MailOnline falls for April Fool's Day story

This article was published by the Croydon Advertiser's website on Sunday 7 April:

The Daily Mail has reported that Westfield are to erect a statue of Kate Moss in their new Croydon shopping centre - less than a week after the 'news' was the Advertiser's April Fool.

We reported on April 1 that the Australian retail giant had commissioned the statue to "cheer up the town" after reading an article in the Mail which said Croydon was the second unhappiest place to live in the UK.

The prank claimed that directors had chosen Kate Moss because her famous haircut - the Croydon facelift - summed up their plans for the Whitgift Centre, but that Hammerson, partners in the £1 billion joint venture, preferred a statue of comedian Ronnie Corbett.

It also featured an image, created using Photoshop, of shoppers surrounding a huge statue of Kate in the Whitgift Centre.

Despite publishing an article after midday which said the idea had been scrapped, the Daily Mail published a story on its website yesterday which reported the plan as fact.

Towards the bottom of the article about Moss's appearance at an Aids charity fundraiser, it reports that the supermodel, who grew up in Addiscombe, is "soon to be honoured in her home town".

The reporter states that Westfield will build the statue and repeats our made up claim that the company has commissioned sculptor Marc Quinn to produce a replica of his 18-carat gold statue which shows Kate in a yoga pose.

The MailOnline article written by JJ Anisiobi - published on 6 April - has now been edited to remove the claims.

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.

The only scary thing is how this stuff gets published

On 15 February, The Sun ran this story as it continues to try to prove ghosts and aliens exist:


This picture was apparently taken at Gwrych Castle in North Wales. The Sun says:

And the shadowy girl appears to be on the first floor, in what used to be a magnificent banquet hall. The floor in that room crumbled away years ago, meaning there is nothing for a person to stand on.

But if the floor crumbled away 'years ago' how come this picture from October 2007, posted during a discussion on the photo at the Ghost Theory website, shows the same window and - shock! - a floor.

As does this video on YouTube.

So who gave this story to the Sun? 'Company boss' Kevin Horkin. Ghost Theory found he runs a 'Psychic Management Agency' called Parallel Management and is hoping to buy Gwrych Castle to set up a Psychic School of Excellence there.

His website says one of his areas of expertise is public relations. And the gullible Sun is only too happy to give him some free publicity.

A week later, the Sun was at it again, and the Mail ran this one too:


The Mail published this obvious fake under the headline:


Err, no?

But they played it absolutely straight:

The ghostly image of a young boy was captured on camera as builders demolished an old school building.

John Fores, 47, insists the spectral figure was not present when he took the picture of the part-demolished brick building.

But when he looked back at the images he spotted the boy, aged around eight with short hair and wearing a dark top, standing on the right of the picture looking into the camera.

Both papers even included the same quote from a so-called expert:

Rob Taylor, of the Hull Paranormal Ghost Society, said: 'I have never seen anything as clear and as distinctive as the boy in the picture.'

The Mail adds:

The image of the young boy is exceptionally clear, but the builder insists he has not altered the picture in any way.

But 'the builder' isn't telling the truth and the Mail have shown themselves to be just as gullible/stupid as the Sun. Why?

Because there's an iPhone app called Ghost Capture that allows users to put that very same 'ghost' boy image on any photo.

As Robert Popper showed the other day, some papers really are willing to believe and publish any old rubbish without doing any actual fact-checking.

(Hat tips to Old_Punk at the Mailwatch Forum and Ghost Theory)

Why do they bother?

Hat-tip to Tabloid Lies for the latest hoax published with a straight face by The Sun. UFOs over London this time, seen in a photo taken by a builder who only noticed the FOUR UFOs days after the pic was actually taken.

The man behind the camera said: 'I didn't notice anything at the time because I was focusing on getting in all the sights.' Two things: how do you not notice four 'UFOs'? How come no-one else in the whole of London didn't seem to spot them?

Then just when you looked at the pic and thought - well they are clearly four ceiling lights reflected in some glass, The Sun tells us: Mr Burden, from Luton, Beds, said the lights are not any kind of reflection, claiming he took the picture outside with no office lights behind him.

Two things. One - bullshit. Two - if you were a builder on the 16th floor, why would you take the pic so the balcony rail could be seen so clearly? Wouldn't you go out and make sure that couldn't be seen? Or would you take the pic from behind glass and then flog it to The Sun for a bit of cash?

Recommended reading

Anton at Enemies of Reason takes a look at racism in the Daily Mail. Special mention to the commentator who asked if the Newcastle-born Muslim protestor was 'here legally or illegally though?' How come posts like that get through the moderators, when comments I make - which disagree with the Mail line but are at least coherent, very rarely do?

The Sun - Tabloid Lies article on that paper's Satan's footprints spotted in Devon, the latest evidence of it bizarre obsession with ghosts, UFOs, killer sharks and other completely untrue nonsense.

Also, keep an eye on Bloggerheads for the latest on the Sunday Express/Dunblane story. Sterling work done over there by Tim Ireland.

Quick word about the Mail's 'expose' of Anjem 'Andy' Choudary (Swilling beer, smoking dope and leering at porn). If everything in the article as it seems (big if, but still...) it only goes to prove that Choudary is hardly someone to be taken seriously. Apart from spouting off on his own website (as if anyone but his small band of followers and tabloid journos looking for some inflammatory rhetoric read it) and the odd publicity stunt such as the Luton one, what has he actually done? But with Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammed out the way, the papers need their Muslim hate figure and he's only too willing to fit the bill.

Hoaxbanisters

The Sun website on 12 Feb 2009 led with a story of a twelve-year old boy who filmed a 'ghost' on his stairs - see Ghostbanisters.

Further down the page, another video, this time of a UFO flying over Brean. As if aliens were going to go to Brean of all places. (Aliens hover over campsite).

I would think anyone with a functioning brain could see the 'ghost' is the shadow of someone walking behind the camera.

But wonder why The Sun is running all this garbage - have they learnt nothing since the great white shark hoax?