Sorry we said you punched a taxi

An apology to Wayne Rooney which appeared in yesterday's Sunday Mirror (spotted by Regret the Error):

On October 16 we published an article reporting claims that Wayne Rooney had damaged a taxi after it arrived late to collect him and his party for a concert.

We're happy to make clear that Wayne did not punch the vehicle which was not late and we offer him our apologies.

MailOnline clarifies story on Dale Farm lawyers

In November, an article published by the MailOnline carried the headline:

Dale Farm lawyers scoop MASSIVE £6m of taxpayers' money to fund gypsies' legal battle

Last week, the PCC announced that following a complaint from Dr Keith Lomax of law firm Davies Gore Lomax, the Mail had added the following correction to the article:

A previous version of this article said that lawyers for the Dale Farm Travellers had "scooped" £6million of taxpayers' money to fund the Travellers' legal battle and that Davies Gore Lomax "pocketed more than £1.1 million in legal aid in 2008", and "then received a further £1.1 million last year". We also reported that Dr Lomax, the founding partner of the law firm, had stated that the work the firm did for Gypsies only made up a tiny "fraction" of their lucrative business.

We are happy to clarify that the £6million referred to was for the entirety of the firm's legal aid costs from 2006 until October 2011 including court fees, expenses, and VAT. The work the firm did for the Dale Farm Travellers was only a fraction of the firm's legal aid funded work. Dr Lomax did not say that the firm's work was a lucrative business. We regret any distress caused by the original story.

It has also changed the headline, which now reads: 'Revealed: How lawyers acting for Dale Farm gypsies have scooped £6m of taxpayers' money in the last five years'.

The 'gangsta salute' that wasn't

When reporting on Mark Duggan's funeral on 9 September, the MailOnline's initial splash headline said: 'Gangsta salute for 'a fallen soldier'' (hat-tip to The Media Blog). This appeared to be based solely on photos that emerged of mourners reaching out towards Duggan's coffin.

However, as the Guardian reported on the day:

As mourners prepared to set off from the house, the bishop called them to stand on the pavement beside the wooden carriage... He urged the mourners to stretch their arms towards the carriage as he prayed.

The next day, the Express - never shy of echoing what has been reported by the Mail - repeated the claim, adding that the 'gangsta salute' (that wasn't) was 'chilling':

The Media Blog commented on this at the time and noted that the Mail did eventually 'tone down' its headline.

Yet according to the PCC, it was only yesterday - three months later - that a clarification appeared on the Mail's website:

An earlier version of this article suggested that mourners lining the streets as Mark Duggan’s body was carried to his funeral made “gang-style” salutes. We have been informed that the salute pictured above referred to a call by Bishop Kwaku Frimpong-Manson at an earlier service for mourners to “stretch [their] hands towards the casket and thank God for Mark’s life as he begins his heavenly journey”. We are happy to clarify this and regret any confusion or distress caused.

As usual, the clarification tries to turn a definite statement into a mere suggestion, and tries to turn 'gangsta salute' into '"gang-style" salutes'. 

But as the Mail did 'tone down' their headline within a day or so, why has it take them so long to admit their error?

And will the Express - which has withdrawn from the PCC - follow the Mail's lead, or will they continue to mislead about the 'gangsta salute'.

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.

Today's corrections

The Sun has published the following correction on page two of today's paper:

We reported on October 18 that 'more than 40 per cent' of all knife crime involves juveniles. In fact, this was an estimate by local police for the London borough of Enfield. The most recent Ministry of Justice figures show the proportion is just under 20 per cent in England and Wales.

This comes after Full Fact looked into the original article and complained to the PCC that the figures were inaccurate. They say:

The correction - within a month of the original article - is welcome, even if it does come after the claim was used by elected representatives when pressing particular policies from the Government.

It highlights how important it is for newspapers to take as much care as possible not to publish inaccurate figures, particularly on crucial matters of policy.

The Mirror has also published a correction today thanks to an investigation by Full Fact:

In our article “Cheating up 30% in 3yrs” we stated the figure for benefit fraud had reached £22billion a year. In fact this figure is an estimate for the total of all fraud and error, and includes mistakes made by the Government and claimants, and fraud which is unrelated to benefits.

Today's Mail corrections are:

Two commentary articles about psychic Sally Morgan in September stated that it is 'illegal in this country to claim to be a medium'. It has been pointed out to us that mediums are in fact legal in this country, although like other businesses they are subject to  consumer protection legislation.

*

In our coverage of Joe Frazier's death on Wednesday, we said that Muhammad Ali had had only one  comeback fight before facing Frazier in 1971. He had in fact fought twice before that bout, facing both Jerry Quarry, as we stated, and Oscar Bonavena.

Earlier this week, the the Mirror published this apology and correction:

On August 3 this year the Daily Mirror published an article regarding the death of Miss Catherine Zaks, aged 21, in Krakow, Poland.

The article contained claims that Miss Zaks, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, abused drugs and had engaged in casual sex following the break-up of a long-term relationship.

Miss Zaks’ parents have pointed out that these claims are entirely false and that their daughter was much loved, and of good character.

We are happy to set the record straight and apologise for any distress caused.

Mail admits 'Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas'

On Monday 26 September, Melanie Phillips wrote a column in the Daily Mail that appeared under the headline 'Our language is being hijacked by the Left to muzzle rational debate'.

In it, she repeated false claims about the BBC's position on BC/AD. And she also said:

The pressure on Christians, however, is merely part of a far wider onslaught on Western culture through the hijacking or censorship of language.

Thus Christmas has been renamed in various places ‘Winterval'.

The Winterval myth has been repeated every year for over a decade as revealed in Kevin Arscott's excellent 2010 essay on the use and abuse of the term Winterval.

As Steve Baxter writes:

Winterval was the politically correct way of referring to Christmas; it was taking Christ out of Christmas; it was part of the PC killjoys' attempts to de-Christianise Britain and bring us all into an Iron Curtain world of secularist misery. The myth kept on coming back -- every year, at Christmas time, or before.

James, a regular reader of this blog, decided to contact the PCC about Phillips' claim. He had tried to make a complaint last year when the term appeared in the Express, but when Richard Desmond withdrew his newspapers from the PCC, they decided to drop the complaint.

Winterval had been used by couple of people in 2011 prior to Phillips, including fellow Mail writer Nigel Jones who said 'Christmas becomes Winterval'. But his column only appeared online. James wanted the Mail to admit in print that Winterval was not what the Mail and other papers had been claiming for years.

So he emailed the PCC on 25 September after Phillips' article was posted online. Once again the Mail took over a month to respond, but a letter signed by Executive Managing Editor Robin Esser finally arrived on 27 October. It began with an apology for the delayed reply and then said:

I am unsure what the complainant has to do with the piece about which he is complaining.

Does the PCC consider it is a matter of accuracy, as he does?

And that tone continued for much of the rest of the letter:

The nit-picking suggestion that the term "Christmas" refers only to Christmas Day cannot be supported by anyone with a modicum of common sense. And Phillips did not say the term was intended to replace Christmas Day. 

This is a bizarre statement, given that it is denying an accusation that wasn't made. It's true that Phillips never said the 'term was intended to replace Christmas Day' - but James never said she did.

Then, on the substance of the complaint, the Mail said:

there is plenty of evidence to show that the term "Winterval” has been bandied about as a replacement for Christmas, as Ms Phillips says, in various places...

There were complaints at the time from Christian leaders that this was a politically correct attempt to avoid talking about Christmas and thus to destroy the Christian association with the season.

Subsequently, lt became commonplace in the media to refer to the replacement of Christmas by 'Winterval'. 

The Mail was trying to argue that references to Winterval in the media backed up Phillips' claim that Christmas had been renamed in 'various places'. They enclosed a clippings file of such stories, none of which provided evidence for what Phillips had said.

The letter concluded:

I would urge the Commission to take a rational view of this complaint and reject it.

In response to a complaint pointing out Christmas has never been renamed Winterval, the Mail dismissed James' interest in the story, and strongly implied he was nit-picking, lacking in common sense and irrational. In his reply, he made very clear that he objected to the Mail's 'unhelpful' attitude. He also spent some time pointing out what Winterval was and how the myth had been debunked by people such as Mike Chubb, who actually coined the phrase.

The next reply from the Mail was markedly different. They repeated that when Phillips referred to 'various places' she wasn't talking about actual places, such as Birmingham, but 'various places' in the media. This seemed a stretch, especially in the context of her column, which was about the meaning of words. But even if you accept she did mean 'various places' in the media, that still isn't true. But this time Esser said:

we have no wish to fall out with the complainant and I would be sorry to see the temperature rising on this matter.

May I suggest the complainant  offers us a succinct letter setting out his view of “ Winterval” and, subject to the Editor accepting that, we will also attach it to the cuttings to warn about the future use of the term.

James said he hoped the Mail would mark the cuttings anyway, but declined to write a letter. He argued that it would carry no weight and that the Mail should admit its error in the new 'Clarifications and corrections' column. That is what it is there for, after all.

A few days later, the Mail offered to publish this:

We suggested in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in various places Winterval. Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham over the Christmas period in 1997 and 1998.

James argued it was a good start, but didn't go far enough. He wanted 'suggested' (the trick they always try in corrections) replaced with 'stated'. He wanted 'over the Christmas period' removed. And he wanted a clear statement from the Mail that would show they were admitting their mistake and, hopefully, ending the Winterval myth once and for all. So he asked for this to be added at the end:

We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.

Somewhat surprisingly, especially given their original response, the Mail agreed to this wording and so, today, the Mail's 'Clarifications and corrections' column published this:

We stated in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in various places Winterval. Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998. We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.

This is excellent news and long overdue. It means that any future repetition of the Winterval myth by the media can now be easily challenged. If the Mail - the Mail - admits Winterval wasn't about replacing or renaming Christmas, there's no good reason other media should claim otherwise.

Is this the beginning of the end of the Winterval myth?

(For more, see Winterval: the unpalatable making of a modern myth by Kevin Arscott)

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.

Mail 'sets the record straight' on another Littlejohn column

On 5 August, Richard Littlejohn wrote:

From time to time I may have written about both asylum seekers and wheelie bins. But never before in the same sentence. Until now.

Six illegal immigrants have been detained by a border patrol in Calais. The four men and two women, all from Vietnam, were discovered hiding in a consignment of wheelie bins bound for Britain. They were detected stowed away in the back of a Polish-registered lorry by a vigilant sniffer dog called Jake.

Asylum seekers hiding in wheelie bins in a Polish lorry. What a perfect metaphor for modern Britain.

On 16 August he returned to the same story:

Another snapshot of modern, multicultural Britain, coming hard on the heels of the story about those Vietnamese asylum seekers caught hiding in wheelie bins in a Polish lorry.

There was no evidence these six people were asylum seekers, having been caught in France before they reached the UK. The UKBA news report certainly never called them asylum seekers but 'would-be illegal immigrants'. 

But Littlejohn called them 'illegal immigrants' and 'asylum seekers' interchangeably. The PCC's guidance on refugees and asylum seekers states that journalists should be:

mindful of the problems that can occur and take care to avoid misleading or distorted terminology.

A complaint was made to the PCC asking that they look into Littlejohn's use of these terms. It was sent on the evening of 15 August, after Littlejohn's second article had been posted online.

By 19 September the complainant had received no reply from the PCC or the Mail. So he contacted the PCC again, asking what was happening.

On 23 September - nearly six weeks after the original complaint was made - the Mail finally responded with a letter from Managing Editor Alex Bannister.

The Mail had acted to correct the error, replacing 'asylum seekers' with 'illegal immigrants' in each article, and marking the archive with a note. Bannister said he had reminded 'Littlejohn and our other reporters' of the need to avoid such 'confusion'. He also apologised for the delay in replying, but gave no explanation for it.

The complainant said he would like some explanation for it and also asked for the Mail to admit in print it had corrected the articles.

Bannister's reply came through on 7 October. He said he had been away on annual leave and then had much to catch up on his return but admitted this was 'no excuse'. He also offered to print a clarification.

The complainant accepted the wording of the clarification that was offered and said he looked forward to seeing it in the Mail's new corrections column soon.

On 18 October, around 6pm, the Mail sent a revised wording to the PCC which was sent on to the complainant.

Before he could reply, he received another email at 7:46pm, in which the Mail explained it was hoping to run the clarification on Wednesday and they had changed the wording again.

Fifteen minutes later, another email from the Mail and yet another amendment to the wording.

The complainant agreed to this and so on Wednesday 19 October, the Mail published this:

Commentary articles on 5 and 16 August referred to six individuals apprehended in France who were attempting to enter Britain in wheelie bins on a lorry as asylum seekers when they should have been described as illegal immigrants.

We are happy to set the record straight.

By this time, the Daily Mail's 'Clarifications and corrections' column had been running for three days and this was the second clarification for something Richard Littlejohn had written.

It is also the second time this blog has covered a complaint about a Littlejohn column that has been met with a month-long silence from the Mail.

After three months, Mail corrects '£32 loaf of bread' story

In today's 'Clarifications and corrections' column, the Mail finally admits that the claims it (and others) published in July about the NHS spending £32 per loaf of gluten-free bread were not true.

The Mail says:

An article on 19 July reported, in common with other newspapers, that the NHS paid £32.27 per loaf of gluten-free bread for patients with coeliac disease.

In fact, this was the price for an average prescription of several loaves; the price per loaf was around £2.82.

The original stories were shown to be rubbish within a day of publication. The Sun corrected it a month ago. So why has it taken the Mail three months (in total) to put it right? And after all that time, why haven't they apologised for getting it so badly wrong?

The Mail's first corrections column

The Daily Mail has followed in the footsteps of its Sunday sister paper and published its first 'Clarifications and corrections' column on page two of today's paper.

It begins:

The average issue of the Daily Mail contains around 80,000 words - the equivalent of a paperback book - most of which are written on the day under tremendous pressure of deadlines.


Huge efforts are made to ensure our journalism meets the highest possible standards of accuracy but it is inevitable that mistakes do occur.


This new column provides an opportunity to correct those errors quickly and prominently. 

The first clarification is aimed at Michael Levy:

On 26 September we reported that barrister Michael Levy had been arrested on suspicion of “carousel” fraud.  Whilst HM Revenue & Customs confirmed the information to us at the time, we now understand that Mr Levy was arrested on suspicion of irregularities in his personal tax position, which he denies.

This appears on the Mail's website. But the other three clarifications do not. The next is:

An article on 9 September reported a World Economic Forum survey which ranked UK schools 43rd in the world for maths. We are happy to clarify that the survey was based on the opinions of business leaders about teaching in their own countries.

There's no sign of this on the original article or anywhere else.

Then:

An article on 27 September, 'Tesco wins opening skirmish as price war catches out rivals', quoted the price of a Sainsbury's shopping basket at £26.26 against the Tesco equivalent of £19.04. While the Sainsbury's basket remained more expensive than the other supermarkets surveyed, the correct figure should have been £23.51.

There's no sign of this online either, but the original article has disappeared from the Mail's website.

Finally, and perhaps inevitably, they correct something Richard Littlejohn wrote:

A reference in Richard Littlejohn's column reported the allegation that Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire had ignored six letters and as many phone calls from a resident requesting additional assistance in caring for her incapacitated mother before finally making a hone visit and refusing her request. In fact the complaint concerned Hertfordshire County Council. 

There's no sign of this online, but the original column as been corrected, although with no note admitting this.

So the Mail on Sunday's clarifications were all published on MailOnline, although the original articles were not corrected and didn't have the clarifications added. Today, the Mail has published only one of the four clarifications online.

Hopefully, in future, all clarifications will appear on the website and there will be some note on the original article (if it still exists) about those corrections.

(Hat-tip to The Grim Reaper blog)

'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.

Sun corrects '£32 loaf of bread' story

On 19 and 20 July, several newspapers reported that the NHS was purchasing gluten-free bread for £32.27 per loaf. The Mail, Mirror, Express, Sun and Telegraph all carried the story. It appeared that none of the journalists bothered to check the facts - if they had, they would have found the cost for a single loaf was closer to £2.82.

To its credit, the Express ran its correction the day after it published the original.

Yesterday - two months later - the Sun finally published its correction:

Price of coeliac loaf is £2.82
We reported on July 19 that the NHS paid £32.27 per loaf of non-gluten bread, given on prescription to sufferers of coeliac disease. In fact, the cost per loaf is around £2.82, £32 being for an average prescription of several loaves. We are happy to make this clear.

At the time of writing, this does not appear on the Sun's website. The original article and the accompanying editorial, are both still on there, however. Neither has had the correction added.

The correction ran on page six of yesterday's paper whereas the original article appeared on page nine. But compare the prominence of the original:

with the size of the correction:

Yes, it's the smallest headline and shortest article on that page.

Given that the story was proved to be wrong within a day of its publication, it's not clear why it took the Sun two months to correct it.

It's also unclear when the Mirror, Mail and Telegraph will correct their versions - all of which remain live.

Mail clarifies green tax 'suggestion'

Another day, another clarification from the Daily Mail. This time, it's about 'green taxes':

Articles on June 9 reported comments from Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which suggested that ‘green stealth taxes’ are adding 15 to 20 per cent to energy bills.

According to Ofgem, the correct figure for environmental costs in domestic bills is currently no more than 9 per cent. We are happy to clarify this.

Only 'suggested'? Here's how the Mail reported this claim on 9 June:

It says very clearly in the sub-heading that a '£200 stealth charge is slipped on to your gas and electricity bill'.

The front page story was written by David Derbyshire and repeated the claims made by Peiser in an opinion piece which the Mail gave the headline:

Here's Peiser's exact words:

so-called green stealth taxes are already adding 15-20 per cent to the average domestic power bill and even more to business users.

There was an accompanying editorial from the Mail which said:

Yet the scandal is that these secret extras which add 15 to 20 per cent aren’t even itemised on our gas and electricity bills.

The following day, Derbyshire repeated Peiser's claim of 15-20% on a £1,000 bill in another article.

And on 15 June, an article by Lauren Thompson explained how the 'Mail revealed last week' that experts ('such as Peiser') said green taxes added £200 to domestic bills.

As yet, the clarification has not been added to any of these articles online, but as Mail editor Paul Dacre has made clear burying corrections is a 'myth', that surely will happen...

But then, as Dacre said that the claim newspapers bury corrections is:

one of the great myths of our time

you might have thought today's Mail would run this clarification on the front page, where the original claim was made.

It didn't.

The fact-checking website Full Fact looked at Peiser's figures on the day they were reported by the Mail (and others) and cast doubt on their accuracy then. Why didn't the Mail also query his claims?

Another clarification from the Mail

This clarification was published by the Mail today:

Commander Andrew Coles

An article on 24 June reported that Andy Coles, the former commander of submarine HMS Turbulent, had been accused by a fisherman’s son of the sinking of the French trawler Bugaled-Breizh in 2004. We accept the Royal Navy’s assurance that Commander Coles had no involvement in this accident and apologise if a contrary impression was given. We also wish to make clear that Commander Coles was not responsible for launching cruise missiles against Iraq in 2003 as he was not in command at that time.

Three corrections from the Mail

Last week, the Mail published two clarifications and one apology.

First up, on 16 August, this about Lord Justice Sedley:

An article on March 30 attributed four controversial appeal decisions to Lord Justice Sedley. In fact all four judgments involved three Lord Justices. We are happy to clarify this.

Two days later, a clarification about Lionel Etherington:

On 18th May 2009 we published an article entitled '15 years after deserting her husband evicts his ex-wife" about Lionel Etherington. Mr Etherington has asked us to say that he only left after he believed his marriage had irretrievably broken down and, contrary to what his wife alleged, he did not have any 'secret second family', he did not father a child while still married to Mrs Etherington, and provided what financial support he could. He brought eviction proceedings on legal advice in order to enforce a court order for sale of the matrimonial home. Mrs Etherington is now back in the property and Mr Etherington is happy that matters have now been resolved.

And one day after that, an apology to Cherie Blair:

An article of 28 June headlined ‘How the Blairs have become ships that pass in the night’ reported that, for the first time in their marriage, Cherie and Tony Blair had not arranged a family summer holiday together this year and that Mrs Blair had met the Pope for solace during a recent holiday in Italy. We accept that they had booked a summer holiday before the date of our article and, in fact, she did not meet the Pope on this occasion. We apologise for any embarrassment caused.

Mail clarifies a 'suggestion'

On 9 April, the Mail reported:


Journalist Ryan Kisiel said:

councillors are spending thousands of pounds remembering tomorrow’s 30th anniversary

and:

The Labour-run authority is funding the event despite constant complaints by its leader, Steve Reed, that government-imposed cash cuts would lead to a rise in crime and another ‘Baby P tragedy’.

Two days later, Lambeth Council issued a statement that said:

Contrary to media reports, this was not a council organised event but meeting of community groups and activist, who wanted to remember and reflect. The event was not funded by the public purse.

And last week, nearly four months later, the Mail published a clarification:

An article on April 9 suggested that Lambeth Council had spent thousands of pounds on an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the Brixton riots. In fact, the council did not directly fund this event. We are happy to set the record straight.

Notice how the clarification - which isn't an apology - only says that they 'suggested' the Council was funding the event. Suggested? Surely stated it, very clearly, three times, would be more accurate?

The '£32' loaf of bread

On 19 and 20 July, several newspapers thought they had a scoop on how much the NHS was spending on gluten-free food. In particular, they claimed that loaves of gluten-free bread which are available at the supermarket for £2.25 are being bought by the NHS for over £32.

'Prescriptions scandal: £32.37 a loaf' said a page 9 story in the Sun, which was accompanied by an editorial comment.

The Mirror went with 'Gluten free loaves costing NHS £32.27 a time', the Mail carried the headline 'Use your loaf! NHS officials pay £32 for gluten-free bread that costs £2.25 in the shops', while the Telegraph and WalesOnline ran the same claims under similar headlines.

The source for all this seems to have been a statement by Welsh Assembly member Darren Millar and it seems little fact-checking was done by journalists who repeated his claims.

The TaxPayers' Alliance were, inevitably, asked for their reaction and their spokesman Emma Boon said:

"It smacks of incompetence that the Welsh NHS is paying so much more than they are available for in the shops."

On 20 July, the Express gave James Delingpole space for an 886-word opinion piece in which he suggested this bread must be:

made of fairy-dust-sprinkled hypoallergenic wheat harvested by pixies at dawn, hand-ground by hedge-fund managers and then baked to perfection by Parisian masterchefs in ovens made of pure gold!

That the NHS was spending so much was, he said:

symptomatic of a system which is rotten to the core.

But the very next day, the Express published a correction, buried on page 26:

In James Delingpole's piece ('Who would spend so much on a loaf?' July 20) he states that the NHS spent £984,185 on 47,684 loaves of gluten free bread. This should have read 47,684 'prescriptions' for gluten free bread. The figure of £20 per loaf is therefore inaccurate. The price of an individual loaf of gluten-free bread is £2.82.

The Atomic Spin blog, which wrote about these misleading stories at the time, explains:

Well, it looks like the story comes from this Welsh government data about prescriptions. Sure enough, if you look it says that the 27 prescriptions of a particular type of bread, Lifestyle Gluten-Free High-Fibre Brown, cost £32.27 each. But doctors aren’t prescribing one loaf of bread at a time.

The important column is the one marked “quantity”, which tells you how many grams of bread were prescribed. For Lifestyle Gluten-Free High-Fibre Brown, doctors prescribed a total of 123,600 grams. Divided between the 27 people, that’s 4,577 grams each, or about 11 loaves of bread per person. So that £32.27 figure is the cost of buying 11 loaves of bread, not 1, and as the Welsh government points out, it works out at around £2.82 per loaf. This is still slightly more than the cheapest online cost of the bread, so I assume there is still room to bring prescription costs down, but NHS Wales is certainly not spending more than £30 on a loaf of bread.

And this was exactly the point made by the Welsh Health Minister, in responding to the media coverage:

Reports in the press this morning suggesting that a loaf of gluten free bread costs the NHS £32 are incorrect.

The £32 figure appears to have been arrived at following a misinterpretation of NHS prescribing statistics - which show the total number of prescriptions dispensed, rather than the total number of loaves prescribed. This data is available on the Welsh Government website.

Welsh Health Minister Lesley Griffiths said:

"This claim is inaccurate. The actual cost for the single loaf of gluten-free bread in question is around £2.82, not the £ 32 claimed. The £32 cost quoted is for an average prescription on which several loaves are ordered at a time...

Loaf of bread

Over the last 12 months there were 27 prescriptions issued for the gluten free bread quoted as costing £32 per loaf. On the 27 prescriptions, the total amount of the bread prescribed was 123,600 grams. Each loaf is 400 grams. Therefore, 309 loaves were prescribed for £ 871.36 ie £2.82 per 400 gram loaf.

At time of writing, the Sun's original article appears to have been removed, without explanation, from its website, and while the Express has published its apology in the paper, this has not been put on its website, where Delingpole's original is still visible. All the other articles remain.

(Big hat-tips to Atomic Spin and Primly Stable)

UPDATE: The TaxPayers' Alliance's Emma Boon was asked by Atomic Spin if she wished to withdraw her claims, given the original figures were so far out. Here's her reply.

Express fails to apologise over wrong photo

Regret the Error reports on a recent clarification published by the Daily Express:

Our article of May 7 2011 “8st kick-boxing WPC scares off thugs” included a photograph said to be that of Richard Chadwick who was convicted of an attack on six people in Leeds, including bursting into one home and threatening to kill the occupant’s baby. The photograph was actually of Mark O’Brien who has no connection to this offence whatsoever.

As Craig Silverman asks: 'No apology?'

Sorry we named the wrong mother-to-be

A page two clarification from the Daily Star, published on 13 July:

In our article "Ender's Murder" published on 9 July 2011 we stated that Brian Atkinson, murderer of Eastenders' extra Kevlin Eurie, had got Eurie's girlfriend pregnant.

In fact it was the sister of one of Eurie's friends that was pregnant by Atkinson. We apologise for this mistake.

Sun admits to 'incorrect' claim in Baby P article

A few weeks after their apology to Sylvia Henry, The Sun has clarified another article about the Baby P case:

Haringey Council

The Sun reported on June 8 that John Suddaby, former head of Haringey Council legal department, had tried to gag the Press from reporting Haringey's role in the Baby P case.

This was incorrect. The only court orders Haringey sought were to protect the welfare of children. We are happy to make this clear.