Houses that look like Hitler, pet-killing poltergeists and saucepans that cause the menopause

There have been some eye-catching headlines in the papers over the last week.

Yesterday the Metro came up with:


Someone took a photo of the house and posted it on Twitter. Jimmy Carr saw it and passed it on to his followers. Some papers then ran the photo, making it yet another 'news story' originating from Twitter. But the Mail added the all important question:

Do you know a house which looks like someone famous? Phone the Daily Mail tnewsdesk [sic] on...

The Sun, meanwhile, didn't need to ask a question in this headline because it was sure that this happened:


Somehow, there have been seven articles (so far...) in the nationals about this nonsense, each one including a video which claims to be evidence of the 'poltergeist' moving a chair. It's not.

The Sun ran a story under the 'Staff Reporter' byline on 28 March and then a follow-up by Gary O'Shea the next day. Today, O'Shea reported that Derek Acorah had 'banished' the poltergeist, who was called Jim.

The Mail has, as usual, been quick to, ahem, 'borrow' these stories from the Sun and run their own not-very-sceptical versions of them. The Mirror and Telegraph have also covered it.

And finally, there was this headline:


It could, of course, only be from the Daily Mail. The article by David Derbyshire begins:

Gender-bending chemicals found in non-stick pans and food packaging are linked to early menopause, scientists say.

And then, mid-way through:

Dr Sarah Knox, who led the research...stressed that the study had not shown that higher PFCs actually cause earlier menopause.

Oh.

NHS Behind the Headlines give their verdict:

The Mail’s focus on saucepans may give the impression that saucepans or other household objects were analysed in this study. However, the study actually assessed levels of PFCs in people in the US whose drinking water may have been contaminated with high levels of the chemicals...

These findings do not prove that PFCs cause early menopause, and they need to be interpreted with caution. The study has several limitations, and further, high-quality research is required to assess whether PFCs affect human female hormones.

And:

The findings of this large cross-sectional analysis should be interpreted with caution. It is not possible for this kind of study to prove that PFCs cause earlier menopause. As the authors point out, it is possible that the findings are due to “reverse causation” and that PFC concentrations were higher in postmenopausal women because they are no longer losing blood through menstruation. This possibility is supported by the fact that women who had had hysterectomy had higher-than-average levels of PFCs compared with those who had not (although as the authors say, this might still be cause for concern).

In addition, the information about the menopause came from survey data carried out by a separate company. The data was not independently confirmed.

The researchers only looked at whether women had gone through menopause, and they categorised these women into one of three different age brackets they belonged to at the time of the survey. As such, the study cannot tell us how old the women were when they reached menopause and whether those who had early menopause (i.e. before the age of 40 or 45) were associated with higher PFC levels.

The Mail's subtle depiction of depression

On Friday, the PCC tweeted a link to an article on the Guardian website which reinforced the:

importance of responsible reporting of mental health issues.

Mary O'Hara wrote:

Ask people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness – especially a serious one like Schizophrenia – what they think about media coverage of the issue and certain words come up time and again. Words like: 'offensive', 'stigmatising', 'sensationalist', 'inaccurate' and 'distorted'...

The natural next question to ask is: why? Why is it that this overwhelming sense of negativity is what people are left with when they read newspapers or watch television programmes where mental illness is featured?

...

To find an eloquent summing up of why what is written and reported by the media matters we need look no further than the seminal book by Otto Wahl, "Media Madness."

In it Wahl writes: "Media depictions, in their persistent and pervasive inaccurate stereotypes perpetuate the negative attitudes of the public toward people who experience mental disorders and thus help to maintain the stigma, rejection and discrimination that has added to their burden.

"For people with mental illness the images of mental illness that the media currently present have very important, very personal, and very painful consequences."

Last year, Mail columnist Janet Street-Porter was rightly criticised for her article dismissing depression as just a 'trendy new illness'. Such was the backlash that several readers' letters were added to the online version to counter her views.

But it seems the Mail hasn't learnt its lesson and last week ran an article by Angela Patmore, which was little more than an extended plug for her book and which told people with depression that the solution was to 'just get a grip'. The Mail decided to present the article like this:


Will the PCC be reminding the Mail about the 'importance of responsible reporting of mental health issues'?

(Thanks to Angry Mob, who initially tweeted a photo of the above article, and to Kat Arney)

Links

The latest migration figures have, predictably, led to a flurry of newspaper articles, not all of them entirely accurate.

Exclarotive looks at a misleading Mail headline while Five Chinese Crackers looks at the article that followed. He has also written two posts looking into claims about England's population density and an earlier piece in the Mail linking immigration to crime.

The discovery of the body of spy Gareth Williams has led to a lot of guesswork from journalists. Minority Thought looks at some of the speculation from the Sun ('it was al-Qaeda') and the Mail, while Primly Stable 'learns' that Williams:

was stabbed, poisoned and strangled to death by a gay-slaying Al-Qaeda agent who was a colleague and a friend and police fear that secrets that were not stolen from his flat could be sold to Britain's enemies.

It's not surprising that Williams' uncle criticised the speculation:

"When you have these rumours in the papers, it is most distressing. It is heartbreaking that he has died so young and his family have enough on their plate without having to read these stories.

"Gareth's parents are not doing well at all. They are in a state of shock and struggling to come to terms with what has happened. They have seen what has been in the papers and they are very, very upset about these untruths."

Unfortunately, as with the Stephen Griffiths case in May, the media seems to relish spreading lurid gossip rather than sticking to the facts.

Indeed, Matt Lucas has launched a legal action against the Daily Mail for an intrusive and untrue article about the death of his former civil partner Kevin McGee:

Lucas contends that close relatives and friends quoted in the story did not make the statements attributed to them and that much of the information was false.

The story claimed Lucas was planning to have a big birthday party. According to the writ, Lucas had already told friends and family he would not celebrate his birthday this year and was out of the country at the time.

The writ said Lucas was particularly distressed by allegations that he blamed himself for McGee’s death and was hosting a party to “let go of the pain”. Both claims were untrue, it said.

Lucas, who instructed London law firm Schillings to act on his behalf, said Associated Newspapers, owner of the Mail, had refused to apologise or accept the story should not have been published.

Meanwhile, the Mirror, Mail and Express have been making exaggerated claims about grapefruit, as Minority Thought reports. The Express' headline stated 'Eat grapefruit to fight off diabetes' although Jo Willey's article later admitted:

to get the beneficial effect, someone would need to eat 400 grapefruits in one sitting.

Moreover, NHS Behind the Headlines pointed out that:

consuming too much grapefruit can interfere with people’s drug treatment and cause harmful effects.

While the Express loves miracle cure stories, the Mail website loves articles pointing out a famous person has lost/gained too much weight. The paper asks today 'Why ARE women so unhappy in their own skin?' (own?). Maybe some of their recent articles, as highlighted by Angry Mob, are to blame?

At Enemies of Reason, Anton has written three posts about mental health. While the Sun has tried to avoid 'bonkers' by using 'zany', 'weird' and 'wacky' instead, the Star has no such qualms about using the word, splashing it all over the front page.

Also from Anton, a post about a Sun front page story reporting a crocodile sighting in the English Channel. Having written two sensationalist articles about the 'killer croc' the Sun should have admitted that it was, in fact, a piece of wood. But it appears to have forgotten to set the record straight.

It's not the only bit of forgetfulness from a Murdoch-owned paper. George Eaton at New Statesman explains how The Times' readers might not have seen the criticisms of Sky from BBC Director-General Mark Thompson during his speech at the Edinburgh Festival because of the paper's selective, partial reporting.

Littlejohn jokes about suicide

A few days ago, details emerged of a complaint against the Sun and its use of the word 'schizo'.

As if to prove shoddy journalism around mental health issues isn't confined to just one paper, here's Richard Littlejohn making jokes about suicide last Tuesday:

Fourteen workers at the Chinese factory that makes iPhones have committed suicide.

In Britain, elf ’n’ safety would have closed the plant for years while the windows were hermetically sealed; every employee would be given compulsory counselling and issued with hard-hats and hi-viz protective clothing. Blame Direct would be pumping out claims for com-pen-say-shun.

The Chinese have come up with a simpler solution, which keeps the production lines running. They have rigged up giant nets to stop workers jumping to their deaths.

Back of the net!

More on Tuesday's Littlejohn column from 5CC and Minority Thought.

'Best endeavours'

The Sun, responsible for the infamous 'Bonkers Bruno' front page headline several years ago, has got in trouble again for its coverage of mental health issues.

From the PCC website:

Various individuals and organisations (including Rethink and Shift) complained that the newspaper had used the word 'Schizo' in reference to a patient suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. The complainants said this was a pejorative and discriminatory description of the patient's mental illness.

Surely a breach of Clause 12 of the Editor's Code of Conduct? It says:

12. Discrimination
i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.

But the PCC haven't ruled against the Sun. Oh no. Instead, they've got this less-than-cast-iron assurance:

The matter was resolved when the newspaper agreed that it would use its best endeavours not to use the term 'schizo' in the future.

No doubt the paper is terrified of what the PCC will do if they use the term again in the future.

Incidentally, searching the Sun's website for articles containing 'schizo' finds 14 results, dating back three years.

Recommended reading - links

Angry Mob looks at the Daily Mail's latest article on the 'exaggerated' and 'vastly over-stated' swine flu 'pandemic that never was' - conveniently forgetting their own headline such as 'How swine flu could be a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear warfare'.

Martin Moore from Media Standards Trust considers the backlash against the Mail on Sunday for its article about Lord Triesman. Last week, the News of the World's managing editor revealed that they turned down the story on the basis that it was 'too thin.' Too thin for the News of the World? Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Janet Street-Porter recently joined the lengthy list of Mail columnists who have written some ill-considered rubbish and suffered a backlash. Her 'Depression? It's just the trendy new illness!' was castigated by Musings of a phenomenologist, Andrew Brown in the Telegraph and three mental health charities, among many others.

Sian Norris and Dr Helen Mott were labelled 'hypocrites' by the Evening Post after they raised objections to a burlesque performance at Bristol Museum. After they complained the front-page story had completely misrepresented their views, the online article was removed and Norris and Mott were given a right of reply - a two-page spread on pages 16 and 17. It is good that the paper gave them the opportunity to give their side of the story over two pages.

The Media Blog has written (two posts) about the Mail on Sunday's latest attack on the interwebs and claims that firms are 'spying' on people through what they say on Twitter and Facebook. More from Martin Belam and Peter Kirwan, who was himself contacted by someone from the Mail via Twitter because of his comments - exactly what the Mail was complaining about...

In a longer post about the media and Cumbria, Matt Gardner looks at yet another feeble Georgina Littlejohn article on the Mail website about Lady Gaga and how she (apparently...) insulted the victims of Derrick Bird's rampage.

Five Chinese Crackers suggests a Sun front page headline beginning with the words 'Cannibal cops' may give the wrong impression.

Some other Mail-related fisking by Angry Mob:

• 'live' grenades at the Dad's Army play that weren't actually live
• shamelessly dragging 'health and safety' into the Cumbria shootings
• criticising a school for closing early for the World Cup
• a useless bit of churnalism about dating
• swallowing a story about a baby being stamped on
• a 'first look' at James McAvoy in the 'new X-Men' film which happens to be a still from a completely different film from two years ago

And finally, from Adam Bienkov, a picture taken back in April of two Sunday newspapers (both from the same stable) who couldn't quite decide which way Cheryl And Ashley Cole's marriage was going to go:

Mail - laughing at people with mental illness

The Mail has run what appears to be an interview with actress Emily Lloyd today. Natalie Clarke's article begins:

A couple of weeks ago, Emily Lloyd was photographed walking her dog in the street where she lives. It was noted that she was wearing torn jeans and her hair was unkempt. An old mattress and bags of rubbish were strewn across the steps leading up to her flat in Hackney, East London - a million miles away from Hollywood. What, it was asked, had become of the one-time golden girl of British cinema.

The problem with this new story when it talks about what was 'noted' and 'asked' a few weeks was that is was the Mail doing the noting and asking. A insidious, mean-spirited piece of typical Mail bullying, it noted she emerged from a 'scruffly flat' (which they hadn't been inside, so how do they know?), with 'little sign of her trademark smile' (she was walking the dog) and 'traipsing up and down the streets of Hackney' (which is where she lives, so why wouldn't she be?)

The original hatchet job (sorry, story) did make mention of various mental health problems she has suffered over the years - which begs the question as to why picking on her for not smiling while walking her dog and wearing ripped jeans is any great help.

Clarke goes into greater depth about these problems in her interview, including revealing Lloyd has had chronic insomnia for two years. (She also mentions meeting her at a studio to do photos to accompany the article, yet there are none shown on the website).

And towards the end, Clarke writes:

She is bemused by reports she has been 'linked' to Pete Doherty. 'I've never met him in my life,' she says.

And where did those bemusing reports get repeated recently? Yes, the original Mail story:

In 2006 Emily was linked with singer Peter Doherty but since then has kept a distinctly low profile.

Let's just hope Ms Lloyd can get over her problems and get her life back on track. Photographers outside her flat and point-and-laugh articles such as the original are not going to help.