Weekly News (13/03/2017)
Monday, March 20, 2017This week a story that particularly caught my attention was that of the disagreement between Stormzy and the NME after the magazine released a story about mental health, focusing on Stormzy's battle with depression that he spoke to Channel 4 about, as the cover feature for their most recent issue.
Following the release of the magazine and the cover feature, Stormzy took to twitter to publicly call out NME:
In response to Stormzy's tweets, NME tweeted: "I'm really sorry this has happened. We're a free magazine and were not trying to shift copies, just talk about something important" to which Stormzy replied "DEAD. You're NOT a non-profit organisation. The more copies you dish out the more you charge for advertising. You will make money from this."
The story covers various issues surrounding the media and publishing, including ownership and permission, as well as social issues such as the discussion and stigma surrounding mental illness.
In regards to the media coverage of the story, the distribution of the story has, like in most cases, affected the way in which the story has been delivered. For example, in an article by the BBC News, the headline read:
Stormzy criticises 'foul' NME over mental health cover
The headline does not explain the details of the story and uses conservative language, not allowing for expletives and profanities. This is arguably because the BBC caters to a mass audience and so must censor a lot of what they publish to ensure that no one is offended.
On the other hand, Complex, an online music, sports and entertainment blog, decided to publish a starkly different headline for what was ultimately the same story:
Stormzy Calls NME A Bunch Of "Real Life F*cking Pu**yholes" For Front Cover Of Their 'Depression' Issue
This is because the blog does not cater for such a range of demographics nor does it have the same social responsibilities as the BBC do and so they can choose to deliver their content in a more explicit way.
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