The MailOnline has seemingly removed advertising from some of its most controversial columnists.
The DailyMail/MailOnline, it seems, has taken steps to remove advertising from around content created by some of its writers, including Richard Littlejohn, Katie Hopkins, Peter Hitchens and Jan Moir.
The Daily Mail was heavily criticised last week after it published a column by Richard Littlejohn which criticised Tom Daley and husband Dustin Lance Black for their baby announcement, the fallout from which included at least two advertisers pulling their spend from the title and several others looking into why their brands was being featured next to the content.
First, the Southbank Centre announced that it was no longer going to spend advertising in the Daily Mail, followed by Center Parcs. Numerous other businesses have also joined an advertising boycott of the paper.
The paper, released a statement to say that the article was not homophobic in content and that those who “bullied” advertisers into boycotting the paper were “politically motivated internet trolls” according to the Press Gazette.
A spokesperson for the Daily Mail said: “Had any of the political zealots who attacked Richard Littlejohn’s column actually read it they would know that he explicitly supports civil partnerships and the fostering of children by gay couples – hardly evidence of homophobia.
“Nor is it homophobic to ask whether it is right to deny a child the love of its own mother.
“It is very sad that any advertiser should give way to bullying by a tiny group of politically motivated internet trolls in their attempts to censor newspapers with which they disagree.
Removing Ads from select commentators
Not all columnists have had adverts removed, a quick review of the MailOnline website showed that content written by Piers Morgan, Liz Jones and Janet Street-Porter still had ad placements running next to the content.
Speaking to THEGAYUK.com a spokesperson for StopFundingHate, said,
“Our campaign has never been about individual columnists or journalists. For #StopFundingHate, what matters is that we find a way to change the underlying business model which makes divisive, discriminatory and inflammatory media profitable.
“Given the role that advertisers play in funding the media, consumer power is the key here. If even the Daily Mail now recognises that mainstream brands do not want to be associated with divisive stories such as last week’s piece targeting Tom Daley, then this shows that using our voices as consumers to challenge media hostility really can make a difference”.
THEGAYUK.com reached out to the Daily Mail to confirm that it had removed advertising from some of its articles.
