Newspaper websites publish fake bin Laden 'death' pic

The news of the death of Osama bin Laden sent newspaper websites into a frenzy: who could publish a pic of his dead body first?

So we had this from the Mail:


And this from the Sun:


And this from the Mirror:


And this from the Telegraph (image from Terence Eden @edent):

According to the Guardian's Jonathan Haynes, the Times also used the same picture, and Sky News broadcast it too.

But in their rush to publish, none of these organisations seems to have checked the authenticity of the picture.

Alas, it seems this image has been doing the rounds since at least 2009.

And, more importantly, it's a photoshop job (warning: link to real graphic image) - a fake.

At time of writing, each newspaper website has now removed the image.

But why rush to publish without checking it out properly first? Doesn't this event contain enough that is newsworthy already?

Some things never change...

Tabloid Watch began two years ago today.

The first post highlighted an article in The Sun which was plugging Sky HD as the best way to cure the winter blues.

Two years on, the Sun is still at it. Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch launched 'The Daily' - his iPad-only newspaper. Unsurprisingly, Sun Digital Editor Derek Brown was impressed:

Some are calling it as significant as the day in 1788 that the first issue of The Times hit London's streets...

The American football coverage, ahead of this Sunday's Super Bowl, is presented brilliantly. There is a feature about what it's like to stand in the tunnel, accompanied by lovely 3D-style images. There is also a section on top plays which has video running through tactics. The prospect of using this technology with proper football is mouthwatering.

Fashion also works well, with the ability to click on outfits for a more detailed look...

The Daily runs smoothly, downloads quickly and is a promising glimpse into what the future holds.

And it's not just them doing the cross-promotion. Richard Desmond's Daily Star continues to give free advertising to Richard Desmond's Channel 5 - the latest being this puff piece about some upcoming programmes, including the TV show linked to Richard Desmond's OK! magazine...

The Sun, video games and rickets

On Friday, a press release from Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust reported on research from consultant orthopaedic surgeon Professor Nicholas Clarke and Dr Justin Davies, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist. After checking over 200 children in Southampton for bone problems, Clarke and Davies found that more than one-fifth showed signs of rickets.

CVG point out that when the Sun got hold of the press release, their 'Staff Reporter' produced an article that looked like this:

But by Saturday, in the hands of Health and Science Editor Emma Morton, the story changed to this:


As Tim Ingham at CVG noted:

Both pieces...contain exactly the same information and quotes.

Could it be that the first story has been hastily edited and re-printed in a desperate attempt to mould it to The Sun's anti-games news agenda?

We're not cynical enough to suggest so. It's just... aside from its screaming headline, the second story only mentions video games once, in its opening paragraph. The rest is pretty much a carbon copy of the original report. Even The Sun's own doctor, Carol Cooper, doesn't mention games in her analysis.

Nor indeed does the Mail, which always likes to blame video games for something.

As Ingham points out, Clarke is quoted as saying that this increase in rickets is:

"...a completely new occurrence that has evolved over the last 12 to 24 months."

Yet kids have been playing video games for rather longer than that. And there's simply no mention of video games in Southampton Hospital's press release, which makes clear:

...the disease is now making a comeback around the world due to low vitamin D levels caused predominantly by lack of exposure to sunlight and also poor diet.

It also says absolutely nothing about whether 'game addict kids' are more likely to suffer with rickets.

But this isn't the first time this year this has happened. Ingham recalls similar research by Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham of Newcastle University that was published in January and which led to the Times and the Metro to make the same link. When contacted by Nicholas Lovell about the media reports, Cheetham said:

"We do not say that gaming causes rickets."

Pearce added:

"The average age of a child with rickets is around 20 months old: too young to use a keyboard and mouse!"

(Hat-tip to Jay and Tim Ingham)

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.

Mail doesn't put Haiti on front page, plugs free DVD instead

The horrendous events in Haiti dominate Thursday's newspaper front pages, with shocking images appearing alongside words such as 'devastation' and 'hell'.

Although leading with the McCann case, the Express is, unsurprisingly, the most sensationalist. It reports a death toll of 500,000 as a definite:

That figure came from Haitian senator Youri Latortue, although he 'conceded no one really knows.'

No matter that no one really knows, the Express decides to run it - as fact - on its front page anyway. As does sister paper the Daily Star ('500,000 are killed'), who manage to find a little corner for Haiti alongside a tedious lead about Celebrity Big Brother and Jordan.

The Metro, meanwhile, settles for 'up to 500,000' which is quite a margin of error.

Other headlines are more circumspect, and rightly so in such an uncertain situation. The Guardian says there are 'fears' the death toll could rise above 100,000. The Independent and the Times simply state 'thousands'. The Telegraph says 'at least 100,000'; the FT that it 'could be well over 100,000'. Even The Sun plays safe with its '100,000 quake toll fear' headline.

Curiously, the Mirror thinks it is appropriate to drag the title of a Nicolas Cage film into its coverage:


But at least the biggest news story of the day is there on the front.

Because one national daily newspaper (and only one) thinks Haiti isn't worth mentioning on its front page. Apparently, the Daily Mail and its Editor Paul Dacre, regard their Femail magazine and their free Poirot DVD as more important:

Old letter writing racist influenced by the Mail

It has been noted here before that Mail stories turn up on the BNP website with few changes and last week the Star was recruiting for the English Defence League. The link between the tabloids and the rise of far-right groups seems undeniable.

Now the Guardian is reporting this:

Police are hunting an elderly letter writer responsible for sending more than 50 racially abusive letters to people across the country, including the prime minister.

The letters, some sexually explicit in content, have been sent to schools, hospitals, mosques, universities, doctors' surgeries and private individuals, leaving some recipients "extremely distressed".

According to Hampshire police, which is heading the investigation, the letters are all pro-English in content and racially inflammatory, with many appearing to have been sent in response to Daily Mail articles. All the letters are offensive and racist against a wide variety of nationalities and cultures...Clippings from the Daily Mail have been included in many envelopes.

Some of the letters are just about readable on the Times website.

Who ya gonna call? TaxPayers Alliance

Writing in the Guardian in 2008, Patrick Barkham said of the TaxPayer's Alliance:

So far, journalists have yet to tire of the TPA's "this is a slap in the face for taxpayers" refrain.

And, nearly 18 months later, it's truer than ever. The TaxPayer's Alliance like to mention all their media coverage on their website. Which is helpful for doing a quick survey to see just how totally lazy and reliant on them certain sections of the media have become.

Going through their 'media coverage' section for the two week period from Wednesday 22 July - Wednesday 5 August, I did a quick tally of how often the TPA had been quoted in the main daily papers. The results:

Mail - 28 times
Express - 28
Telegraph - 20
Sun - 12
Star - 11
Mirror - 9
Times - 4
Independent - 3
Guardian - 1

So that's eight stories in the nationals every day (and that doesn't include the many, many local papers that quote them).

And the Mail and Express are using the TPA, on average, for two stories every day.

But it's even worse than that sometimes. For example, on 22 July, the Express had six stories quoting the TPA. The Mail used them six times in a day on 3 August, five times on 22 July. The Telegraph has also used it five times in one day (4 August).

It's a damning indictment of the abilities of journalists on these papers. As Barkham implies, it's not as if the TPA spokespeople come up with some sparkling piece of insight every time they are quoted.

So Fred Goodwin goes to Clarence House and the TPA says:

'A lot of right-minded people would see this as completely inappropriate'.

The same day, the same paper (Mail), a story about swine flu, brought forth this gem:

'Most ordinary taxpayers who are concerned for their health in the midst of the swine flu epidemic will see this behaviour as greedy and inappropriate.

Then there was this story, which meant the TPA just had to say:

'This is a totally inappropriate use of taxpayers' money'.

And this one about the old Commons Speaker:

'Now the Speaker is being investigated over his household expenses it would be completely inappropriate from him to remain in charge of the parliamentary expenses system'.

And this quote about the new Commons Speaker:

'It is entirely inappropriate for John Bercow to expect taxpayers to pick up this bill'.

And this about the BBC:

'It is completely inappropriate for BBC senior executives to use expenses to pay for tax advice'.

And yet somehow, the TPA are on speed-dial for the Mail, Express and Telegraph. It's solely because their journalists are after an easy quote, with the least effort possible, and they know the media whores at the TPA will offer them the 'isn't this awful' knee-jerk response they want.

Which for the purpose of informed and balanced journalism, isn't really...umm...appropriate.

(Check out the Other TaxPayers Alliance who campaign for fairer taxes, try to hold the TPA to account over its secretive accounts, and also expose some of the problems with TPA research. They point out that despite the name, the TPA only represent 0.04% of UK taxpayers. And it has a TPA quote generator.)

Great news!

I can hardly contain my smiles on hearing that Richard Desmond has lost his libel case against Tom Bower.

This presumably means the jury disregarded his evidence, which may very well make him, officially, a liar.

As if we didn't know. Some of his evidence was clearly untrustworthy - such as the claims about him not using his awful rags to settle scores, when evidence about his long-running fights with the Mail is well known.

He also claimed - on the witness stand - he only read Bower's book on holiday in August 2007, when he had in fact instructed lawyers to take action in July.

The court also heard a tape of Desmond threatening Jafar Omid with the words: 'I am the worst fucking enemy you'll ever have'. He also said:

It's seventy-five grand, you know, and I think, fuck me, you know, we've done so much, you know, business together, you know. And we got, you know, a little, what's the word, situation over seventy-five grand.

This from a man whose newspapers, you know, complain about the language skills of others.

He denied he meddled with the editorial side of his papers - his friendship with Mohammed Al-Fayed clearly had nothing to with endless of pathetic Diana conspiracy stories appearing in the Express.

He has issued a statement, post-verdict, in which he has said:

I sued Mr Bower for defamation because he made inaccurate and damaging allegations about me...It was worth it to stand up in court and set the record straight.

Set the record straight? The jury clearly didn't believe what his version of 'the record' was, so what is he on about?

On top of all the libel payouts that the Express and Star have incurred recently, it's hard to believe that anyone bothers to buy either paper any more.

But the Express with its veneer of respectability (very thin, but the people who buy it do think it's a quality paper) it gives credibility to its incessant abuse of, and misleading articles about, minority groups.

I happen to have picked up a copy today and was amazed at how much advertising it had in it. A very rough count of quarter, half, or full page ads suggested that of the 80 pages, around 28 were adverts - that's 35%. (Compared with today's Times, for example, which had around 14 pages of ads out of 72, around 3 of which were for either the Times or Sunday Times, which is 19%).

It is a quite shockingly low rent piece of tat, with an insidious, racist agenda.

And its editor and owner are now both proven liars.