Daily Mail: 'The Publican says'

Journalists. They're the scum of the earth aren't they? And no-one knows this better than us on The Publican!

We know the games that the media can play. And the Daily Mail and others in the media too, have been playing far too many games with the pub trade in the past few months:

• Taking pictures out of context
• Turning statistics on their head
• Taking out-of-date figures about drinking and presenting them as new to suit their agenda.

No-one wants to denigrate or dismiss the genuine fears and concerns that some people do have about the new licensing laws. But what the media, and the Daily Mail in particular, should not be doing is distorting the issue.

The truth is that the Daily Mail's original, flawed "Say No To 24-Hour Pubs" campaign was launched in January with the aim of delaying the First Appointed Day on February 7.

After turning its big guns on the pub trade with reams of coverage, accusations that the government department in charge of licensing was "in bed" with the industry and disparaging comments from the police, anti-alcohol campaigners, and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, the campaign FAILED.

It was forgotten, if not by the thousands of decent licensees it had tarred, then certainly by the newspaper.Fast forward to the summer, and not only was licensing heating up again around August 6, but it was the national media's notorious "silly season", the time of year when news stories become harder to find, and journalists become more inventive.

Those of us in the pub trade know the truth about the new licensing laws:

• That many people in the licensed trade did not want a change.
• That no-one is really expecting tills to suddenly swell with cash in every pub in the country.
• That, while there are no guarantees, the earnest hopes of the trade are that staggered closing will result in the potential for less disorder rather than more, as people come out of the pub at different times and put an end to the 11.30pm rush for cab and kebab.

The problem is that too many Daily Mail readers out there believe what they are told. And some of them will even be reading their newspapers in the pub! So let's put the trade on the front foot for once and have some fun. If, as The Publican found last year, the Daily Mail really is the pub trade's favourite newspaper, perhaps we can hit back where it hurts.

Let's all turn the Daily Mail's "Say No To 24-Hour Pubs" campaign on its head and let's "Say No To the Daily Mail"!