Derren Brown challenges Sun 'exclusive'

A Sun 'exclusive' published on 18 February revealed:

Telly illusionist Derren Brown is planning his most mind-blowing trick — turning a straight man GAY.

The hypnotist also thinks he can use his powers to make a gay man fancy women.

He hopes his latest stunt will be as big a hit with viewers as last year’s Derren Brown: Apocalypse.

Derren, 41, who came out as gay four years ago, said: “I was thinking about this the other day — it would be interesting wouldn’t it? To take a gay guy and make him straight and a straight guy and make him gay.”

Just because he thinks it's interesting, doesn't mean it's going to happen, despite the Sun's headline:

In response, Brown tweeted:

 

(hat-tip to Chris)

MailOnline publishes another fake photo it found on Twitter

MailOnline reports on looting in the wake of Superstorm Sandy:

The article, written by Adam Shergold and Emily Anne Epstein begins:

Several brazen thugs have robbed their neighbors and their local shops of everything from basic food stuffs to expensive electronics and they are taking to Twitter to broadcast their spoils.

'Check out this laptop I scored,' SevenleafB tweeted earlier today. 'It's easy just reach out an grab it.'

It appears the looters are organizing through the hashtag #SANDYLOOTCREW.

It then publishes one of the tweets in question - the one referred to in the MailOnline headline:

However, if you search Google Images for that photo - which doesn't take long - it pops up in a July 2010 story from California's Oakland Tribune.

Indeed, several of the images used by the 'brazen thugs' on #SANDYLOOTCREW are old - some date from 2005 and 2008.

It seems the folk at MailOnline didn't check out the photo beforehand. As they didn't with a photo posted on Twitter during Hurricane Isaac in August. And as they didn't with a photo posted on Twitter of the 'Essex lion'.

Sun struggles to identify people in photos

Yesterday, the Sun published an update on the love life of pop singer Mollie King:

Saturdays star Mollie King steps out with new man

The Saturdays star was spotted walking hand in hand with the mystery fella in London’s trendy Camden last night.

Wearing a white blouse, cream slacks and tan open toe heels, the 24-year-old beamed as she showed off her dashing new bloke.

The blue-eyed boy was smartly clad in a white shirt, black suit trousers and black shoes.

Then the identity of 'her dashing new bloke' was revealed:

A few hours later, the Sun updated their story:

Mollie's found herself a new King - But don't worry...it's only her gay stylist

Mollie King looks like she’s shot straight off the singles market as she walks hand-in-hand with a dapper man.

But fear not gents, the man in question is only her gay stylist, Frank Strachan. 

Today, a tweet from Daisy Lowe revealed that the Sun is still struggling to identify people photographed with celebs:

(Hat-tip to Nicolas)

'It's a lie'

A Sun 'exclusive' by Ben Duffy reveals:

The article explains:

Comedian David Baddiel is to take Class A drugs live on telly as part of a scientific study for a new show.

The Three Lions on a Shirt star will sample the substance MDMA, often known as “Mandy”, and then discuss how he is feeling.

David, 47, and other celebs are taking part in the Channel 4 series Drug Live, which aims to explore the effects MDMA has on the brain.

In response, Baddiel tweeted:

Fake Twitter accounts have 'fooled other people' says MailOnline publisher

Martin Clarke, the publisher of MailOnline, gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today. He was asked by David Barr about the monitoring of Twitter for stories:

A. We monitor the Twittersphere and quite often Twitter will alert you to a story that you weren't otherwise aware of. Sometimes the tweet will be the story. If somebody tweets a comment, then obviously very often we will -- the fact that somebody's tweeted that comment is the story. Obviously you have to be careful that it is genuinely the tweet from the person you think it is, and there have in the past been rogue tweets with fake accounts that have fooled other people on the Internet, but Twitter now takes steps to make sure that celebrity accounts are who they say they are, they verify it, so you know if an account is the person it claims to be. Quite often the tweet will be the story.

Q.  Can I have some idea of the level of checking that your organisation goes to before publishing a tweet-based story?  Will you contact the maker?

A.  It depends.  If it was a celebrity who tweeted a picture of themselves and a comment attached and that is -- then that is the story, and providing we know from previous experience that that tweet account is genuine, then the story is checked. That's it.

If the tweet was alleging something contentious, then obviously you would have to check it out in the normal way to normal journalistic standards. It depends.

Q.  What steps do you take to ensure that tweets really are from who they say they are?

A.  Unless they're verified accounts, then we treat them with huge suspicion. 

Unfortunately, Barr did not then present Clarke with an example of MailOnline being fooled, which happened just last Saturday and was revealed by The Media Blog. MailOnline reported, in a now-deleted article:

(pic from The Media Blog)

The tweet in question had in fact come from the fake Twitter account @MissKatiePriice, not Katie Price's real account (which Price used to criticise the Mail's 'poor journalism').

And that wasn't exactly a one-off. In June 2010, the spoof Twitter account @ceostevejobs was the source for a Mail story, despite the clear announcement:

'Of course, this is a parody account'

Interesting, then, that Clarke, in saying 'there have in the past been rogue tweets with fake accounts that have fooled other people on the Internet', tries to pretend these things happened 'in the past' and only to 'others'. 

And it's not just spoof accounts, but joke tweets mistaken for genuine news. In the case of Jeremy Vine getting special permission to play hymns on BBC radio, and Carol Vorderman renting a luxury yacht, MailOnline hacks completely failed to get a joke. Not exactly 'check[ing] it out in the normal way to normal journalistic standards'.

'Yet another boring untrue story'

The Sun's Gordon Smart, 27 March 2012:

The Sun's front page, 19 April 2012:

Jessie J, on Twitter, 19 April 2012:

Its funny how many people I've datedslept with that I've never even met according to the tabloids. BUT what's that?! *whispers because its a secret* I'm really a lesbian?! Ha! Thanks for writing yet another boring untrue story. I thought I was still dating Tinie, NO Ellie G, NO Mark Wright....bla bla bla! #cantkeepup #noneofitstrue

MailOnline doesn't do research, falls for Twitter joke

Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre told the Leveson Inquiry on 6 February:

I'm very proud of the Mail Online...it's evolving and clearly everything can improve, but I think to come from a cold start to being the world's number newspaper internet site is an achievement that British journalism should be proud of.

Yesterday, at 12:56pm, Carol Vorderman tweeted:

Someone at Mail HQ clearly thought this was a great story, and within six hours, an article appeared under the byline of Daily Mail Reporter:

You'll be all at sea, Carol! Vorderman unveils her new yacht... although it's hardly the right weather for sailing

She's made a name for herself as a TV star with plenty of brains behind her beauty.

But perhaps Carol Vorderman wasn't quite with it when she decided to rent a huge yacht.

The 51-year-old posted a picture of the large vessel to her Twitter page, proudly announcing it was moored at the Bristol docks.

However, it's hardly the weather for a sun-drenched cruise across the bay.

In fact, it's pretty miserable across the British Isles with rain and grey skies dominating this weekend.

That won't put Carol off though, the former Countdown presenter always seem to be of a sunny disposition.

In those six hours, it appears Daily Mail Reporter didn't do any research about this yacht. If they had, they might have found local news reports about its arrival in Bristol on 13 March, and that it is set to be delivered to its new owner in the Mediterranean later this week. It's not being 'hired for the season' by Vorderman or anyone else.

A few hours later, Vorderman tweeted again:

The Mail has a little bit of form on this: it fell for a spoof Steve Jobs twitter account in 2010, and last year used a joke tweet by Jeremy Vine as the basis for a serious article about the BBC attacking Christianity.

Meanwhile, in other Vorderman 'news', the Sun has published the words of Sam Amos, a 'psychic' who has done, err, 'rumpology' readings of Vorderman's bum.

(Hat-tip to James)

UPDATE: MailOnline deleted the article on Monday. 

Ban Twitter users from voting, says Mail columnist

Last week, Amanda Platell wrote about the non-existent Government immigration 'plot' in her Mail column. She said:

Thanks to newly revealed documents, we learn it was a deliberate act to make the country more multi-cultural (and thus more likely to vote Labour).

Platell complaining about immigrants coming here to affect the outcome of elections? Seems odd, given she's an immigrant from Australia who was an advisor to William Hague and worked to get the Conservatives elected in 2001.

But you don't really go to Platell for common sense or intellectual rigour.

And this week, she surpassed herself:

A survey purports to show that many more people would vote in a General Election if they could do so on Twitter. In a civilised democracy, the idiots who use Twitter should be banned from voting altogether.

Yes, because everyone knows that the mark of civilised democracies is that they arbitrarily ban thousands of people from voting for no reason whatsoever.

How much do the Mail fork out for such dim, juvenile observations?

Previously, she had dismissed Twitter as:

the domain of the inane, the insane and the desperate.

Platell - like all Mail columnists - has to be a professional hater. Everything's crap, everyone needs to be criticised, nothing is ever any good.

Particularly Twitter, because a) it's modern; and b) it was all nasty about Jan Moir boo hoo hoo.

Never mind that the Mail constantly uses Twitter for celebrity gossip and other stories.

Never mind that people such as Oscar-nominated Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci uses Twitter. Let's not celebrate his achievements. Let's call him an insane idiot who should be disenfranchised instead.

Still, good job the newspaper Platell writes her drivel for is above all this Twitter nonsense.

And to see exactly how much they hate it, go to their Twitter feed at @mailonline.

Mail uses story from 2007, claims it's new

At the end of January, news that one Tesco store in St Mellons, Cardiff had asked shoppers not to wear pyjamas was widely reported.

It was also widely implied that this was a nationwide dress code, rather than being limited to one store. Take this Mail headline, for example:


Tesco said they had received complaints from customers and so asked that all shoppers wear footwear, and that nightwear was not permitted. Hardly seems unreasonable to expect people to get dressed and put on shoes when they go out, but it caused a bit of a fuss.

A few days ago, Anton at Enemies of Reason blogged that 'glamour model' and Big Brother race row participant Danielle Lloyd had been 'targeted' by Tesco after she had gone into one of their stores in a tracksuit that was mistaken for pyjamas.

One question leaps out: why the hell is the Telegraph printing such trivial garbage?

But the other question - which Anton raised - is if St Mellons isn't Lloyd's local Tesco (it isn't) and the dress code isn't nationwide (it isn't), then how did this happen?

Surely it's isn't at all possible that Lloyd was just after a bit of publicity?

The Telegraph story is dated 5 February. They probably got it from The Sun, which published it the day before, under the only-in-The-Sun headline 'Tesco in jim jam Dan ban'. But at the end of the article by Brian Flynn is this:

Tesco said staff remembered her coming into the store but did not recall trying to stop her.

Which could, of course, be them covering their arses. Or it could be the story just isn't true.

Flynn's article begins:

Model Danielle Lloyd told yesterday how she was barred from Tesco after staff mistook her designer tracksuit for PYJAMAS.

But that is wrong because 'yesterday' would have been 3 February. In fact, Lloyd actually 'told' of this incident on Twitter on 31 January:


Maybe it happened as she said, maybe it didn't. It's not really important. One thing that did happen though - Lloyd got lots of free publicity, and every article seemed to have been based solely on her one Tweet.

That's quality journalism for you.

And it got better. On the same day as the Telegraph published that drivel about Lloyd, the Times Educational Supplement wrote a story on whether teachers approved of parents turning up to school in pyjamas. They mentioned:

Joe McGuinness, head of St Matthew's Primary School in Belfast, was so fed up with semi-clad parents dropping off their children at school in the morning that he sent a letter home with pupils.

Note 'was'. Past tense...

Unfortunately, the Mail didn't note that, as it stole the story to link it to the Tesco one:


Later in the article, author Laura Clark says:

EU law prevented [the Head] from banning mothers from wearing pyjamas to his school, St Matthew's Primary in Belfast.

So the headline isn't right. There was no ban. Is the story any more accurate? Clark begins:

Schools are following Tesco's example and taking a stand against parents who turn up at the gates wearing pyjamas.

They are chastising parents for dropping children off - and collecting them in the afternoon - without first changing out of their nightwear and slippers.

One head has written to parents warning that their failure to get dressed for the school run is 'slovenly and rude'.

The first word 'schools' is also wrong - it actually only has one example: Joe McGuinness at St Matthew's Primary in Belfast.

Clark went on:

The moves comes [sic] after a Tesco store in Cardiff took the unprecedented step of banning customers from shopping in their nightwear.

Except that's not exactly true either. It has nothing to do with Tesco. Why not?

Because McGuinness' letter to parents about their clothes was written before the Tesco dress code incident.

How long before?

Two years and eight months before.

In June 2007.

When the Times and BBC reported it.

(Hat-tip to mr_wonderful at the Mailwatch Forum for the school story)

Myleene, Twitter, racists and terrorists: a round-up of links

Last week, Terrance Gavan - bomb-maker, gun-collector, immigrant-hater, BNP-member - was jailed for eleven years for 'collecting information useful for terrorism and possessing explosives and firearms'.

Both Anton and Uponnothing have done excellent jobs in examing the media coverage of his sentencing.

Anton looks at the difference in the coverage of Muslim terrorists and those from the far-right, whereas Uponnothing shows how uninterested the Mail seems to be when terrorists are white. They even put a non-story about a Muslim getting married higher up their homepage than the Gavan coverage.

Gavan didn't make the front page of any of the national newspapers. Would a Muslim convicted of hoarding 54 explosive devices and 12 firearms been similarly ignored?

Another post by Uponnothing that is well worth reading is about the comments left on the Mail article about the thug who poured bleach over a woman in a cinema after she had asked him to be quiet.

When the mugshot of 16-year-old Jordan Horsley was released, the fact that his skin wasn't white brought out the unrepentant racists:


All these comments had been moderated in advance - and thus deemed suitable by people at the Mail - and remain up ten days on, with even higher green arrow scores.

On a lighter note, last week's very suspicious story about Myleene Klass being warned by police for wielding a knife at intruders looked increasingly dubious. Marina Hyde in the Guardian had - unlike just about every other journalist who wrote about it, including ones at the Guardian and Observer - 'bothered to establish the chain of events' and discovered:

the initial call to police was not placed by Myleene but by a man believed to be her agent or publicist, to whom she was naturally on the phone at the time.

And:

As for the story's appearance in the Sun the very next day, Hertfordshire police state: "We believe the media found out about the incident following a phone call from Ms Klass's publicist to Emma Cox from the Sun."

And, not in the least bit suspiciously:

despite having given copious quotes and assistance on the story all week, both publicist and agent declined to discuss this yesterday.

Hyde then reveals that Klass seems to have a bit of form in, shall we say, exaggerating...

Elsewhere, the Sunday Express had two (alleged) journalists write up a feeble BBC-bashing story. The article by David Jarvis and David Stephenson was so poor and so inaccurate that it was deleted from the Express website before end of play Monday.

They tried to prove that BBC employees were wasting their time, and your money, by being on Twitter. Yes, bashing the BBC and new-fangled-technology in one.

The problem was they are inept and their research was even worse. They didn't understand how Twitter works and misunderstood the difference between 'followers' and 'following'. They claimed, for example, Victoria Derbyshire had two followers when she actually has over 3,600.

It was unbelievably pathetic. More so, because it appears Stephenson, the paper's TV critic, is actually on Twitter.

Full story at No Rock and Roll Fun.

And finally, hat-tip to badjournalism, Paul E Smith and Bitter Wallet for this tastefully placed advert in the Metro.