If everyone made such an outcry and put as much effort into issues that were really important, perhaps the world would be a much nicer place.

Stories of child abuse or of old folk getting neglected by there carers are forgotten as soon as they are reported, yet issues like this get blanket news coverage and drag on for weeks.

Quite true. Ironically, a few days before this there was an article about the stereotyping of black actors and presenters in the BBC, a far more important issue. It probably has received 1/100th the coverage that the Clarkson story has received.

Stories like that get buried because of pressure from above. I've seen savage articles in the online Canadian press suddenly disappear without trace.

Having a crack at Clarkson or other gobby slebs is easy and helps to fill pages in newspapers that used to report on, er, real news.

You'd probably get a full page in many papers if you submitted an article entitled: "1001 ways to cook a stoat".

The only reason the Daily Mirror and various rent-a-gob Labour MPs wanted Jeremy Clarkson sacked is because he is a friend of David Cameron.

No other season whatsoever. Certainly nothing to do with the N-word.

If it was to do with racism, then how come Labour didn't sack their RACIST MP Jack Droney in December, when he was caught being racist in context?

Hypocrites.

Methinks that's how the tabloids work, and the tabloid culture seems particullarly rampant in the UK.

That's a very simplistic analysis. More likely hysterical political correctness.

+1

Which is very common in the Labour Party.

...and in other news, it's been reported that the Pope is Catholic.

Indeed. Harriet Harman - Queen of PC !

Tabloids, imo, are about numbers pure and simple. They don't care about the effect of their reporting (unless they have an aim), they want readership, clicks, sales, and power. That's it.

Read a while ago, an editor of DM, said 'make them laugh, make them hate, make them love, make them cry'

Emotions are a great fish reeler it seems.

Never use a forum to state the obvious, Shard.

Are you by any chance Canadian?

License fee payers are commonly referred to as taxpayers.. as it is a form of tax.

For example an MP made a point of him being paid by taxpayers...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...eridan-3484817

well, yes, but Jim Sheridan is a complete arse and anything that he says, let alone anything that he says as reported in the Mirror, should be taken with a good sackful of salt.

The BBC World Service is funded by direct government grant (i.e. using taxpayers' money). The rest of the BBC is not. Clarkson is paid at least in part using license fees, but since international broadcast rights - and repeat fees on channels like Dave in the UK - recoup at least some of the production costs of Top Gear, it would be fair to say that he is partly self-financing. It's the popularity of the show, and Clarkson's caustic personality, that allows the BBC to sell it to other channels, which in turn allows Clarkson to negotiate his salary.