The Sun vs Gordon Brown (cont.)

This apology to Gordon Brown appeared in today's Sun:

In Trevor Kavanagh’s column of 12 November, it was stated that Gordon Brown accused The Sun of blagging his son’s medical records. In fact, Mr Brown has never made such an accusation, in Parliament or otherwise. We were wrong to use this erroneous allegation as a basis to make comments about his character and integrity and to suggest that Mr Brown was ‘not telling the full story’. We withdraw these criticisms and apologise to Mr Brown.

This is the fifth time that the paper has corrected claims about Brown in less than five months.

'We do not normally find it worthwhile challenging Daily Express euromyths but...'

An article in today's Express claims:

Journalist Alison Little writes:

Euro MPs want to brainwash children with “sinister” Soviet-style propaganda on a new website, it was claimed yesterday.

European Parliament chiefs are considering setting up a site to target young children with a “playful” presentation of their working methods and democratic principles.

There are two sentences from the European Parliament’s 2011-14 communication strategy included in the story:

“Research has shown the social and political perception of young people starts at a very early age. In a playful manner which is tailored to the needs of young internet users, a special Europarl website could bring democratic principles and the working of the methods of the European Parliament closer to children.”

The only other quotes in the article come from UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall, who says:

"Political propaganda on vulnerable kids is a form of child abuse."

The Express's stance is reinforced by an editorial comment.

The response from the European Parliament's Information Office in the UK is worth repeating in full:

Welcome to the brave new world of EU reporting at the Daily Express, where information is bad, transparency is dictatorship, civic rights are forms of oppression and checking facts makes you blind.

We do not normally find it worthwhile challenging Daily Express euromyths. It would be like trying to engage UFO Magazine in scientific debate: a waste of time and dangerous for one's mental health. Moreover, we are used and resigned to the peculiar phenomenon of its journalists switching off all critical faculties when it comes to taking politically motivated anti-EU tirades as fact, then working backwards to try to fit the circumstances to the 'crime'. 

But today's 'story' really does deserves a short comment.  The paper, prompted by a complaint by a eurosceptic politician, published a piece arguing, entirely un-ironically, that creating a website informing young citizens and future voters of their rights is now to be considered propaganda.

You heard right. The modern, Express-sanctioned meaning of propaganda - made worse by that one-size-fits-all criticism of "paid for by tax payers' money" - is not raging against a minority, say, or distorting the truth about which side is winning in a war, or inciting the populace to violence. Modern day propaganda is for a democratically elected Parliament to make people (including young people) aware of its existence and their rights within it. And to have the audacity to do so with the aid of that sinister, new-fangled technological wizardry: a website!!!!

In fairness, an Express reporter had contacted this office and asked for a quote about how 'The Parliament' would justify its deeds.

Never mind that an eloquent explanation of the purpose of the initiative (which is still only just that, a proposal being looked at) already appears in the document she herself had raised as 'proof' of this conspiracy to inform.

Never mind that it had been written by a body of senior MEPs including a British vice president of the Parliament, whom she was at liberty to interview were she able to spare the time. (She could not, or did not see fit to publish their comments).

We also happened to mention that, with one simple Google search, we had been able to come up with the UK Parliament's equivalent of this outrageous practice. Shocking, I know. Is there to be no end to the horror?

The reporter, to be perfectly fair, displayed immense fortitude at this juncture. She absorbed the ground-shifting discovery that propaganda was indeed alive and well at the heart of the Mother of Parliaments - never mind the barbarous EU - and then delivered this killer line: we should feel free to use this example in our own comment to her.

Let me write this again. It was to be somehow our job to put the 'propaganda' slur in context by mentioning the existence of similar initiatives in most national parliaments including Britain's own. Providing context and balance in a story is no longer the job of the Daily Express reporter, you see. If you want balance and context you have to knit it yourself.

You'd be searching in vain for this context in today's story, reader. You will not find it. What's worse, your ignorance of the existence of sinister educational websites set up by the Houses of Parliament leaves your children vulnerable to the horror of 'Soviet-style' British propaganda right here right now, under your very nose and, needless to say, with your taxes.

The Express did not include any response from the European Parliament in its article.

'We cannot get ahead of ourselves'

The front page of Wednesday's Express 'revealed' that a '3p blood pressure pill beats dementia':

The headline on the online version of the article is slightly different: '3p pill cuts dementia risk by half'.

This story emerges from the launch, rather than the completion, of a four-year trial of losartan. The lead researcher, Dr Pat Kehoe, told Sense About Science:

"While we certainly have an attractive drug candidate both from the point of view of possible effect and the low cost, we cannot get ahead of ourselves here or over simplify things - we still have to conduct the study to generate the proper evidence before we can make any claims as to how useful the drug will be."

Pregnancy 'news' round up

Most of the tabloid newspapers put yet more royal baby news on their front pages on 6 March:

 

The Sun's front page makes it very clear - the Duchess of Cambridge was handed a teddy bear and said:

"Thank you, I will take that for my d...for my baby"

The same quote was used elsewhere.

Two days later and the Mail published a follow-up:

She didn't? With the help of a video of the incident, the Mail reveals that she actually said:

"Is this for us? Awww, thank you so much, it's [very] very sweet of you"

In other words: not much like what was originally reported. Curiously, this didn't make the front pages.

Meanwhile, in other 'pregnancy news', the Daily Star ran the headline 'Mystery of 'pregnant' star Cheryl Cole' on its front page on Saturday.

Here's what happened: a pregnant woman went to see Cheryl Cole in concert. 'So nice to see lovely @CherylCole', she tweeted. Cheryl replied: 'Nice to see you too, you look amazing pregnant'.

The 'mystery' is that anyone thought this meant Cheryl was pregnant, or that this was worthy of a place on the front page of a paper.

Mail on Sunday apologises for smoking claim

Mail on Sunday, 27 January 2013:

E-cigarettes ‘can cause more harm than smoking’, experts say

They are billed as a healthier alternative to smoking, yet experts now warn that electronic cigarettes may be more damaging than the habit they replace.

Mail on Sunday, 3 March 2013:

A Health article on January 27 said some experts believe electronic cigarettes can be more harmful than real ones. In fact we are not aware of any experts who hold this view compared to the risks of cancer, heart disease and lung damage from real cigarettes. We apologise for any contrary suggestion.

(More info on the complaint to the PCC that led to this apology can be found here.)

Mail apologises to Christine Hamilton

An apology in today's Mail reads:

A recent reader's letter wrongly compared a 2003 driving offence for which Christine Hamilton was acquitted with the more serious offence of perverting the course of justice to which Chris Huhne has pleaded guilty. It also wrongly accused Mrs Hamilton of wrongdoing in connection with a driving offence while working for Sir Gerald Nabarro in 1971, when in fact she did not work for him at the time and was not involved. We apologise for any distress caused.

Compare that with this letter, which challenged one of the Mail's incorrect EU stories and which they refused to print.

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)

'At no time did one of the doors open'

Today, the Mail's website has reported:

The article by Tom Kelly begins:

A British tourist told yesterday of his flight of terror when he claims an emergency exit on a super jumbo blew open at 27,000ft.

David Reid and his son Lewis feared a bomb had gone off after hearing a ‘massive explosion’ two hours into their flight on the brand new £250million Emirates Airbus A380.

Freezing air blasted in and the cabin pressure plunged after the door in business class came an inch and a half ajar, leaving a gaping hole, said Mr Reid.

The comments under the story are extremely revealing as the vast majority debunk claims made in the article.

For example, in the image shown above, the Mail claims that the:

Door indicator shows green for open instead of red for closed.

But this is wrong for two reasons. A green light on a door indicator would indicate the door is closed - after all, an open door would be the dangerous thing, and danger is usually highlighted with red.

Secondly, it's not a door indicator light anyway. It's an 'Attendant Indication Panel'. As someone called Flyboy88, who says he works on these aircraft, says in the comments:

that light actually means there is a passenger call bell or a phone call to that doors inter phone.

Another comment, from someone claiming to be a pilot, says:

Ok speaking as an A380 pilot, I have to say this article is almost laughable in almost every sense.

1) The picture showing the "door indicator" is actually the passenger call indicator indicating that someone was obviously so bothered by this that they wanted a Gin and Tonic.

2) If a door had "blown" as the article had suggested, do you think with an approximate pressure differential between inside and outside of 8.5 PSI that a blanket would stop everyone from being sucked out?

3) I would love to know how you can hide under an A380 jumpseat, there is barely enough room to keep a lifejacket there.

4) There is no curtain between Economy and Business class, they are separated by....... a floor. This was nothing more than a leaky seal in a door and the blankets were for passenger comfort on a short (2.5 hour flight).

I think Mr Reid needs a groundschool refresher of basic physics and leaves the operating of these multi-million pound aircraft to the professionals.

- Bus Driver, Reading, United Kingdom, 16/2/2013 6:01

The allegations in the article are from someone who:

claims he suffered a chest infection following the ordeal

The Mail seems to have believed his version of events, without questioning them or his possible motives. He also claims:

Freezing air blasted in and the cabin pressure plunged

But, as many of the comments point out, it would be very odd if air 'blasted in' at 27,000ft. And if the cabin pressure 'plunged' the oxygen masks would have deployed, yet this is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

It seems odd, too, that none of the other passengers - who were apparently 'weeping in panic' - seems to have come forward to support the claims made in this Mail article.

There are two quotes at the end of the article which say:

An Emirates spokesman said: ‘We can confirm there was a whistling noise emanating from one of the doors on the A380 upper deck on flight EK384 between Bangkok and Hong Kong on Monday, February 11. At no point was the safety of the flight in jeopardy.’

An Airbus spokesman said: ‘It is not possible for a cabin door to open on an A380 or on any aircraft whilst in flight, as doors open inwards and have locking mechanisms.’

By 2:30pm, there were over 600 comments on the article, and most of them were very critical of the Mail and its fact-checking. But they didn't correct or edit it in response - instead, they gave it even more prominence on their homepage and made it top story:

It seems accuracy has lost out to numbers of visitors as the most important thing about this story as far as MailOnline is concerned.

At 3:07pm, the Mail updated the story, adding a further quote from an Emirates airline spokesman:

'At no time during the flight did one of the upper deck doors open. There was also no loss in cabin pressurisation at any time during the flight.

'The noise from the door was caused by a small dimensional difference between the inflated door seal and the door lower frame striker plate, when the door is in the closed position. This is currently under investigation in conjunction with Airbus. Emirates have now fixed the problem.

'The blankets were placed around the door to abate the whistling sound emanating from the door, not to prevent the door from opening.

'There was no point during the incident where the safety of the flight was in jeopardy.

'In addition, the green light next to the door does not represent that the door is open. It is an Attendant Indication Panel and is used for communication information for the Cabin Crew.'

Despite this latest update, the rest of the article - including the photos claiming the green light shows the door is 'open' - remains uncorrected.

(Hat-tip to Martin)

Mail corrects Littlejohn column

The 'Clarifications and corrections' column in today's Mail includes this:

A recent column said that EU regulations prevent the Women’s Institute from selling jam in re-used jars. In fact the rules apply only to commercial food businesses.

The 'recent column' was written by Richard Littlejohn and was mentioned on this blog on Tuesday.

This correction was published (at time of writing) ten hours ago on the Mail's website. But they haven't bothered to edit the original column - the incorrect claim remains there, and this correction hasn't been added to article. It doesn't appear anywhere on today's Littlejohn column either, so his regular readers may not even realise this has been corrected.

Moreover, the original news article, which made the same false claims back in October, remains live on their website and has never been removed or edited or corrected.

In the circumstances, it might make sense if they acted in some way over the original and then apologised for giving their readers the same, untrue information twice.

'I would like to ask MailOnline to please remove the photos'

Yesterday, MailOnline published an article under the headline: 'Baby's first picture! Pregnant Evan Rachel Wood can't stop smiling as she emerges with ultrasound scan':

The first photo on the article was of the actress holding the ultrasound picture. There was then a close-up of the image of the unborn child.

'Daily Mail Reporter' wrote:

She clutched the black and white photograph in one hand while strolling down the street with a friend.

Wood then took to Twitter to complain about the photos, making clear she wasn't 'strolling down the street' but on the roof of her hospital's parking garage:

 

 

MailOnline - named Newspaper Website of the Year at last year's Press Awards - has now removed the article.

(Hat-tips to ChainBear and Ian Childs)

Littlejohn reheats 're-using jam jars' story

Richard Littlejohn devotes much of his column in today's Mail to the horsemeat scandal. In it, he says:

Funny how the EU can enforce strict food hygiene regulations which prevent the Women’s Institute selling jam in second-hand jars but can’t stop Eastern European horsemeat being passed off as beef.

Regular readers may remember this 'story' from October, when the EC Commission Representative in the UK dismissed tabloid stories on a 'ban' on re-using jam jars at fetes as:

completely untrue. There are no EU laws, new or old, which ban re-using old jam jars for fetes.

A question was asked in the European Parliament on this issue following the media coverage. The answer, from Tonio Borg for the European Commission, was published on 14 December. It made clear:

In the Guidance document on the implementation of certain provisions of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (SANCO/1731/2008 Rev. 6), the Commission indeed specified that "the occasional handling, preparation, storage and serving of food by private persons at events such as church, school or village fairs are not covered by the scope of the Regulation"...

Therefore, the Commission can confirm that, as long as the preparation, handling and selling of jams at local events to raise money for worthy causes is an occasional activity, it is not covered by Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. Rules governing such activities are established by Member States under national law.

A WI press release from 4 January 2013 confirmed:

Legislation is predominantly aimed at food businesses and excludes occasional activity with respect to charities; therefore the recent interest does not apply to infrequent charitable activities. 

Despite all this, Littlejohn claims not only that there are 'strict' regulations banning the WI selling jam in re-used jars, but that the EU are 'enforcing' them.

(Hat-tip to James)

The Express and salt (cont.)

On 6 July 2011, the Express revealed:

The story explained:

Salt is safe to eat – and cutting our daily intake does nothing to lower the risk of suffering from heart disease, research shows.

For years, doctors have been telling us that too much salt is bad and official NHS guidance aims to speed up new measures to control how much we eat.

But now a study, using more data than ever before, shows although blood pressure reduced when salt intake was cut, this had no long-term health benefits.

And anyone who says different is a 'health fascist'.

Today, the Express had another article about salt:

Now the paper says:

Reducing the amount of salt we eat could save 25,000 lives a year, health experts said last night.

Deaths from heart disease and strokes would dramatically fall if shoppers checked the ingredients of everyday foods like bread and cereals.

Doctors blame the high levels of salt-laden processed foods we eat for pushing up blood pressure levels, raising the risk of heart disease.

Mail's apology to Duke of York

The Mail has published the following apology to the Duke of York:

Articles of 7 and 14 May 2012 said that the Duke of York had demanded a private plane, travelled in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce and snubbed free accommodation for his official Diamond Jubilee visit to India. We now accept that the Duke had no personal involvement in the decision to charter the plane, did not travel in a Rolls, and that the British High Commissioner’s residence was deemed too small for his party on this occasion. We apologise to the Duke of York for the misunderstanding.

Sorry we said you were an extremist

This clarification was published by the Sun on 7 December 2012:

In a story headlined "Lad of 12 leader of Cornish liberators" (Oct 23) we stated that Cornish extremists had recruited a 12-year-old boy to run a division of their "liberation army".

We are happy to clarify that the Mid Cornwall Liberation Army, an outdoors adventure group run by the boy and his friends, has nothing to do with the militant Cornish National Liberation Army.

Billy Connolly denies claims in Sun 'exclusive'

The Sun, 3 August 2012:

EXCLUSIVE: Dressing down for film lothario Russell Brand

Sex-mad comic Russell Brand was told off by Billy Connolly after he refused to start filming until a wardrobe girl flashed her boobs at him.

His cheeky demand delayed shooting on the first day for two hours, so the assistant eventually gave in for the sake of the schedule.

Randy Russell, 37, who’s had a stint in sex rehab, was filming Eric Idle’s musical What About Dick? in LA with fellow comedians Billy, 69, and Eddie Izzard, 50. A source said: “It was just a bit of fun.”

But Billy failed to see the funny side. The source added: “Billy got annoyed when he found out and and gave Russell a stern ticking off.”

Russell caused chaos when he pulled the stunt in his dressing room.

The source recalled: “Russell tried to persuade a wardrobe assistant to show him her breasts but she was having none of it — at first.

“But when it started to look like they weren’t going to get any work done she gave in and flashed him. Russell is a charming scoundrel and everybody let him get away with murder on set — except Billy.

“But after their heart-to-heart he settled down and gave a great performance and filmed the scenes like a consummate professional.”

Billy Connolly, interviewed in the Independent on Sunday, 16 December 2012:

"That [widely reported] story," says Connolly evenly, "is a total invention. A complete fabrication. It's total bollocks. It never happened. Russell was very well-behaved, and I found him very interesting."