PRESS 20 Years of anti-EU baloney

I've blogged on the topic of the UK press's obscenely farcical coverage of the EU, rendered an antichrist all-encompassing evil surpassed only by socialism in the world view pumped out by the majority of the national press.

You may have seen my posts on the supposed EU determination to make all bananas straight for example. Which sounds like a slightly exaggerated satire ... but was actually a front page story.

Now that this sewage tide, alongside massive manipulation of new media through funding that may have broken electoral law, has achieved the improbable goal of Brexit, it's a good opportunity to look back at just how closely the UK press follow Clause One of the Editors' Code ... Accuracy. As 'enforced' by the self-regulators PCC and IPSO...

20 years of fake anti-EU stories (tompride)

Some more links:

C4 News factcheck on press claims.

Guardian: best euromyths.

Official EU list of euromyths.

How Boris Johnson got away with euromyths.

BuffTheBanana.

Daily Express' euromyths.

WEAK IPSO The Rock says Star made up front page quotes

Getting to the (Rock) bottom of this, the performer's response to seeing what he asserts are made up quotes on the Daily Star's front page was not to contact IPSO ... but to release a short video rebuttal through his social media platforms (specifically a video on his Instagram).

It's hard to argue against the notion that social media can be more effective than the formal regulator: Johnson's version is now very widely known, as opposed to a small correction buried somewhere inside months later.

The Rock says Daily Star fabricated 'snowflake' criticism.

BBC's More Good News About Israel. Time for OfCom?

Quick post, useful example on broadcast media. The title riffs on Glasgow University Media Group*'s excellent series of content analysis-centred ...Bad News books, highly recommended...

*website; Wiki; list of their books.

So, yet again the Beeb seems to show a pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian bias (there are several more examples in this blog and GUMG have written a book on this too!) and ... Well, not a lot actually happens.

Time to call in OfCom?

BBC Radio 4 report on Israel breached accuracy guidelines.

Sun + inaccuracy + its corrections

A grand claim in an article as big as the price

The following eg comes from http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.co.uk/
You can find many more relevant articles there, and also at http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/sun (200 articles at time of writing).

This one is about the contrast between The Sun's large feature on NHS waste ... and its tiny correction, 2 months later (while the original story remains unaltered on its website, according to this blogger) - you may need to zoom into the 2nd pic to actually see the correction!

Correction: a tad smaller. Like the actual price.

Express + inaccuracy

The Express titles are famed for their continuing obsession with the late Princess Diana, managing to publish stories about her every few weeks - she cannot, of course, sue, and fabricated or exaggerated stories are less likely to be challenged.

Fascination with Diana is alive + kicking

Their coverage of Europe, immigrants, 'public sector' workers, to name but 3 issues, has been highlighted as often inaccurate on a number of blogs, and articles by the likes of Roy Greenslade. Here's a classic example, from May 2012:
It hardly needs analysis, but you can find this at http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/express-front-page-headline-on.html.


You can find nearly 300 more such examples of such curious claims (imagine of the BBC did this; is the difference down to tighter regulation of TV than the press?) at: http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/express


100s more can be viewed at http://expresswatch.co.uk/ - or on its Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/expresswatch

Mail + inaccuracy

There are so many possible examples you can use of inaccuracy by this paper especially (I'll also post on Star egs too), which hardly helps the PCC argue that its Editors' Code is well-enforced.
In a post at http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/editor-of-glamour-criticises-mails-liz.html we get one from May 2012 - interestingly, as with John Prescott, the victim of the inaccurate story sought some form of justice (retraction) not via the PCC but via Twitter

Jo Elvin, the editor of Glamour, took to Twitter on 9 May 2012 to dispute a claim made by Liz Jones in a Mail article several days before:

(via Media Monkey)

A second May 2012 post from the same blog - on which you'll find many useful stories about issues across the entire press - this time on made-up, distorted claims about cancer drugs being delayed:

On 15 May, the Daily Mail published this story:

The next day, Andrew Dillon, Chief Executive of the 'rationing body' NICE sent a letter of correction to the Mail:

NICE has never taken 9 years to make a recommendation to the NHS on the use of a new drug (New cancer drugs held up by the NHS for nine years, 16 May).

The gap between a new drug becoming available to prescribe and NICE guidance being published is around 5 months. The study, on which your article was based, included drugs that were licensed for use, in some cases, more than 5 years before NICE was established. Its conclusions are both misleading and unhelpful for those who rely on our advice.

Making sure that we provide advice on the best use of all important new drugs quickly remains our priority and we have the resources and the commitment to do it.

There are endless examples of this cavalier disregard for accuracy - well, 619 as of today!!!


You can also read about the Mail demanding another blogger removed references to a story it had removed from its website following a complaint, claiming this was backed by the PCC - who denied they backed the demand: http://dailyquail.blogspot.co.uk/.

Then there's http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/ to consider too!


and of course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3chJN9DCGg
...

Sorry we said you raped a 14-year-old

Last post for this morning, again coming from a Tabloid Watch blog report. It speaks for itself, but note that it reflects that tawdry reporting values are not a left/right issue: this eg comes from a Sunday paper published by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN):

Sorry we said you raped a 14-year-old

The natural father of Peter Connelly (Baby P) has been awarded substantial damages after The People accused him of being a sex offender who had been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.

MediaGuardian reports:

Mr Justice Bean ordered Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the People, to pay an initial £30,000 in damages plus costs of £35,000. The damages payout will rise to £75,000 if the publisher loses permission to take the ruling to the court of appeal.

The allegations were contained in two paragraphs in a crime supplement in the People about Baby P's mother, who had separated from the child's father, referred to in court as KC. They appeared in a 19 September 2010 article headed "Tortured to death as mum turned a blind eye"...

Bean said in his written judgment: "It is difficult to think of any charge more calculated to lead to the revulsion and condemnation of a person's fellow citizens than the rape of a 14-year-old girl."

KC said in his witness statement that he was "shocked and upset beyond words" by the false libel, which he first learned about in phone calls from close friends.

The judge said the appropriate starting point for the damages was £150,000. But he reduced this by half, to £75,000 because Mirror Group Newspapers moved swiftly to apologise and correct the error.

The Independent added:

Heather Rogers QC, appearing for MGN [Mirror Group Newspapers], told the High Court hearing: "This was a mistake that MGN regrets and it has apologised to the claimant, and I repeat that apology on its behalf in this court."

However, she denied KC had been badly treated, or that MGN had conducted any kind of "campaign" against him, or dismissed his legitimate complaint.

Today, Ms Rogers argued that MGN should be allowed to appeal on the grounds that the compensation order was too high and "disproportionate". 

Posted by MacGuffin at 19:05 0 comments

Star + inaccuracy: Eurovision

The Tabloid Watch blog is a great source for specific examples of how our press routinely flout the Editors Code they're supposedly governed by, article one of which governs accuracy.
Two recent egs which neatly sum this up: obviously invented 'reports' in the Star about Russell Grant, and then Atomic Kitten, being picked for the UK's Eurovision entry.

Anti-green flak

Useful article from a highly unimpressed Greenslade; a Murdoch paper has had to admit fabricating a story about how climate change is a myth and a conspiracy. That hostile stance fits well with the right-wing ideology of the paper and its proprietor. Green policies require intervention in business, new regulations, higher taxes etc - all fairly acceptable to a stereotypical lef-wing point of view, or ideology, but flatly contradictory of the free market philosophy that is associated with right-wing thinking. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/jun/21/sundaytimes-scienceofclimatechange
Greenslade also wrote on Desmond, the pornographer owner of the Express and Star titles, betraying his intense loathing of the media mogul: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/jun/21/richard-desmond-channelfive