Originally Posted by towny

Whereas the Gruniad is open-minded and easy going?

'Moral outrage' describes a way of presenting one's point of view, so I was in effect agreeing with you (before you even said it ) that the Mail is aggressive in tone. All I was saying was that the Mail is very good at doing it. It's not a comment on what the morality of the Mail actually is. The Guardian could be equally good at moral outrage if it chose to be - it would just express outrage based on a slightly different set of morals. In fact, the Guardian chooses not to express its displeasure at world events by sounding outraged. I find its approach, typified by Polly Toynbee's front-pager after the wrangling over the Euro-Constitution was complete, to be deeply patronising. If the Daily Mail is very good at employing a tone of 'moral outrage', then the Guardian is equally good at affecting 'moral superiority'.

As an aside, I don't think there's a single national newspaper in this country whose editorial line on any major issue couldn't be guessed in advance. That's why it's possible to get an inkling what kind of worldview a person might have by finding out what paper they read.