Read The Daily Mail without buying it! (dailymail.co.uk)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	dailymail.co.uk
Date:	05/10/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well laid out site that is easy to navigate, interesting and intelligently written

Disadvantages: Very strong views on certain emotive subjects

My name is Joy and I'm a Daily Mail reader.

There, I've said it. Gosh, that feels like a weight off my shoulders as I have felt burdened with this knowledge knowing how many people feel about this newspaper! In actual fact I don't buy the Daily Mail, I read their online version because in the main I enjoy their coverage of the important events of the day without the frivolousness found in The Sun (which I also read!).

If you go to www.dailymail.co.uk and have a look round you'll see it's a very simple and straight forward site which tends to concentrate on 'real' news, as opposed to informing the general public about what colour underwear the ghastly Katie Price is wearing today or discussing the merits of the equally ghastly Russell Brand.

The home page is exceptionally well laid out with the main news stories listed as headlines complete with a photograph and brief snippet of text to give the reader an idea of what the article is going to be about. It's very simple to scroll through and find the stories that interest you without being bogged down by advertisements and non-news stories, which are the very bane of my existence when I approach The Sun Online to find out what is occurring in the world.

I don't always agree with the stance the Daily Mail takes, of course I don't. They err on the side of racism fairly frequently, are generally homophobic and if the blame can be laid on an immigrant then the Mail will certainly lay that blame and jump on their soapbox at the same time. Their views can be rather extreme and it's for this reason that I read their online newspaper rather than paying money to have my intelligence insulted with their bigoted views.

The thing is that The Daily Mail do cover stories that interest me, I enjoy the majority of their editorials and the articles are far more thought provoking than other tabloid newspapers. By using the online service I can scan the list of stories and decide which ones I want to read, if I see the words 'an illegal immigrant' or 'gay Cecil Thompson' then I tend to ignore those articles and go straight to the 'feral youth' ones! Yes, that really is the tone of conversation of this online newspaper and quite regularly I see why the British public generally feel such contempt for this publication.

The website itself is well maintained and the layout is very simple to navigate. There are tabs at the top of each page which will take you to Femail (the dull section of the Daily Mail especially for women, whoopee doo!), Money (the dullest section of any newspaper I've ever come across) and Sports to name but a few. Personally I don't tend to use the tabs as the most interesting and up to date articles are always on the home page and will remain there for at least 24 hours so there is little in any of the subsections to interest me. And the inclusion of a jam recipe in today's Femail section had me rolling my eyes at just how out of date the Daily Mail is!

The website is fairly speedy to load each page which is surprising when you think about what a huge site this is. It very rarely crashes and is updated as soon as a new story hit's the headlines, occasionally they get the news even before the rolling news channels and that's no mean feat in this technological age.

On the whole the website is well written, whether you agree with their comments or not I don't think you can find fault in the writing skills of their journalists. I like the fact that the majority of their articles are full length, unlike The Sun where sometimes I'll be immersed in an article only to scroll down to be told that I need to buy the hard copy of the newspaper in order to read the full story. If I had to make a criticism it would be that the home page looks a little cluttered as they try to steer you to as many articles as possible all at once, this usually doesn't cause a problem but sometimes there is so much information that if I'm looking for anything in particular then I sometimes am overwhelmed and have trouble finding it.

I do enjoy reading the comments section that can be found underneath the majority of the articles as the debate is usually so much more interesting and intelligent than the 'Wot a slappa' comments that can usually be found in The Sun. Often times these debates are more interesting than the article itself, although unfortunately the comments are by Daily Mail readers who tend to have the same views as the newspaper itself.

By writing this review I realise I am laying myself open to attack but please let me reassure you that I do not agree with many of the views of the Daily Mail, and I certainly don't condone their frequent attacks on the minorities of this country. I will not, however, apologise for my reading habits as I find this website generally intelligent and informative and will continue to use it for my news fix throughout the day.

Summary: Truly the Marmite of newspapers, you either love it or hate it!