The Daily Mail is Stupid

And in other news, the sky is blue.

Continuing their ongoing crusade against intelligence, the Daily Mail’s response to the Byron report again proves that you don’t need to know what you’re talking to talk about it. Hhhm, that sounds like it would make a good slogan for the paper. Between articles about how immigrant pedophiles are stealing all our jobs, they tasked Anne Diamond, TV presenter and mother of four to play some violent video games as an excuse to scare us all a bit more.

The article opens, “Computer games will carry cinema-style age ratings to protect children from violent and sexual images, ministers said yesterday.” Now, correct me if I’m wrong, I only have actually, I don’t know, READ the bloody report, but games that require children to be protected from due to violent and sexual images… already have cinema-style age ratings? In fact, didn’t the report suggest that all games have the same age ratings used for films on the front of the box, merely extending the system as it is right now? I’m reminded of that The One Show report already.

Explaining a bit more about the report, it goes on to say how “these games are played by hundreds of thousands of youngsters” (because as we know, only pesky kids play games, when instead they should all be sitting around reading copies of the Daily Mail, that’s better for their mental health), and explains the existing age rating systems (though conveniently forgetting their opening sentence said that these cinema-style ratings are only things that “will” be introduced). Following that is a picture of two children playing Mario Kart on the N64, with the caption: “Harmful: A Government-commissioned report says that video games can desensitise children to violence” – and now, again, I’ve only actually read the report, but didn’t it say that previous studies have only shown short-term increases in aggression (nothing long-term has been proven) and that evidence shows a correlation, not causation? Oh wait, yes it did. But that’s smart for the Daily Mail to print! Why, they need to tell us that Diana was killed by Polish people who were taking advantage of the NHS!

Diamond goes on to review various games, telling us how games are “mindless garbage”, how all games are violent (though if you read the report dearie you’d have seen a lovely graph showing how games rated 15 and 18 are actually in the minority), and that Resident Evil 4 “shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, even to adults”.

This is a grade A piece of sensationalist spin. What sort of shitty journalism is it to prove games are bad for kids by buying games that are rated to not be for kids? In fact, why again are games getting singled out? Many of the games played were rated by the BBFC: I’m seeing no report from the Mail about how 18 rated films “are to carry age ratings” followed by reviews of horror movies leading you to believe all movies should be banned, there’s no review of Farmyard Frolics 3 calling it the “most disgusting thing to ever come out of Wales, and I’ll never look at a sheep in the same way again?”. Those examples might seem over the top, but it’s exactly what happened here.
You should not look at the more adult material in a particular medium, use that to discredit the entire medium and review it to say it’s inappropriate for kids, whilst getting your facts wrong about the rating system. I’d be disappointed, but it’s the Daily Mail, and I had bets on one newspaper doing something like this after Byron.

Remember, each time you believe what you read in the Daily Mail, you lose a brain cell.