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The Daily Mail isn't having a good week. George Clooney has had two pops at the paper in two days and thrown its apology back in its face. Angelina Jolie is reportedly ready to sue over the old video plastered all over yesterday's front page.
The rest of Fleet Street is lapping it up, schadenfreude doesn't come close.
Is this, then, why it has today made such a big deal about a three-par note in the Socialist Worker's Troublemaker column?
Vile, tasteless, inane, disgusting? A page one picture and page 5 lead? It's a bit overblown for a lame joke pointing to the opening of the inquest into the death of 17-year-old Horatio Chapple.
The father of one of Chapple's contemporaries (note, there is nothing to say that they were friends) who says: "That the Socialist Worker thinks the violent death of a child is a fit subject for humour indicates a level of depravity and insensitivity to the suffering of others which is surprising."
The story is bolstered with a selection of tweets - a retweet by Owen Jones of the Guardian being the cherry on the cake - and the Chapple family history.
To be fair, the Mail is not alone in hunting this particular fox. The Telegraph was also outraged enough to put the story on page 5 under the heading "Outcry after socialist paper mocks death of Eton boy in bear attack".
It quotes the same clutch of tweets and then adds this to the mix:
The rest of Fleet Street is lapping it up, schadenfreude doesn't come close.
Is this, then, why it has today made such a big deal about a three-par note in the Socialist Worker's Troublemaker column?
Vile, tasteless, inane, disgusting? A page one picture and page 5 lead? It's a bit overblown for a lame joke pointing to the opening of the inquest into the death of 17-year-old Horatio Chapple.
The father of one of Chapple's contemporaries (note, there is nothing to say that they were friends) who says: "That the Socialist Worker thinks the violent death of a child is a fit subject for humour indicates a level of depravity and insensitivity to the suffering of others which is surprising."
The story is bolstered with a selection of tweets - a retweet by Owen Jones of the Guardian being the cherry on the cake - and the Chapple family history.
To be fair, the Mail is not alone in hunting this particular fox. The Telegraph was also outraged enough to put the story on page 5 under the heading "Outcry after socialist paper mocks death of Eton boy in bear attack".
It quotes the same clutch of tweets and then adds this to the mix:
The article is even more remarkable, given that Charlie Kimber, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, is reportedly the Old Etonian son of a baronet
Reportedly? Reported by whom? Either he is or he isn't. If he is, then it is germane to the story. If he isn't, it shouldn't be there. It is a fact (or rumour) that should have been checked before it got anywhere near appearing in print. The Telegraph is a national newspaper, for heaven's sake, not the Upper Bumbling Weekly Bugle.*
The Mirror, Independent and Huffington Post have all reported the "outcry", even though when you look at Twitter, there were surprisingly few people crying out. Owen Jones single-handedly doubled the number of tweets when a hundred or so people retweeted his retweet.
It has also been the subject of discussion on Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 programme and on Radio5Live.
For heaven's sake. It was a tasteless comment with a crass headline best ignored.
The Socialist Worker sells about 10,000 copies in a "bumper week", according to Ian Burrell, the Independent's media expert in an article after the death of Thatcher last year.
Ten thousand. In a bumper week.
Bet the Chapples are thrilled to see that they have such universal sympathy and support.
For that was, of course, the Mail and Telegraph's intention, wasn't it? They weren't just setting out to show that "socialists are nasty bastards". Were they?
*SubScribe can't be sure, but thinks the Telegraph may have muddled Charlie Kimber with Hugo Charles Kimber, son of the late Sir Timothy Kimber and brother of Sir Rupert Edward Watkin Kimber, the 5th baronet Kimber. Hugo is seven years younger than the Socialist Worker chief.
The Mirror, Independent and Huffington Post have all reported the "outcry", even though when you look at Twitter, there were surprisingly few people crying out. Owen Jones single-handedly doubled the number of tweets when a hundred or so people retweeted his retweet.
It has also been the subject of discussion on Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 programme and on Radio5Live.
For heaven's sake. It was a tasteless comment with a crass headline best ignored.
The Socialist Worker sells about 10,000 copies in a "bumper week", according to Ian Burrell, the Independent's media expert in an article after the death of Thatcher last year.
Ten thousand. In a bumper week.
- The Mail sells 1.7m copies a day and has 11m readers online
- The Telegraph sells 515,000 with a further 3m online readers
- The Independent reaches 1.5m online
- The Mirror reaches 2.5m online
- The Huffington Post has 84 million users
- Jeremy Vine is Britain's most popular radio news programme with more than 7m listeners a week.
- Radio5Live has more than 6m listeners a week.
Bet the Chapples are thrilled to see that they have such universal sympathy and support.
For that was, of course, the Mail and Telegraph's intention, wasn't it? They weren't just setting out to show that "socialists are nasty bastards". Were they?
*SubScribe can't be sure, but thinks the Telegraph may have muddled Charlie Kimber with Hugo Charles Kimber, son of the late Sir Timothy Kimber and brother of Sir Rupert Edward Watkin Kimber, the 5th baronet Kimber. Hugo is seven years younger than the Socialist Worker chief.
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