George Clooney v The Daily Mail

I want to speak to the irresponsibility of Monday’s Daily Mail report. I seldom respond to tabloids, unless it involves someone else and their safety or well being. The Daily Mail has printed a completely fabricated story about my fiancée’s mother opposing our marriage for religious reasons. It says Amal’s mother has been telling “half of Beirut” that she’s against the wedding. It says they joke about traditions in the Druze religion that end up with the death of the bride.

Let me repeat that: the death of the bride.

STORY: George Clooney slams story of mother-in-law rift

First of all, none of the story is factually true. Amal’s mother is not Druze. She has not been to Beirut since Amal and I have been dating, and she is in no way against the marriage — but none of that is the issue. I’m, of course, used to the Daily Mail making up stories — they do it several times a week — and I don’t care. If they fabricate stories of Amal being pregnant, or that the marriage will take place on the set of Downton Abbey, or that I’m running for office, or any number of idiotic stories that they sit at their computers and invent, I don’t care.

But this lie involves larger issues. The irresponsibility, in this day and age, to exploit religious differences where none exist, is at the very least negligent and more appropriately dangerous. We have family members all over the world, and the idea that someone would inflame any part of that world for the sole reason of selling papers should be criminal.

I’m the son of a newsman; I accept the idea that freedom of speech can be an inconvenience to my private life from time to time, but this story, like so many others, is picked up by hundreds of other outlets citing the Daily Mail as their source, including Boston.com, New York Daily News, Gulf News, Emirates 24/7 and so on.

The Daily Mail, more than any other organization that calls itself news, has proved time and time again that facts make no difference in the articles they make up. And when they put my family and my friends in harm’s way, they cross far beyond just a laughable tabloid and into the arena of inciting violence.

They must be so very proud.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/07/09/george-clooney-daily-mail-exclusive-statement-response/12368061/%5B/url%5D

I don’t really ‘do’ celebrities and newspaper stories but chapeau to the bloke on this occasion.

Daily Mail 1 – Clooney 0

Yeah, good on him, but will this actually get him any apology? Or change the Mail? (not a real question!)

Unlikely. Until the DM have a NotW/Milly Dowler type moment where there’s universal revulsion for what they do, people will continue to read it and their website.

One of the really interesting things that came out of the recent Brookes / Coulson court case was the repeated statement that the NOTW took considerable effort to make sure that the news stories they printed were actually true. Their effort in acquiring this evidence was obviously dodgy but they did seem to look for facts before publishing.

Daily Mail is clearly just happy to operate in a completely fictional world.

is George Clooney really running for office?

The only thing worse than the daily mail is those who believe it.

Is the Daily Mail really a news paper?

Wait – George Clooney’s getting married! Oh I can’t wait, why do I always miss out on this kind of news?

The Downton Abbey set won’t be cheap!!!

😉

I assume George Clooney will be delivering Amal’s baby, what with his experience and everything.

The Mail is a horrible rag.

The Daily Mail its like 5 minutes in a nut house. Seriously I get more fact from the Mash than that tosh paper.
Kudos to Clooney though in fairness though all that does is make people read the DM.

I like to think of the Daily Mail playing a similar role to that of the National Enquirer in Men in Black. It appears to publish utter tosh but embedded within it is the bizarre truth

Want to play Mail or Mash on these headlines
Commonwealth Games uniform designed to trigger war
UK in deadly grip of Pimm’s
Shameless cat won’t catch mice but expects YOU to feed him

I’m not visiting their site but twitter seems to suggest the Daily Mail have issued an apology and retracted the story.

First line of defence against DM clickbait: KittenBlock
(Also available for Firefox).

Wait – George Clooney’s getting married! Oh I can’t wait, why do I always miss out on this kind of news?

/cos you don’t read the Mail. It’s full that sort of important stuff. I think

apology story here;

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/09/mail-online-georgeclooney?CMP=twt_fd

The most depressing part about that story is the final line.

MailOnline is the world’s most-read English newspaper site and receives more than 11 million visits each day.

🙁

Clooney’s responded to the “apology.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/07/11/exclusive-george-clooney-wont-accept-mail-apology/12484495/

Classic….

I think the Daily Mail should run a story on why he’s wearing a scarf when he’s IN LOS ANGELES IN SUMMER!!!

I always liked George Clooney – his response to the apology is excellent

Yeah that’s a good response…I remember a while back R4 interviewed a woman who ran a small company for Clooney. From what I remember, this company was set up to use satellites to capture footage over Syria and help prosecute human rights abuses. Good on you George.

It’s not exactly an apology is it. I guess the opportunity to set the record straight is really trying to get an interview so they can run that instead.