Matt Simms

Jan Moir's article on Stephen Gatley has caused an advertising blackout on the Mail Online page around her piece.

The Daily Mail’s sales team must be looking forward to getting back to work on Monday. It’s no doubt been fun trying to sell advertising space in the paper and on the website with the Credit Crunch and recession, but now they also have to deal with the fall out from a gay-bashing columnist. 

As you probably have heard Jan Moir made some pretty incentive (that’s putting it nicely) comments about Stephen Gatley and the wider gay community.

The general gist of what she was trying to say is that Stephen Gatley’s homosexuality somehow led to his death and as such it brings into question civil partnerships.

First her comments about Gatley: “And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy. After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.” 

And now her opinion on gay marriage: “Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.”

A lot of people became enraged and as such there has been a barrage of criticism in the media, on the blogs, Facebook and Twitter. This in turn has led to a record number of complaints being made to the Press Complaints Commission. But does the Daily Mail really care if the PCC takes up the case, let’s be honest it’s a fairly toothless organistion with limited powers.

What is really going to worry the management at the Mail if there is a backlash from companies and a drop in advertising revenue. Brands have been quick to disassociate themselves with anything to do with Jan Moir after a well orchestrated Facebook campaign published telephone numbers of companies advertising around Moir’s piece. Marks and Spencer and Nestle demanded their advertising be taken away from around Moir’s column on the website, even though the Mail’s online team promptly removed all advertising from the page after it became apparent that her article hadn’t gone down too well. 

Time will tell what the ramifications for the Daily Mail will be. I can’t imagine any brands will want anything to do with Moir, it’s a fair assumption that the space around her articles will be ad free for some time.