Mail on Sunday corrects minaret claim

A correction from the Mail on Sunday:

An earlier version of this article showed a picture of a mosque with dome and minaret and suggested that such a building might be added to the skyline of Chipping Norton. We would like to make clear that the proposal is for a conversion of an existing shop and there will be no addition to the skyline of Chipping Norton.

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 on Sunday pays damages over fraud claims

Last Thursday, MediaGuardian reported:

A top banking executive has won a high court apology and £60,000 in libel damages plus £690,000 in costs from the Mail on Sunday, over articles that falsely implied he was at the heart of a criminal mortgage fraud.

Irfan Qadir, a former Bank of Scotland director, sued over libels in two Mail on Sunday articles in May and June 2011.

The apology was published by the Mail on Sunday a few days later:

An article ‘Bank of Scotland director “drove us out with dogs’’’ on May 8, 2011, reported allegations in a writ that in 2005, Irfan Qadir committed perjury and intimidated three businessmen, causing fear for their own and their families’ lives, to gain control of a nightclub. The article did not report Mr Qadir’s denial of the claims and wrongly alleged that he had declined to comment.

A further article, ‘Top banker named in mortgage fraud case’ on June 19, 2011, reported an allegation in a separate case that Mr Qadir centred in a £49million bank fraud. In fact, the judge in that case made it clear this was unsupported by evidence in the five-month trial, stating that Mr Qadir did not lend any money and the allegations in court should not have been made. We are no longer pursuing a defence that the allegations in the articles are true. We apologise to Mr Qadir for the distress and embarrassment caused and are paying substantial damages and legal costs.

'Element of choice'

On 27 January, the Mail on Sunday published the following apology:

The headline to an article last Sunday about a tragic road accident may have implied that Ben Brooks-Dutton had some element of choice about saving either his wife or son. We would like to clarify that there was no such choice and we apologise for any contrary suggestion.

Mail on Sunday publishes second apology for front page splash

In June, the Mail on Sunday's Richard Dyson and Martin Delgado carried out an investigation into the website Yipiii. The results were splashed on the front page:

The paper claimed that their reporters had spent £162 on the website and:

only won a £19.99 fish bowl. 

And:

The reporters did not use the free plays they were offered.

A week later, they admitted that wasn't true:

In our front-page report last week we said Mail on Sunday reporters had spent £162 on Yipiii plays but won only a £20 toy goldfish bowl.

In fact, one reporter used ‘free plays’ acquired during the experiment and went on to win an iPad worth up to £400.

And in a different experiment another journalist spent £40 and won £35 of flowers and a £101 iPod Nano.

We apologise to Yipiii for not mentioning these.

Also, we said customers can top up their accounts as often as they like. In fact, top-ups are limited to £200 per day. 

Yes - the paper 'forgot' to mention the £500-worth of Apple goods it had won on the site.

Today, they have apologised again:

In a report (June 10) on the ‘winmarket’ Yipiii Ltd, which offers a roulette game to win online shopping, we said we had 162 £1 plays but won only a £20 toy.

In fact, the 162 plays included ‘free spins’ won on previous plays and after our test, but before publication, a reporter won a £400 iPad with remaining credit. Players have an 85 per cent chance of a prize or further play and non-winning stakes can be used as discounts on purchases through the site.

Users need to actively log in for the roulette wheel to appear when they are shopping. We apologise to Yipiii for not including this information in the article.

Unlike the original 'investigation', neither apology has appeared on the front page. 

The 'forgetful' Piers Morgan

Piers Morgan, Mail on Sunday, 21 October 2012:

The Jimmy Savile scandal grows more horrific by the minute.

I never met him.

Piers Morgan, Mail on Sunday, 15 March 2009:

Saturday, March 7

An old friend of mine, Stephen Purdew - who owns various top health clubs, including Champneys - had his wedding at Claridge's hotel...

As I left, Jimmy Savile came up to me. 'Your TV shows are BRILLIANT!' he exclaimed.

'And as I've been in the telly business for 50 years, you can take that as an informed view.'

I've always loved Jimmy Savile.

'Fair cop guv. Forgot this', Piers tweeted in response to Jeremy Duns, who spotted this.  

The Mail, Mail on Sunday and Pippa's party book

On 30 October 2011, a 'Mail on Sunday Reporter' wrote an article stating that Pippa Middleton was:

close to signing a book deal on how to be the perfect party hostess.

But, the paper warned:

The sisters' parents, Carole and Michael, were widely criticised for appearing to promote their party business on the back of the Royal Wedding earlier this year.

Pippa's advisers will also be careful to avoid the pitfalls of Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's former butler, whose book on hosting parties, Entertaining With Style, was published in 1999.

Mail columnist Peter McKay thought the venture 'distasteful'. Under the headline 'For your sister's sake, don't cash in, Pippa!', he wrote:

In a perfect world, it would be preferable if Pippa Middleton did nothing whatever that was reliant on being the sister of the future Queen Consort. But we, the reading public, have a degree of responsibility for that. Don’t buy it, if she does. Publishers obviously think that, in large numbers, we’d purchase anything by Pippa....

There is an alternative. She’ll always be Kate’s sister. Why not simply be proud of that, avoiding anything that appears to exploit this happy stroke of fortune?

A month later, the Mail on Sunday's Katie Nicholl reported that a £400,000 deal had been signed for the book.

Then, Mail columnist Jan Moir tutted her disapproval:

Pippa Middleton seems a lovely girl, but not the sort who could teach anyone very much about anything. And I can’t imagine the Queen will be best pleased that the ambitious sister of the Duchess of Cambridge has trousered £400,000 for her first book, a manual on entertaining. But never underestimate the Pippa!

A sneak peek of her hostess with the mostest party tips tome reveals the following nuggets: 1. To be a social hit, make sure you have the right equipment: a lovely big sister. 2. Get her to marry the heir to the throne. 3. Remember, bumpkins, it’s napkins, not serviettes. 4. Serve the peanuts before the pud.  5. Is there a hyphen in cash-in?  6. Can I have my money now?

Months later, Amanda Platell attacked the Middletons who, she said:

have an unsettling air of snootiness about their behaviour.

She added:

Why, for example, were Pippa and her brother James in the royal box at Wimbledon last week? Not because of their party-planning and cake-baking credentials, that’s for sure.

Pippa is now about to release her own party-planning guide, for which she’s said to have secured a £400,000 publishing deal. If it wasn’t for the royal connection, she’d be lucky to be writing recipes for the Bucklebury parish magazine.

In July, the Mail published an article (headline: 'Gold medal for cashing in goes to...' etc) about the Middleton's company Party Pieces, claiming it may have been in breach of Olympic advertising rules. When they were given the all-clear, the Mail failed to update its readers. This followed attacks on Party Pieces for their Jubilee merchandise ('could they have been a bit less tacky?') and for 'cashing in' on the Royal Wedding.

However, in yesterday's Mail on Sunday:

Exclusively in this weekend’s Mail on Sunday, you’ll find the first part of Pippa Middleton’s glorious guide to simple, creative entertaining, from her sensational new book – Celebrate: A Year of British Festivities for Family and Friends. This weekend we have 24 glossy pages of magical Hallowe’en tips and brilliant bonfire night ideas.

The Mail on Sunday may have thought it 'glorious' by the Mail's Peter McKay was still not impressed:

Can Her Royal Bottomness really have received a £400,000 advance for this tripe?

And how much more did she receive from the Mail on Sunday?

Mail on Sunday corrects '£190,000 for two road signs' story

In his column on 11 September, Richard Littlejohn said:

The picturesque Yorkshire town of Masham has been pushed off the map by bungling bureaucrats.

After the nearby A1 was upgraded to a six-lane motorway, the nearest junction to Masham was closed and passing trade dried up.

Local councillors and business owners asked the Highways Agency to relocate direction signs to another junction two miles south, but they were told it would be too expensive. When they offered to pay for the signs themselves, they were quoted a staggering £190,000. After a bit of haggling, the agency agreed to reduce the price to £30,000 — way beyond the means of the town, which has suffered hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost business.

Heaven only knows where they came up with £190,000 for two road signs. Even 30 grand is an absurd amount of money.

Out of interest, I checked the website of Archer Safety Signs, which supplies everything from No Entry and Keep Left notices to public footpath signs.

How much? Have a guess. Not even close. Prices range from £38.75 for a national speed limit sign up to £53.60 for something more elaborate. Archer will also do you a nice line in posts and fittings, starting at just over £19. Chuck in a bag of cement and a couple of blokes with shovels, and it’s job done for under 500 quid, all in.

So how did the Highways Agency come up with a quote of £190,000? Your guess is as good as mine. Still, it’s not their money.

If you’ve ever wondered why public works projects always end up costing ten times the original estimate, look no further.

This was based on an article in the Mail on Sunday two days before, which said:

...an initial assessment by the Highways Agency costed the two signs at £190,000.

This was eventually reduced to £36,000.

Today, the Mail on Sunday has corrected the story:

Last week’s news story about Masham, Yorks, ‘The town that was wiped off the map’, said the Highways Agency had costed two road signs on the A1(M) at £190,000. In fact this was for nine signs on the motorway and roads to Masham.

The Highways Agency's statement on the issue says:

The Highways Agency’s position is that the initial estimate of approximately £190,000 was based on providing a full complement of nine signs on both carriageways and at junctions. This was regarded as too expensive and so the Highways Agency then consulted extensively with the community to develop a more-modest proposal, with a revised estimate for two signs on the northbound carriageway.

The cost estimate included design, road safety auditing of the scheme, manufacturing and installing the signs and posts, site supervision and temporary traffic management during the work.

'Forced' to fly the EU flag

On 29 April, the Mail on Sunday reported: Brussels orders EU flag must fly over Whitehall every day... and we could be fined if we fail to comply.

Two months later, on 25 June, the Mail on Sunday returned to the story:

The article - which was reheated by the Express the next day - explained:

A row over the Government being forced to fly the European Union flag took a farcical turn last night after Brussels offered to pay for a new flagpole if it complied with the demand.

The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles was furious after being told that he faced being fined under new European Commission rules if he did not fly the EU flag continuously outside his office.

Forcing Pickles to 'continuously' 'fly' the EU flag?

That's not quite how the European Commission Representation in the UK sees it:

Contrary to the Mail on Sunday story (25 June) repeated by the Daily Express on 26 June, Brussels has not “demanded” that the Department for Communities and Local Government flies the EU flag on one of its two flagpoles all year round.

As was made very clear to the Mail on Sunday before it published the story, and as Mr Hahn wrote in a letter to Minister Eric Pickles, the proposal would “not require the EU flag to be flown on a flagpole in front of the premises…”. 

The EC is proposing only that Member States’ managing authorities for EU regional funding display an EU flag in a place visible to the public – inside or outside the relevant building – as a symbol of partnership in investing EU structural funds, which aim primarily to create jobs.

It is now up to Member States, including the UK, in the Council to decide whether to agree to that proposal. As Mr Hahn pointed out in the letter, no other national Minister has so far registered any objection. Most managing authorities already fly the EU flag alongside their national and sometimes regional ones.

As for the Mail on Sunday’s claim that Brussels has “offered to buy Britain a flagpole” this was a handwritten comment by Mr Hahn at the end of his personal letter to Mr Pickles, suggesting lightheartedly that Mr Hahn would fund a third flagpole from his own pocket if Mr Pickles wanted to fly the EU flag from it.

The Express did not seek comment from the Commission before repeating the Mail on Sunday story.

Mail on Sunday apologises to Stephanie O'Keeffe

On 1 April 2012, the Mail on Sunday ran an article about Stephanie O'Keeffe, a freelance reporter, who had done some work for BBC 5Live:

Last night Ms O’Keeffe accepted that the shifts in January had not gone as well as expected.

She said: ‘I worked for 5Live for a couple of weeks as a freelance and read the sports bulletin on two occasions. I did training shifts but I don’t think I was what they wanted.

‘Nobody complained but I think they felt I just wasn’t ready for it. These things happen when you are a freelance.’

The English Literature graduate has also worked for BBC London, Channel 4 News and Al Jazeera.

The paper claimed

Colleagues said she struggled to read from carefully prepared scripts

But also said:

She appears proud of her time at 5Live and has placed one of her bulletins online

So someone tries out for a job and it doesn't quite work out. It might have been because it was the BBC, or because O'Keeffe is - in Chris Hastings' words - 'young' and 'glamorous', but it was not quite clear why the paper thought this so newsworthy.

Hastings added:

Ms O’Keeffe – whose CV includes skills as a model, lists her chest and waist measurements as 32in and 23in and even specifies that she is willing to perform nude – lasted only two shifts at radio station 5Live....

Her online CV, which features pictures of herself, has been circulated among staff after some of them downloaded it.

On Sunday, there was an apology:

On April 1 we said, incorrectly, that the freelance reporter and presenter Stephanie O’Keeffe struggled to read her scripts when working at BBC Radio 5 Live.

We now accept that this was not the case.

Our report could also have been taken to suggest that Ms O’Keeffe obtained her BBC work by submitting a CV that contained her vital statistics and expressed a willingness to work nude.

That was not our intention and we are sorry for any misunderstanding or embarrassment these errors may have caused.

Mail on Sunday reporters forget they won a £400 iPad

Last week's Mail on Sunday led on an investigation into the website Yipiii:

They also devoted pages six and seven to it:

Yet on 29 May, another article on the Mail website - in the This Is Money section - had been rather positive about Yipiii. Simon Lambert's article began:

If you want to buy something why not play to win it for free first, especially if you can’t lose your stake?

That, in a nutshell, is the theory behind Yipiii, a new website, which offers an ingenious new twist on cashback and reward shopping.

Lambert gave quite a positive answer to a question posed in the headline: 'Is Yipiii a winner?'

Befitting its aim to inject some fun into internet shopping, Yipiii is bold, colourful and easy to use...

It’s true that this moneyback element does essentially make Yipiii risk-free, as any money put in you can get back out, and, in fact, thanks to free spins etc, you actually get back more than you put in...

You sense that if Yipiii could achieve critical mass it could prove to be genuinely revolutionary, as online shops will be extremely interested in signing up and offering good deals – certainly the calibre of partners so far is impressive.

The idea has legs, and so for the curious, it’s definitely worth a spin. Who knows maybe one day the concept will have spread far enough that you could fill the car up with petrol and then spin the wheel to see if you can drive away without paying a penny.

The Mail on Sunday's rather more critical article claimed - in the box at the bottom of page seven - that their reporters had spent £162 on the website and:

only won a £19.99 fish bowl. 

They also claimed:

The reporters did not use the free plays they were offered. 

Yet now, one week later, the Mail on Sunday has published a damning correction and apology:

In our front-page report last week we said Mail on Sunday reporters had spent £162 on Yipiii plays but won only a £20 toy goldfish bowl.

In fact, one reporter used ‘free plays’ acquired during the experiment and went on to win an iPad worth up to £400.

And in a different experiment another journalist spent £40 and won £35 of flowers and a £101 iPod Nano.

We apologise to Yipiii for not mentioning these.

Also, we said customers can top up their accounts as often as they like. In fact, top-ups are limited to £200 per day.

So having claimed they didn't use the free plays and only won a goldfish bowl toy, it emerges they did use the free plays and won an iPod Nano and an iPad - £556-worth of prizes, rather than £20.

The question is: why did the Mail on Sunday's reporters 'forget' to tell their readers that they won these other prizes?

Mail on Sunday apologises, again, to the bank it said was on the 'brink of disaster'

The 'Corrections and clarifications' column in today's Mail on Sunday includes these four items:

The MS Society has asked us to make clear it does not advocate hyperbaric oxygen treatment for people with multiple sclerosis. Centres mentioned in a health article last week are run by a different charity called MS National Therapy Centres.

*

Carol Vorderman did not say she left Countdown because Channel 4 bosses wanted ‘fresh meat’. She said they wanted ‘fresh faces’. Our story on March 11 about her interview with Piers Morgan also said Ms Vorderman is a maths graduate. In fact it is engineering.

*

The Royal Navy did not introduce year-round white-topped caps during WW2 as our report about new uniforms said last week. Black tops in winter continued until some time after the mid-1950s.

*

On January 15 we published a picture of Tory Party fundraiser Rickie Sehgal with a woman captioned as his wife. In fact it was Mrs Anjana Patel, who is unrelated. We apologise for our error.

However, the most noteworthy statement is a second apology to Société Générale.

It was on 7 August last year that the Mail on Sunday claimed Société Générale was:

in a 'perilous' state and possibly on the 'brink of disaster'.

It was suggested at the time that the article might have been inspired by a fictional 12-part series run by Le Monde.

As its share price began to fall, the bank issued a statement:

'categorically and vigorously' denying all 'unfounded rumours' about its position.

An apology appeared on MailOnline two days after the original article:

We now accept that this was not true and we unreservedly apologise to Société Générale for any embarrassment caused.

But in November, it was announced the bank was going to sue for defamation:

Société Générale said it was not satisfied by the apology, which it said was "hard to find" on the website and had not appeared in the newspaper.

It will claim damages to compensate for loss of business resulting from the article and for the "cost of mitigating the damage" caused by the article.

The Mail on Sunday's reaction to that was:

"The Mail on Sunday has already apologised for publishing the article. Any claims for damages will be resisted."

But today there's another apology - and one which includes mention of the payment of damages:

Société Générale – On August 7, 2011, we reported Société Générale was in dire financial difficulties because of its exposure to Greek debt, and that the French government was on standby to bail out the bank. We accept that this was untrue; the bank was not in serious financial difficulties, nor was it on the brink of insolvency or in line for a bailout from the French government. We have apologised to the bank and have agreed to pay damages.

Sorry we suggested you were a sexist bully

Today's Mail on Sunday includes this apology:

An article on January 30, 2011, suggested that Dominic Raab MP behaved as a sexist bully in a previous job as an office manager. We accept that our allegations were unfounded and we apologise to Mr Raab for the damage, embarrassment and offence caused.

Yes, that was for an article published over a year ago.

Raab explains on his blog:

On 30 January 2011, the Mail on Sunday printed a story based on two second-hand and anonymous sources implying I was a sexist bully in a previous job before becoming an MP. I told the Mail on Sunday at the time that this was a smear, and that ‘any insinuation that I have behaved improperly is false and malicious’. So when they printed the story, I sued. A year later, with seven first-hand witnesses able to vindicate my side of the case at trial, the Mail on Sunday has apologised unequivocally and paid compensation to settle the case...

This was not a crusade against the tabloid press. But, when a newspaper gets a story badly wrong like this, it is important that there is some accountability - and an apology.

Mail on Sunday apologises over Marchioness story

Here's an extract from a Mail on Sunday article from last year:

Walid was non-committal, but the following week he invited me to his Chelsea flat where he revealed that Antonio's mother, Boneca, had flown to Spain to meet de la Rosa, who had given her £1million.

'Why?' I asked, astonished. He shrugged. 'Perhaps it was owed to Antonio.' 'But he's still missing. There's no body, no death certificate, no will.' Even if Antonio had been owed the amount, no normal company would hand over such a sum without asking for a death certificate.

And here's an extract from the Mail on Sunday's 'Corrections and clarifications' column today:

On August 21, 2011, an article entitled ‘£1bn mystery of the Marchioness’ claimed that, while her son Antonio was still missing and in the immediate aftermath of the accident, Mrs Maria ‘Boneca’ Vasconcellos had flown to Spain to receive a substantial payment from her son’s former employer.

We accept that this is not true and apologise for any distress caused to Mrs Vasconcellos who sadly lost two sons in the tragic accident.

The original article has been amended accordingly, but the apology has not been added to the end.

'May have left the impression'

An apology from the 'Corrections and clarifications' column in today's Mail on Sunday:

Last Sunday's article 'Kate's crimpers go to war' may have left the impression that Richard Ward, proprietor of the Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa salon in Chelsea, was jealous of James Pryce, a former employee, who styled the Duchess of Cambridge's hair on the day of the Royal Wedding. The article might also have suggested that Mr Ward was trying to capitalise on the salon's Royal links. We accept that Mr Ward has always given full credit to Mr Pryce for his work and that Mr Ward behaved in a totally proper manner with regard to any publicity before the Royal Wedding. We apologise for any embarrassment caused.

It says the story 'may have left the impression' the proprietor was 'jealous' of a former employee.

How is it that the article 'may' have given that 'impression'?

Perhaps the full headline from the original (now deleted) article can explain:

Kate's crimpers go to war: It's curling tongs at dawn as Royal hairdesser cuts and runs from 'jealous' salon boss.

Mail on Sunday clarifies 'green tax' claim

In the 'Clarifications and corrections' column in today's Mail on Sunday, the paper admits:

Last week we incorrectly referred to The Queen as the Duchess of Cambridge’s mother-in-law. Her Majesty is, of course, the Duchess’s grandmother-in-law.

Oops. They have also published this:

On September 18 and on October 29 we said the Government’s 'green stealth taxes’ are costing families an average of £200 a year – an increase of 15 – 20 per cent on typical domestic power bills. In fact Ofgem estimates that environmental costs account for 7 per cent, or £100, of the average domestic power bill.

The dates of the original articles is noteworthy because the Daily Mail had corrected the same figures - which it had repeated several times - on 7 September.

Sun clarifies story on Elliot Morley

Two days ago, the Mail on Sunday published the following correction:

An article on August 7 said the former MP Elliot Morley, who was jailed for his role in the MPs expenses scandal, was said to have been roughed up by a fellow prisoner, frogmarched to his cell and forced to hand over a £3,000 Rolex watch. We quoted sources at Ford Prison. In fact, Mr Morley suffered only a minor theft when his room key and ID card were snatched from his lanyard. He has never owned a Rolex. There was no ‘lockdown’ of the jail.

Now the Sun has published an almost identical correction on page six of today's paper:

On August 9 we reported that former MP Elliot Morley, who was jailed in May, had been assaulted in Ford Prison, marched to his cell and forced to hand over a £3,000 Rolex watch.

In fact, Mr Morley has never owned a Rolex watch and suffered only a minor theft when his room key and ID card were snatched from his lanyard. He did not lose a watch or any other valuable. There was also no "lockdown" of the jail.

The Sun appears to have repeated the Mail on Sunday's article, without checking it, two days later. Now, it has repeated the correction two days later, too.

'Corrections must be given more prominence'

On 18 July 2011, Paul Dacre told a committee of MPs:

The PCC already has the right to place a correction or adjudication in a paper. Where it goes in the paper has to be agreed by the director of the Press Complaints Commission. It is one of the great myths of our time that newspapers somehow bury these things at the back of the book, as 80% of the corrections carried by newspapers are either on the same page as the original offending article or before that page.

Yet last week, when giving a speech at a public seminar organised by the Leveson Inquiry, Dacre said:

I believe corrections must be given more prominence. As from next week, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and Metro will introduce a "Corrections and Clarifications" column on page two of these papers.

If he now believes corrections 'must be given' more prominence, why did he claim only a few months ago it was 'one of the biggest myths of all time' that they are buried?

The decision to introduce these columns is to be welcomed although, as Steve Baxter pointed out, Dacre has been editor of the Daily Mail since 1992. Why has it taken so long?

But it's better late than never and it is quite a concession - especially given the start of Dacre's speech was given over the attacking the 'current furore over the press'. Yet this 'current furore' appears to have led Dacre to realise a corrections column would be a good idea.

So, today, the Mail on Sunday's first 'Corrections and clarifications' column was published. Here's the first item:

Last Sunday we said some 3,200 families of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder were believed to have been given cars under the Motability scheme. In fact that total is the combined figure for two categories of recipients of the Higher Mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance and includes other behavioural disorders. Recipients choose whether or not to spend their allowance on a Motability car; generally about 30 per cent do so. Also, we described the qualification for the Lower Mobility component, rather than the Higher Mobility component required to claim a car, for which individuals must be declared virtually unable to walk. 

This article was originally debunked by Full Fact but, as they point out, the original article remains on MailOnline with no correction. The claims were also repeated by Littlejohn in his column on Tuesday. Will the Mail be correcting that too?

The next correction says:

Bath licensee Ashley Van Dyck points out that he did not support police use of an airport-style scanner to check people on a night out for knives and drugs. Our article of September 25 repeated a quote to the BBC by Mr Van Dyck, chairman of Bath Pubwatch, saying only that he welcomed extra police officers being deployed to curb anti-social behaviour.

The original article, again, still remains live and uncorrected.

Next:

On September 18 we published a photograph of Dr Angela Kikugawa, an assistant director at the UK Border Agency, competing at the Civil Service Sports Council Games at Loughborough University. Dr Kikugawa has asked us to clarify that she attended the games at her own expense and did not take part in any of the partying and other activities later in the evening.

This is in response to an article headlined: 'Paid to party on your tax: How civil servants were given time off work for drunken sports day hours after voting for a mass strike'. Again, the correction has not been added to the original story.

And finally, there's this:

Last week we printed the Union Flag incorrectly in a tea towel promotion. The thick white lines of the St Andrew’s Cross should have been above the red St Patrick’s Cross on one side of the flag and below it on the other.

Not something you'd imagine the Mail on Sunday is particularly happy to have got wrong - especially when the Mail has criticised others for the same error before. 

So while the column is a welcome addition, and it's refreshing to see articles corrected within a few weeks, MailOnline should still update the original articles to include the clarification.

MailOnline churns press release, uses CE

Yesterday, the Leveson Inquiry team held a public seminar on the 'competitive pressures on the press and the impact on journalism'.

At this event, Mail on Sunday editor Peter Wright said:

"You can never start from the assumption that something is wrong...You never send a reporter out to go and prove something, you send them out to examine if something is true. You very often start with a gut feeling about a certain event about which you only have partial knowledge and the job of the reporter is to find out what really is going on."

This is the editor of the newspaper that, over the last two weeks, has repeatedly claimed that the BBC has 'dropped', 'jettisoned' and 'replaced' BC/AD with BCE/CE, despite the fact that isn't true and the BBC told his reporter it wasn't true.

It seems the job of his reporter was to go and find what was really going on, but then the paper decided to publish the assumption/gut feeling anyway.

And that myth still refuses to die. On 5 October, the Mail's Simon Caldwell reported on 'a front page editorial in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper':

"The BBC has limited itself to changing only the description, rather than the computation of time, but in doing so, it cannot be denied that it has made a hypocritical gesture...an act of enormous foolishness."

So the Mail on Sunday writes a bogus attack on the BBC, and both it and the Mail keep the lie going by pretending it's true, and by reporting on the reaction of people who believe their stories.

Caldwell then writes:

The new guidance from the BBC asserts that the abbreviations for Before Christ and Anno Domini (the Year of the Lord) infringed its protocols on impartiality.

It instructs employees to instead replace them with the non-religious phrases BCE and BC – Before Common Era and Common Era.

This is clearly not true, given what the BBC has said about it being up to indivduals to choose - a statement relegated to the end of the article, after Caldwell repeats all the criticisms made by people who think the terms have indeed been 'dropped'.

But what's this?

Angry Mob points out that in an article published under the 'Daily Mail Reporter' byline last night, there's this sentence:

It had been up on MailOnline for hours, but the subs acted within 30 minutes of Kevin's post being published. And, not for the first time this week, they acted a little too fast:

In the rush to hide their hypocrisy, they mistakenly changed CE to BC. Seven minutes later, they changed it again:

So how did this happen? As Michael King pointed out, the article was a lazy cut-and-paste job from this press release from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. They said:

A thousand years ago, a brilliant beacon of light blazed in the sky, shining brightly enough to be seen even in daytime for almost a month. Native American and Chinese observers recorded the eye-catching event. We now know that they witnessed an exploding star, which left behind a gaseous remnant known as the Crab Nebula.

The same object that dazzled skygazers in 1054 C.E. continues to dazzle astronomers today by pumping out radiation at higher energies than anyone expected.

And the original MailOnline article said:

A thousand years ago, a brilliant beacon of light blazed in the sky, shining brightly enough to be seen even in daytime for almost a month.

Native American and Chinese observers recorded the eye-catching event.

What they were witnessing was an exploding star, which left behind a gaseous remnant known as the Crab Nebula.

The same object that dazzled skygazers in 1054 C.E. continues to fascinate astronomers today by pumping out radiation at higher energies than anyone expected.

Unsurprisingly, analysis from Churnalism.com shows that 96% of the MailOnline article is straight from the press release.

(Huge hat-tips to Kevin, Tim Miller and others)

The 'BBC drops BC/AD' lie continues to spread

Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday's front page story claimed that the BBC had 'dropped' the abbreviations BC/AD and ordered that BCE/CE be used instead. The former had been 'replaced' and 'jettisoned', it said. The BBC had 'turned its back on the year of our Lord'.

There was much in the article that proved this wasn't true. The examples where both had been used. The quote from a BBC presenter saying he'd continue using BC/AD. And, most importantly, the relegated-to-the-end-in-the-hope-no-one-sees-it quote from a BBC spokesman which stated:

'The BBC has not issued editorial guidance on the date systems. Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams.'

In case there was any doubt, the BBC also told the Guardian's Reality Check:

Whilst the BBC uses BC and AD like most people as standard terminology it is also possible for individuals to use different terminology if they wish to, particularly as it is now commonly used in historical research.

So BC/AD is used as 'standard' but the BBC allows people to use BCE/CE, based on personal preference.

Knowing that is the case, why did the Mail on Sunday decide to run its 'BC/AD dropped' story? And why have other newspapers and columnists continue to repeat the 'ban' lie as if it is true?

On Sunday, the Telegraph's website churned out a quick news story that repeated the claims despite also including (at the end, of course) the BBC's quote denying them.

In the Mail's RightMinds section, James Delingpole said of the BBC:

No longer will its website refer to those bigoted, Christian-centric concepts AD (as in Anno Domini – the Year of Our Lord) and BC (Before Christ)...All reference to Christ has been expunged.

This depite the BBC's denial - which he doesn't mention - and despite the fact there are many references to BC and AD on the BBC's website.

Either Delingpole knew this, and wrote that the terms had been 'expunged' anyway, or he didn't check, and wrote it without knowing for sure. It's very poor practice either way. And that's not a first for Delingpole - he also repeated the £32-loaf-of-bread nonsense a day after that first appeared, despite it being completely wrong.

On Sunday evening, RightMinds ran another column on the subject, this time from Reverend Dr Peter Mullen, who once 'joked' about tattooing homosexuals with health warnings. It begins:

No one should be surprised that the BBC has stopped using the abbreviations all us have always known: BC for Before Christ and AD for Anno Domini - the years of our Lord.

Since they haven't, it's not the best start. And it doesn't get any better:

Because the BBC is the very vanguard of the secularizing tendency which has declared itself as wanting to obliterate Christianity from public life and the public discussion of important moral and political affairs.

This hatred of our Christian heritage...

To be honest, I don't think the BBC's undoubted loathing of our Christian heritage is the main issue.

They just loath anything that smacks of tradition and value and Englishness, of all that most of us were brought up to respect.

Like Stalin or Pol Pot, the BBC would like to abolish all reverence for the past

Mullen's rant was published at 6.27pm on Sunday night - less than an hour after BBC1 broadcast 30-minutes of hymns and tradition in Songs of Praise: 50 Amazing Years. Earlier in the day, BBC Radio 4 had broadcast Sunday Worship. Every weekday the same station broadcasts Prayer for the Day, Thought for the Day and the Daily Service. Is this the BBC's 'undoubted loathing of our Christian heritage'?

Moreover, thirty-five minutes into Sunday's episode of Antiques Roadshow expert John Axford used both BC and AD. This was two hours after Mullen had told everyone the BBC had 'stopped using' the abbreviations.

It was somewhat inevitable that Melanie Phillips would also mention it in her column in Monday's Daily Mail. She said the BBC:

has decided that the terms AD and BC (Anno Domini, or the Year of Our Lord, and Before Christ) must be replaced by the terms Common Era and Before Common Era.

Either she hadn't read the BBC's statement - or even, as a journalist, spoken to the BBC for clarification on the matter - or she decided it was worth ignoring.

She says:

One of the most sinister aspects of political correctness is the way in which its edicts purport to be in the interests of minority groups.

This is despite the fact that, very often, they are not promulgated at the behest of minorities at all, but by members of the majority who want to destroy their own culture and who use minorities to camouflage their true intentions.

The latest manifestation stars once again that all-time world champion of political correctness, the BBC.

But then she adds:

It so happens, however, that along with many other Jewish people I sometimes use CE and BCE since the terms BC and AD are not appropriate to me.

Do as she says, not as she does. If the abbreviations are not 'appropriate' to her, why should they be 'appropriate' to everyone who works at the BBC? Phillips also refers to the BBC's 'edict' on this matter but the 'edict' is, as the BBC has made clear, 'use whichever terms you want'.

She then points to some examples of BCE/CE being used - not ones she has found through any research, but ones highlighted by the Mail on Sunday:

the terms CE and BCE are now increasingly finding their way onto news bulletins and on programmes such as University Challenge or Melvyn Bragg’s Radio Four show In Our Time.

Thursday's edition of In Our Time is already being trailed on the BBC website:

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Etruscan civilisation.

Around 800 BC a sophisticated civilisation began to emerge in the area of Italy now known as Tuscany.

Phillips wider argument is that language is being 'hijacked' and so:

debate becomes impossible...words...have come to mean the precise opposite of what they really do mean.

But what about the BBC's words? How can a debate be possible on this topic when the Mail on Sunday, Delingpole, Mullen and Phillips refuse to take on board what the BBC has said and what it actually does? How does:

Whilst the BBC uses BC and AD like most people as standard terminology it is also possible for individuals to use different terminology if they wish to

become, to Phillips:

AD and BC...must be replaced by the terms Common Era and Before Common Era.

Words have indeed come to mean the precise opposite.

(Moreover, Phillips uses her column to claim 'Christmas has been renamed in various places 'Winterval'' despite the fact it hasn't been renamed Winterval in any place.)

And Phillips wasn't the only one in today's papers taking the same line. In the Telegraph, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said:

...it now turns out that some BBC committee or hierarch has decided that this nativity – notional or otherwise – can no longer be referred to by our state-funded broadcaster...

You know what, I just don't think this is good enough. This decision by the BBC is not only puerile and absurd. It is also deeply anti-democratic...

Johnson appears to believe in the myth of some centrally-issued edict that is banning the use of BC/AD at the BBC. But what he's actually calling 'deeply anti-democratic' is a position that says 'individuals can do what they wish'. Indeed, Martin Robbins argues that it is the Mail's view - 'It's not enough that the BBC allows staff to use AD, they must use it, always' - that is the more problematic.

As well as the columns by Johnson and Phillips, there have been further 'news' articles in today's papers. The Express' headline - 'Atheist' BBC drops year of Our Lord' - was very similar to the Mail on Sunday's. The article stated:

Bosses advised staff to replace Anno Domini – the Year Of Our Lord – and Before Christ with terms Common Era and Before Common Era.

The Mail and Telegraph both quoted BBC presenters who maintain they will be sticking to BC/AD yet both papers still refer to a 'diktat' and 'guidance' that the terms are 'barred'. The Mail's article puts the BBC's denial earlier in the story than the Mail on Sunday managed, yet it still carries the headline: Andrew Marr says he will ignore BBC diktat to stop use of BC and AD.

At the time of writing, there are 900 comments on Johnson's article, over 100 on Phillips' and over 1,500 on the original Mail on Sunday story. The vast majority are attacking the BBC for some 'edict' that they haven't, actually, issued. The story has been repeated on countless blogs, websites and forums and been linked to by outraged people on Twitter.

The BBC's position - BC/AD is standard, but people can use whichever they want - has generally been forgotten or ignored.

To quote Phillips again:

The result of this hijacking of the language is that debate becomes impossible because words like...truth and many more have come to mean the precise opposite of what they really do mean.

(Hat-tips to Mark Burnley, Jem Stone and Martin Robbins)