I saw this story a few days ago, but I am not 100% sure what to say about it (Hey, what if Moz finds out who I am and bans me from his shows?).
For the first several years of his career, we could all buy "I'm ignored/attacked by the media because I'm not the Flock of Seagulls" line because it was plausible. There were only a few media outlets in comparison to today, and you either got on TOTP or you were relegated to no-man's land. It didn't hurt that the media played their dutiful part in making fun of him. Additionally, he could cut down the "dreck" on the radio as being unworthy challengers because he was the young upstart who sold his music to a smaller (yet, supposedly more intellectual) crowd than Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This philosophy is the complete underpinning of the entire indie music scene where the kids dress up in retro clothes and pat themselves on the back for not listening to Top 40 radio.
Now, the game has changed. Today when he complains about the state of music, it's a bit like Tuesdays With Morrie. A reporter shows up and gets an obligatory quote from the old geezer about how it was back in 'Nam and they go on with their day.
"I'm here to interview Morrissey. What shall I talk with him about?"
"Ask him how the music was back in the day. He loves it when people talk about that!"
"So, Grandpa Moz, tell us what it was like back in the day when you were starting your career?"
"Back in my day, we wrote music! We didn't prance around like a bunch of fools! Why, we never would have stood for the likes of Michael Buble! *Hack* Hack* *Wheeze* We had real music in the top 40!"
"Cor blimey!"
I think that Morrissey understands this, and I think that a lot of the whining, lawsuits, and cease and desist letters is some attempt to try to convince people that he's not Grandpa Moz that journalists quietly nod in agreement during the interview before racing off to Lady Gaga's show. With each bit of moaning and lawsuits that he cooks up, he makes himself look like an actual threat to the establishment that the media and record labels continue to actively plot against. The media helps feed this because his outbursts against these plots are the lengthiest time they spend writing about him anymore.
"Morrissey complained bitterly about something. Film at 11."
Yes, Moz hates the media, Michael Buble, the state of the radio, scientists who test on animals, etc. They buy him space in the papers while they drop in a tag about how he's on tour or has a new compilation in stores.
But this isn't the entirety of the story about why the media only covers his complaining. He used to get the cover and several pages in magazines where he discussed a range of topics. Since the NME fiasco and his conspiracy theories, the media has learned to keep it short and light and hit all of the things that they know he'll be happy with.
"So you hate today's music, right?"
"Yes, bloody awful!"
"How is the tour?"
"I love my fans! They keep me going despite not having a label."
"Ok. I know you're a busy man, and I've got a plane to catch. Thank you for your time."
Notice that the last time that he was on the radio that he accused the DJs of purposefully editing his interview of all of the royal wedding comments because of a greater conspiracy to put a happy face on the occasion. Yes, maybe. But who knows what else he said? Considering what happened with the NME fiasco where he accused them of editing him comments in a way to make him look racist, they may have simply found it easier just to cut out the entire segment. After all, you can't sue if the DJs make you look boring as opposed to keeping only select bits that he can use to accuse them of portraying him in the wrong light.
Banning DavidT from the shows was probably in the making for quite some time. However, it probably came to a head after it became apparent that this site was the only place that anybody offered any discussion about the new material. I haven't read that closely to what has been going on, but I presume that the journalistic world was not set afire with discussion. If you happened to read page 4 of the entertainment section of some paper on that particular day, you might have seen a blurb about it. Since the media basically ignored it, he needed to go after people who didn't ignore it.
Some people point out that Moz is out of touch with the current state of the media. He could cultivate a "real" website and release his music on iTunes without a label. Many people just assume that he's an old geezer who doesn't know how the kids do it these days. I don't necessarily buy that. Whenever he is asked about it during interviews, he gives silly excuses about how this is how he expects things to be done as if this was still 1985 with a proper label and publicity tour....which is the equivalent argument of refusing to use computers because they no longer make software for Commodore 64s. There may be cheaper, faster, and much more advanced systems out there, but by damned, I'm going to keep with a Commodore 64 and complain that it takes 5 hours for it to print out 3 sheets of paper.
He wants things done as they were back in 1985 because that's what his shtick was designed for. It wasn't designed for the internet where a band can simply put their music out there and attract their own fan base without having to beg the radio for airplay. It wasn't designed for 200+ cable channels, videos on demand, and thousands of music blogs that can be read around the world. It wasn't designed for not having to wait until TOTP asks him to perform his new song where it then airs one afternoon on British television when he could simply upload something on YouTube and be instantly seen at any time by anyone around the world.
His entire marketing ploy since the early days of his career was that the mainstream media and the record labels exclude him from the sort of riches that Lady Gaga received. If he turned around and released his own music on his own label and enjoyed some level of economic success from the venture, that would be like showing that the emperor has no clothes. Part of what keeps him going is being able to shake his fist at some record company executive and convince his fan base that they duped him into recording an album so they could mischievously dump every copy of his new album in the Thames as opposed to letting his "intelligent" music share the same airwaves as Michael Buble. He wants to win by the "old" rules. As such, this is why Morrissey actively ignores the progresses made in media and stubbornly holds on to how it was in the old days.
Frankly, it probably bothers him that his fan base can simply come to a website like this by the thousands and circumvent having to plead with NME for tiny scraps of media coverage.
"I didn't know you were on tour!"
"Gosh darn journalists conspired not to report that I was on tour!"
"But why?"
"Because I'm too intelligent for their audience and they want to keep me away from my potential sizable fan base!"