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Morrissey's oft-repeated claim that he was 'stitched up' by the UK music press
Well, there's some interesting background information from Andrew Collins, who was on the NME at the time, in this old SOTCAA forum, suggesting that whilst it was founded in genuine journalistic investigation there was also more than a bit of "hmm, what can we do to make the paper interesting this week?" going on. A few quotes:
We never did riots in my day (1988-1992) but the week we decided to "expose" Morrissey as a racist gave us all a buzz in the office - it was like being "proper journalists" for a rare couple of days as we pieced together what was, if not an actual "news" story, certainly more vital than just putting an interview with Kingmaker on the cover...
...Whether Moz is/was a racist or not was less important than the fact that he was flirting with far right imagery - like a cultural tourist - and not going on record about his reasons, or his real feelings. He could have stopped that cover story with one statement. He chose to remain enigmatic and distant, compounding his error. There was an artificial excitement in the office over those two days (we dropped Kylie from the cover for Moz you know!) At first, as features editor, I refused to get involved, but I was ordered by my boss into the big emergency staff meeting, and once the decision was made, it was up to the senior staff (me, Danny Kelly and Stuart Maconie) to get the copy done...
...We reported the facts (flag, fat skins, dodgy lyrics), added some conjecture, a dash of opinion, joined the dots and waited for a denial. None was forthcoming. Et voila! The most memorable NME of the entire 80s and 90s. (Like, which other ones are we still talking about - and don't mention the Teenage Suicide issue!) Do you call that bullshit? I call it filling a weekly newspaper. Like, if nobody had anything to say round here for a whole week, it wouldn't matter. An empty NME would be noticed |
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