A murder in Turkey

The following borrows heavily from a blogost by Jane Fae.

Jane looked at the coverage of Chris Collier and his conviction, in Turkey, for the murder of his wife.

The headlines in the UK media included:

Two things stand out from these headlines from the Sun, Mail and Metro. First, it is stated as fact that Julia Collier 'was born a man'. Second, the use of 'after he discovered' implies that there is a link between the murder and this 'discovery'.

But are either of these things true? After all, the Sentinel in Staffordshire (where Collier lived before emigrating) and an English-language newspaper in Turkey reported the conviction without reference to Julia being 'born a man'.

Jane Fae suggests this angle may have come to prominence in 2010 in an article in the Daily Star by Jerry Lawton. It said:

Police are examining postings in an internet forum used by expat Brits from someone claiming to be Collier.

One said: “I paid for my wife and then moved to Kusadasi in my rented apartment.”

The blogger added that Julia “used to be a bloke”.

Police are trying to establish if Collier himself posted the message or was being taunted by someone posing as him.

The forum in question is the Kusadasi Fans Forum. There, in 2006, someone using the screen-name 'chriscollier' wrote:

I paid for my wife, and then moved to kusadasi in my rented appartment, my wife julia who may i add used to be a bloke sings in the koramar and she brings me hours of happenis. What you all reckon then. I want your views.

In their replies, the forum moderators pointed out that this person was posting from an IP in Leeds. Not from Kusadasi, Turkey. The user was banned after posting only 11 comments.

It is very difficult - maybe impossible - to know who posted this comment and yet this appears to be the origin of, and only piece of evidence for, the 'she used to be a man' claim.

If we imagine that Collier did actually write that comment in 2006 and the murder took place in 2010, the way the headlines have linked both events appears problematic.

But the possibility that he 'was being taunted by someone posing as him' in this comment certainly raises questions about the recent coverage. 


Moreover, the claim he 'bought' his wife and 'then moved to Kusadasi' is at odds with the statement from a friend quoted in most of the articles, who says:

"Julia was just the nicest girl you could ever meet. She was a singer, and she used to perform at the Korumar Hotel in Kusadasi. That is where they met."

It is not clear if the trans claim is true and, even if it is, whether it was the motive. It appears that all the articles making these claims - which the local paper in Staffs, and a paper in Turkey did not repeat - are relying on a six-year-old comment on a forum that could have been written by anyone.

(Hat-tip to Jane for her detective work)

Papers apologise, pay damages for terrorism and gangster claims

MailOnline, 4 May 2012:

Algerian man wrongly accused of providing French hideout for British Al Qaeda terrorists

Metro and other publishers yesterday told the High Court they had agreed to pay substantial damages to an Algerian man for wrongly reporting that he offered a safe house in France to British Al Qaeda terrorists.

Associated Newspapers, the publisher of MailOnline and Metro, The Telegraph Media Group, MGN, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, and the publisher of the Daily Express apologised in the High Court to Farid Boukemiche, 40.

Some reports said he was on trial in France in January 2011 for associating with a known terrorist organisation and for financing terrorism.

Others alleged he was a ‘gangster’ accused of carrying out robberies or had admitted to robbery.

The High Court heard the articles had been withdrawn from the newspapers’ websites, that they had accepted that the allegations were untrue and they had apologised to Mr Boukemiche.

Daily Mirror, 4 May 2012:

Farid Boukemiche

In court yesterday we and other newspapers apologised to Farid Boukemiche. In an article provided to us by a freelance journalist which was published on 4 January 2011 we wrongly said that he was on trial in France accused of funding terrorism. Although he had been arrested in France in 2005 he was not on trial as all charges against him had been withdrawn in 2008. We further accepted that he was not a gangster nor that he had offered a "safe house" in France to British terrorists. We have paid him damages and costs.

Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2012:

Farid Boukemiche

Mr Farid Boukemiche yesterday accepted an apology and damages over reports in The Telegraph (Jan 3 and 4 2011) and other newspapers.

The court was told that reporting was based on information supplied by a freelance journalist and incorrectly suggested that Mr Boukemiche was on trial in France in January 2011 for associating with a known terrorist organisation; for financing terrorism; offering a “safe house” in France to British terrorists from Al Qaeda networks and that he was a “gangster” who was accused of carrying out robberies (including one allegation of armed robbery) and/or had admitted to robbery.

Mr Jonathen Scherbel-Ball, representing the newspapers, told the court that the publications acknowledged that the information was untrue and apologised for the distress caused. 

Metro, 4 May 2012:

Correction - Farid Boukemiche

Metro and other publishers yesterday told the High Court they had agreed to pay substantial damages to an Algerian man for wrongly reporting that he offered a safe house in France to British Al Qaeda terrorists.

Associated Newspapers, the publisher of MailOnline and Metro, The Telegraph Media Group, MGN, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, and the publisher of the Daily Express apologised in the High Court to Farid Boukemiche, 40.

Some reports said he was on trial in France in January 2011 for associating with a known terrorist organisation and for financing terrorism.

Others alleged he was a ‘gangster’ accused of carrying out robberies or had admitted to robbery.

The court heard the articles had been withdrawn from the newspapers’ websites, that they had accepted that the allegations were untrue and they had apologised to Mr Boukemiche.

PCC rules on complaints about HPV vaccine stories

On 14 November 2011, several newspapers reported on the case of Lucy Hinks.

The Mail ran this headline:

The Telegraph (Cervical cancer jab left girl, 13, in 'waking coma'), Sun (Cervical cancer jab puts girl, 13, in 'waking coma') and Metro (Cervical cancer jab leaves girl aged 13 in a ‘waking coma’) all ran similar headlines.

The articles were based on a report in a local paper, the News and Star, although that ran under the headline 'The Cumbrian girl who sleeps 23 hours a day'.

Several people were concerned at the way these headlines and articles definitely linked the jab with the girl's condition. Sense about Science said the 'articles are based purely on the parents' tentative suggestion' yet the headlines made this sound like proven fact. And there were at least three complaints (one by blogger JDC325, one by Heather Doran, and one by Josh, a reader of this blog) made to the PCC.

Josh told the PCC:

the fact that this unfortunate girl developed ME after the jab is not proof that the jab caused the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME), nor is it even, on its own, any sort of evidence at all that the jab caused ME.

The Telegraph reacted soon after the complaint was made, adding 'claim parents' to the end of the headline to make it clear it was an allegation from the family. The PCC cleared the Telegraph, ruling:

While the Commission acknowledged that the headline itself did not clearly denote the assertion as representing a claim, the sub-headline clearly stated that “the parents of a 13-year-old girl believe the cervical cancer jab has left their daughter in what they describe as a “waking coma”. Readers would understand from the outset that the article reflected allegations made by the parents rather than established fact...

There was no breach of Clause 1 (i) or Clause 1 (iii). That said, the Commission welcomed the newspaper’s decision to further clarify the headline by altering it to make clear that it reflected the parents’ claim.

However, the PCC ruled against the Mail, Metro and Sun:

These all presented as fact that the jab was responsible for the subsequent illness. However, this was not the case. The claims in fact reflected the belief of Lucy Hinks’ parents that the vaccine had led to their daughter’s illness. There could be no dispute that the newspapers were fully entitled to report the concerns raised by the Hinks; however, Clause 1 required them to present the concerns as conjecture clearly distinguished from fact. It was the view of the Commission that the headlines had failed to comply with this requirement and as a result that they had the potential to mislead readers into understanding that the connection had been established. This constituted a breach of Clause 1 (i).

The Sun had already acted and, like the Telegraph, added 'claim parents' to the end of the headline. This came as something of a surprise to Josh, as the original response from the Sun - written by Executive Editor Fergus Shanahan - was very firm:

The Sun's story is a factual and balanced account of the way a young girl has fallen seriously ill after having the cervical cancer jab. We make no editorial claim one way or the other for the safety of the injection, although we are at pains to point out that - in the words of the Cumbrian Health Authority - it has "a strong safety record." We also note that girls have been immunised this way since 2008 and quote the manufacturers as saying the jab is safe.

Our headline accurately reflects precisely what has happened: the girl had a cervical cancer jab and then immediately fell into a state of extreme lethargy described as a "waking coma". Ergo, the jab put her into the waking coma. She wasn't in a coma before the jab but she was after the jab. That is a statement of fact, not opinion.

Josh dismissed this as 'laughable' - how could Shanahan say the Sun made 'no editorial claim one way or the other' yet a few sentences later state 'the jab put her into the waking coma'? And 'immediately' too, although the Mail's article states that it was two months after the final jab that Lucy began 'sleeping almost round-the-clock'.

So the Sun offered to change its headline and note the change with this line added to the end of the article:

The headline has been amended to make clear it reflects only an allegation that Ms Hink's illness was linked to the jab.

The PCC's ruling on the Mail said:

The Daily Mail had altered the headline by placing the assertion that the ‘waking coma’ had occurred after a “severe reaction to cervical cancer jab” in quotation marks. It was common practice to identify a claim or allegation in a headline by placing it in quotation marks. The newspaper had also offered to publish the following statement: The headline has been amended to make clear it reflects only an allegation that Ms Hinks’ illness was linked to the jab. In the Commission’s view the wording offered, in addition to the amendment already made, would amount to sufficient compliance with Clause 1 (ii). It was appropriate for the newspaper to delay publication of the clarification pending possible agreement of its terms, but in order to avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii) – and subject to the complainant raising any objection – it should now be published without further delay.

And for the Metro:

Unlike the other publications, the Metro had carried the headline under complaint in its print edition in addition to on its website. It had offered to alter the online headline – placing the assertion in quotation marks to identify it as a claim – and publish the following wording as a footnote to the article: The headline has been amended to make clear it reflects only an allegation that Ms Hinks’ illness was linked to the jab. It had also offered to publish the following wording in the print edition of the newspaper: In an article published on 15 November, we reported concerns raised by Lucy Hinks’ parents that the cervical cancer jab had caused their daughter’s chronic fatigue syndrome. We are happy to make clear that it has not been established that the jab causes CFS. 

Again, the Commission considered that the offers made by the newspaper in regard to online and print clarification would amount to sufficient compliance with Clause 1 (ii). It was appropriate for the newspaper to delay publication of the clarifications pending possible agreement of its terms, but in order to avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii) – and subject to the complainant raising any objection – it should now be published without further delay.

The Mail and Metro have now added the explanation to the end of their articles.

In summing up, the PCC made this point:

The Commission emphasised the importance that newspapers take adequate care when reporting on health issues to present the situation in a correct and clear light. This is due, in part, to the potential effects misleading information may have on readers’ decisions in regard to their health. It was clear in these cases that the newspapers had roundly failed to take the required care with their headlines not to mislead readers. While it was on balance satisfied the steps offered or taken would sufficiently remedy the breaches of the Code in these cases, the Commission expected that greater care would be taken when presenting articles on health issues in the future.

Josh responded to that, telling this blog:

These are words to placate, not to resolve a problem. They have simply echoed my sentiment, without outlining any kind of action that might cause any kind of change in the press' behaviour.

My feeling is that this sums up just how useless the PCC is. Thousands of people read the original articles, a handful will read the corrections, and of those, it's unlikely that a single dry line can undo the impression formed by the sensational original stories.

The PCC's main role is not to regulate the press, but just to exist, enabling people to say "but look, we have a press complaints commission!" and therefore by its mere existence, it sustains the necessary charade that the press is accountable and responsive to criticism. It provides a sinkhole down which criticism can be funnelled away, an endless bureaucratic maze seemingly designed to frustrate and bore and exhaust complainants into submission. 

JDC365 was also dissatisfied as he did not feel his complaint had been considered at all:

I’m not sure what went on during the three months in which I waited to hear the verdict, as the PCC negotiated with the newspapers and the lead complainant. This meant that I did not know what progress (if any) had been made. More importantly, it meant that I was unable to provide any input. I couldn’t give an opinion on any defence or any remedy offered by the Mail, and I could not complain that only the Daily Mail’s headline was to be amended – with the article remaining untouched.

Churnalism to sell curry

According to reports in several papers, Rochelle Peachey has just been crowned 'Britain's curry queen' after eating curry 'for her last 29,565 meals'.

The Daily Star said:

Red-hot Rochelle Peachey has eaten curry for her last 29,565 meals.

The Mail said:

The mother of one, 49, from Gants Hill, Essex, has just been crowned the country's curry queen - after eating the spicy food for her last 29,565 meals.

It was National Curry Week last week and so some curry-related churnalism was to be expected. And here it was, produced by a well-known brand of curry sauce. Oh, and Peachey just happens to run a dating website which gets mentioned in most of the articles too.She's also written books about dating in which she appears to reveal that she eats a lot of seafood salad.

But 29,565 currys to the exclusion of everything else? Really?

Well, according to Peachey's comments in the Mail:

'I eat three curries a week and if I've got left overs I'll eat it for breakfast the next day.'

How can having it for 'her last 29,565 meals' equate to 'three a week'?

Indeed, if she was eating three curries a week, it would take 189 years to reach 29,565.

The Metro's version of the story claims instead that it is actually 29,565 'spicy meals' rather than just curry. But that wouldn't be so good for National Curry Week, would it?

When asked to confirm if she really had eaten that many currys, Peachey replied:

Indians?

But she had been linking to the Mail and Star stories on Twitter. Asked then if anything in the story was accurate, or just a PR stunt, she replied:

It's not the most convincing response ever, is it?

And a comment on the Mail's article from a person named Rochelle states:

Did health and safety ruin a grandmother's funeral?

The latest example of 'health and safety gone mad' emerged yesterday: those 'killjoys' had ruined a grandmother's funeral, having 'scuppered' her dying wish.

The Mail said:


The article stated:

Over her lifetime she had collected a series of garden gnomes from all over the country.

So when it came to her funeral, Veronica Pratt had one special request – she wanted the colourful little characters to line the route.

The family of the 82-year-old grandmother duly obliged, placing 30 of them on a roundabout past which the cortege would drive.

But almost inevitably, the touching tribute fell foul to that scourge of modern life – the elf ’n’ safety police.

The same claims were made in the Metro:


And in the Mirror:


All these articles make it clear the gnomes were meant to line the funeral route, but were removed by 'health and safety'.

But it's not quite true. Yes, the family did place the gnomes on a roundabout near Narberth, and yes, they were removed - a few days later - by the council (under instruction from the Trunk Roads Agency). But according to the local paper, the Western Telegraph, the family acted:

the day after her funeral.

So they were never meant to be lining the route her 'cortege would drive'.

The Western Telegraph article, incidentally, is dated 22 April so it has taken these papers two weeks to publish this story - and yet they still get it wrong.

The BBC reports that a spokesman for Pembrokeshire Council has called the tabloids' interpretation a 'tall story':

Reports in several national newspapers claim the gnomes were placed on the Penblewin roundabout on the A40 before Mrs Pratt's funeral and then taken away by "elf 'n' safety police".

But the council said the story had been misreported.

It said initially their appearance was a mystery until Mrs Pratt's family contacted the Western Telegraph newspaper to say they had placed them there as a tribute the day after her funeral.

Her family told the paper that Mrs Pratt had always commented on how she enjoyed passing the roundabout - especially in spring when the flowers were in bloom - so they decided to place her gnomes there.

A council spokesman said it removed them a few days later after a request from the Welsh Assembly Government's Trunk Roads Agency on the grounds that they could distract motorists.

They were then taken to a council depot for storage.

And following an appeal for a new home they have now been given to a woman in Pembroke Dock for her garden.

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.

Making a boob over a poisoned snake

On 14 March, the Sun, Mail and Metro all printed a story about Israeli model Orit Fox being bitten on the breast by a snake:




Going by the date-stamps of the comments on each article, it appears the Sun was first with this 'news' and the others mindlessly followed. Each article served up the same scant 'facts', a few blurry stills and an embedded video of the incident.

Daily Mail Reporter reveals:

...surgically enhanced Israeli model Orit Fox got more than she bargained for when the massive boa constrictor took objection to her over familiarity and reacted by biting into her breast.

However, it was the snake who came off worse because, while Ms Fox need a tetanus shot in hospital, the reptile later died from silicone poisoning.

It all sounds very unlikely - even if you accept a snake can die of silicone poisoning, you would think it would have needed to pierce the implant, which would surely have resulted in more extensive medical treatment for the woman than a 'tetanus shot'.

So did the snake die? According to the Daily What, no:

When the story first emerged on the BuzzMedia-owned gossip site Oh No They Didn’t, it was accompanied by a short caption containing this quip: “The snake later died from silicone poisoning.”

“Really? Poor snake,” lamented a reader; “lmao I was joking!,” replied the article’s author.

So a joke made on a celebrity gossip website becomes accepted as true, without any basic fact-checking, by three British newspapers and their websites and then run as news 11 days later.

In fact, the Daily Week shows, it spread more widely than that, appearing in the New York Daily News, Huffington Post (with hat-tip to The Sun), Best Week Ever and many other places.

Some of these have started to update and correct their original stories. For example, the Huffington Post says:

Update: The Daily What reports that the snake actually made it out alive! That means it's Model: 0, Snake: 0.

And Best Week Ever admits:

UPDATE/CORRECTION: It turns out the snake didn’t die. The Daily Mail and the Daily News picked up a joke from ONTD as part of the story by accident. The rest is still accurate. Sorry, guys. Congratulations, snake. And thanks to Rich Juzwiak’s comprehensive Tweet for clearing that up.

But so far there have been no amendments to the 'stories' published by the Sun, Mail and Metro.

(Hat-tip to Bisyss at the Mailwatch Forum)

50p coin in 'worth 50p' shocker

Non-story of the day must go to this effort which appeared in the Mail and Metro.

Here are the first four lines of the Daily Mail Reporter's article:

It's a find that could earn a student a mint - a 50 pence piece with next year's date on.

Sarah Legg was handed the coin in her change after paying for lunch at her college and noticed an unusual design.

The silver coin features one of 29 designs by members of the public created for the Royal Mint ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Now the 17-year-old forensic science student hopes to sell it to coin collectors to help pay her university fees after she leaves Fareham College in Hampshire.

But it all falls apart in the very next sentence:

However, the Royal Mint today said the coins have slowly been released into circulation since October so people should expect to start finding them in their change now - and their value is only 50 pence.

So: teenager finds coin that's only worth its face value and has been in circulation for two months.

Stunning.

(Hat-tip to Jamie Thunder and horacegoesskiing at the Mailwatch Forum)

UPDATE: This 'story' began life in The News, Portsmouth. The News Editor there, Graeme Patfield, explains:

[The] article did not make any claims about the coin being worth 'a mint' or more than 50p. It just pointed out the student's surprise at finding a 2011 coin in circulation in 2010, a fact which is unusual and therefore might be thought of as newsworthy (or might not - it certainly seems to have got people talking anyway). Speculation about whether it might be worth more than 50p only appeared when this story was picked up by an agency and then sold on to the nationals.

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)

'Our story was based on an item from another newspaper'

The Press Complaints Commission have only just published details of a clarification the Metro ran on 20 July.

It's not clear why there has been this delay, but ideally the PCC should be posting these notices online on the day the apology or clarification is published.

Here's the complaint:

Miss Adele Brand complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article had inaccurately stated that experts believed urban fox numbers to have quadrupled since 2007. She said that population trends are not a matter of opinion; rather, such information was scientific fact which could only be corroborated by appropriate survey techniques.

She added that the leading scientific experts on the matter at the University of Bristol had conducted research indicating that fox numbers have generally remained constant over the last decade.

And here's the Metro's clarification:

An online article of 11 June stated that experts have warned of a quadrupling of urban fox numbers since 2007.

Such a claim was not supported by the text.

We would make clear that our story was based on an item from another newspaper, which quoted the chairman of the National Pest Technicians Association reporting a rise in the number of calls regarding urban foxes.

We are not aware of the official statistics, but have been asked to point out that there is scientific data showing that fox numbers have remained constant.

In other words: 'we copied it from somewhere else and didn't bother to check it out before publication'.

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.

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:

The Metro's view of women

The Metro is owned by Associated Newspapers, a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust.