselves open to ... jibes from Twittering critics” it began, before displaying Dacre in full brass neck mode in response: “But we make no apology for voicing concerns shared by an overwhelming but seldom-heard majority”.

Yes, Paul Dacre knows what everyone out there in Daily Mail land really thinks: these are, after all, the people who obediently buy his paper every day, and in many cases swallow his propaganda whole, and without question. They are those with whom the Vagina Monologue has his “conversation”. They are The Daily Mail’s Kind Of People. And they are never wrong.

In support of that “overwhelming but seldom-heard” majority, the Mail also featured a comment piece by Jackie Clune, who claims to be a comedian, and has a Wikipedia entry with a surprising number of citation-free facts within it. She talks of “bullying and misogyny”, while in the “sidebar of shame” there is leering at Kimberley Walsh’s bottom, and a “Who had the most curvaceous body of 2012” feature.

As for “bullying”, well, there are few words that sum up Paul Dacre’s “management style” more succinctly. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so how is the attempt to stoke outrage progressing? Two days after Sachsgate was splashed over the Mail On Sunday, there had been 4,700 complaints. Thus far there have been around 160 over the Big Fat Quiz Of 2012.

And so Paul Dacre rages ever more impotently over the dying of the light.