Leveson on the 'clear evidence of misreporting on European issues'

Last month, the Mail claimed the EU was planning to ban Famous Five books from schools. The story was fiction and described as 'nonsense' by the EC in the UK. But when an MEP sent a letter to the readers' editor at the paper, he refused to publish it on the grounds that the original report:

may not have suggested in so many words banning books (that might make it look very unpopular) but it has criticised them

In fact, it didn't suggest banning books in any words - the report didn't include the word 'book' at all.

This is the latest thing the EU has been accused - wrongly - of wanting to ban. See also jam jars, selling a dozen eggs, cars from town centres, milk jugs, classic cars, shopping bags, Britain, kids from blowing up balloons and so on. It's not just non-existent bans - it's also half-truths about flying flags and pouring dead bodies down the drain.

When Express editor Hugh Whittow gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry, he stated firmly:

we don't twist anything. We just present the news of the day.

When asked about a front page story '75% say: 'Quit the EU now'', Whittow accepted they did twist things. Robert Jay QC asked if the headline was misleading given that the 75% who apparently say 'Quit the EU now' included 47% saying renegotiate membership. Whittow replied:

I accept that from what you say.

Almost exactly one year before Leveson's report was published, Patrick O'Flynn, the Express' chief political commentator, claimed:

Over the course of the past year every criticism we levelled against the EU has been justified.

Lord Justice Leveson says in his report (p.687):

Articles relating to the European Union, and Britain’s role within it, accounted for a further category of story where parts of the press appeared to prioritise the title’s agenda over factual accuracy.

He concluded:

there is certainly clear evidence of misreporting on European issues...

The factual errors in the examples above are, in certain respects, trivial. But the cumulative impact can have serious consequences...

there can be no objection to agenda journalism (which necessarily involves the fusion of fact and comment), but that cannot trump a requirement to report stories accurately. Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code explicitly, and in my view rightly, recognises the right of a free press to be partisan; strong, even very strong, opinions can legitimately influence the choice of story, placement of story and angle from which a story is reported. But that must not lead to fabrication, or deliberate or careless misrepresentation of facts. Particularly in the context of reporting on issues of political interest, the press have a responsibility to ensure that the public are accurately informed so that they can engage in the democratic process. The evidence of inaccurate and misleading reporting on political issues is therefore of concern. The previous approach of the PCC to entertaining complaints only where they came from an affected individual may have allowed a degree of impunity in this area.

(Hat-tip to Gareth)

Star's latest example of an 'embellished and inaccurate' headline

The front page of Saturday's Daily Star boasts an 'exclusive':

'Ash and Dec's Secret Jungle Date'. It's yet another story from I'm A Celebrity which has been on the front page of the Star almost every day since the series started.

Just below the 'Exclusive' banner we're told:

Sex-starved TV babe Ashley Roberts wants a date with I'm A Celebrity host Declan Donnelly after leaving the jungle, we can reveal.  

So the 'secret date' hasn't actually happened.

This comes two days after the Leveson Report said, in a section on 'deliberately misleading headlines' in which the Star gets several mentions (p.682):

What seems clear is that, faced with a fiercely competitive market, some titles have found themselves on the wrong side of the line between an attention-grabbing but accurate headline and an embellished and inaccurate headline.

Leveson on the 'tendency to sexualise and demean women'

One phrase that unexpectedly appears in the Leveson Report is (p.664):

massive pervy eyeful

It is a quote from a 'story' published by the Daily Star on 15 November 2011:

The 'story' says:

Sam's a bit of a ski bum

We assume you're not even reading this because you're still getting a massive pervy eyeful of that pert ass going up a fake ski slope.

But if you have managed to tear your bum-filled eyeballs away, you will realise the owner of those tight buns is TOWIE babe Sam Faiers, 20.

She showed off her impressive, er, snow plough on a family day out at Brentwood Ski Centre in her Essex hood.

This was submitted to Leveson by the organisation OBJECT as one example (among many) of the objectification of women in the media.

Referring to the Star, Sun and Sport, Lord Justice Leveson pointed out (p.664):

all three titles contained what can only be described as objectifying material. All three included numerous articles with no other purpose except to show an image of a scantily clad or topless woman...

All three titles included articles with no purpose other than to attach a photograph of, and describe in derogatory language, a woman’s breasts or bottom...

All three contained large scale advertisements for pornography and/or escort services. And all three included articles which appeared to eroticise violence against women.

He concluded (p.664):

The evidence as a whole suggested that there is force in the trenchant views expressed by the groups and organisations who testified to the Inquiry that the Page 3 tabloid press often failed to show consistent respect for the dignity and equality of women generally, and that there was a tendency to sexualise and demean women. That failure is particularly clear in the pages of the Sport, which is, in my view, hardly distinguishable from the admittedly ‘softer’ end of top-shelf pornography. But it exists to a lesser degree in the Daily Star and The Sun. For The Sun, at least, it is a failure of consistency, rather than a general failure to show respect for women. The Sun has campaigned admirably against domestic violence, rape, and size zero models.[373] But it is clear that those campaigns have, perhaps uncomfortably, sat alongside demeaning and sexualising representations of women.

'Revealed'

Today's Daily Star claims to have a 'Big Brother exclusive':

By using 'exclusive', the Star implies it is actually 'revealing' the 'big sex secret'.

But it is not. 

Today's story (on the front of Richard Desmond's Daily Star) reveals that Brian Dowling, host of Big Brother (broadcast of Richard Desmond's Channel 5), told new! magazine (owned by Richard Desmond) that he'd like Jasmine Lennard - a former partner of Cowell and housemate on Celebrity Big Brother - to reveal some 'sex secrets'.

But the Star told us under the very similar and equally misleading front page headline 'Cowell's secret Big Bro sex romps' on 31 July:

The model, 27, signed a legal agreement never to spill the beans about her sizzling six-month fling with The X Factor boss.

So nothing has been, or looks likey to be, 'revealed'. 

As Star editor Dawn Neesom told the Leveson Inquiry:

We do rely on people picking up the newspaper off the news stands, which is why our front pages have to be as eye-catching as we can make them.

Shame they aren't as accurate as they could make them.

The People pays damages over drunken proposal 'exclusive'

On 6 November 2011, the People published this 'exclusive':

Charlotte Church has proposed to her boyfriend Jonathan Powell during a boozy pub karaoke night.

The star belted out The Ronettes’ Be My Baby then slumped in a chair next to her man and gave him a huge kiss. She told him: “That was for you because I want you to be my baby. Will you marry me?”

He replied: “Yes but I don’t want to be known as Mr Church.”

The pair, both 25, then ordered bottles of champagne “one each” and celebrated into the early hours of last Saturday morning at the pub, the Robin Hood in Cardiff.

A friend said: “Jonathan was thrilled and Charlotte was very happy. She was singing I’m Getting ­Married in the Morning as we helped her to the taxi afterwards.”

Church immediately issued a statement, pointing out the story was rubbish:

"This story is a complete fabrication. I have not proposed to my boyfriend, drunkenly or otherwise. It is embarrassing for me (and him) for our families and friends to read that I have.

I was not in the pub they mention on the night they allege this happened. I haven't been there for 5 months. At the time that I was apparently drunkenly proposing I was in fact performing in a completely different town with a large public audience.

There is literally not one shred of truth in this story, and it is still alarming to me that lies of this scale can be printed. This is not journalism. It's a perfect example of why this out of control tabloid industry needs regulation immediately."

Today, the paper has agreed to pay substantial damages and legal fees, has apologised and agreed not to repeat the accusations. Lawyers for the People said in court that it:

accepts that the story was completely untrue and should not have been published. It has previously apologised in the newspaper and online for publishing the allegation, which it accepted was incorrect after Charlotte first complained.

There's no explanation has to how the People came to publish the story and all those fictional quotes. It is also worth noting that the Mail and Sun were quick to repeat the People's claims without doing any fact-checking of their own.

The People had already published one apology - three weeks after the original story appeared and, coincidentally, one day before Church gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry. The Inquiry was told that apology was a 'unilateral one' and 'just not good enough'.

MailOnline and a photo of a nine-year-old girl in tears

From the Street of Shame column in issue 1318 of Private Eye:

“I believe absolutely that one of the main responsibilities of the new regulatory system should be to ensure that the editors’ code is followed both in spirit and the letter by all newspapers, magazines and, importantly, their online versions,” said Paul Dacre in his submission to the Leveson inquiry.

The Mail editor was referring to the Press Complaints Commission’s code and opining on how the press should be regulated. But one morning’s evidence at the end of last month revealed how well that works out in practice when it comes to Dacre’s own domain. 

Crying and holding a bunch of flowers
Media lawyer Giles Crown gave evidence on behalf of Edward Bowles, whose 11-year-old son Sebastian was one of the 28 people, most of them children, who were killed in a coach crash in Switzerland in March. On 15 March, the family were preparing to visit the scene of the crash when an agency photographer took a long-lens photograph of their nine-year-old daughter Helena, who was crying and holding a bunch of flowers she planned to leave at the site of her brother’s death. 

The photograph, captioned “Relatives of victims leave the hotel”, clearly violated clauses 3 (privacy), 5 (intrusion into grief or shock) and 6 (children) of the editors’ code of which Dacre is so fond – and yet the only UK newspaper to use it was the Daily Mail, on its website MailOnline.

Picture kept up for more than three months
The following day Mr Crown, a friend of the Bowles family, contacted both the PCC and editors, including Paul Dacre, on their behalf, to request that “all private photographs of the family… are removed immediately from all media websites, and there is no further publication whatsoever of any such photographs. In particular, there must be no more taking or publication of any photographs of Helena.” 

After a follow-up email sent to “two individuals at the Mail and a general editor’s or news email address as well” two days later, the paper did agree to remove some photographs it had acquired from Mr Bowles’s Facebook account. The picture of the distressed nine-year-old, however, was kept up for more than three months. 

While the inquiry was only able to establish that it had been available online until 19 June, the Eye can reveal that it was only finally pulled from the paper’s website at 11.32am on 25 June – precisely 24 hours before Lord Justice Leveson was due to hear evidence about the case. That evening, Mail managing editor Alex Bannister wrote to the Bowles family to apologise and to point out that at least “this photograph was not published in the Daily Mail” – where it would have been viewed by a mere 1.9m readers, as opposed to the 91.7m monthly users the website boasts. He also claimed that it had been “removed from our website as soon as we became aware that its subject was Helena”. 

The Mail’s excuse was that it thought the paparazzo snap might instead have been of a different, foreign under-ten grieving for their lost sibling. So that’s all right, then.

(The Guardian's report on Giles Crown's evidence to Leveson is here.)

'We don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject' (part 3)

This blog has twice noted the difference between what MailOnline's Martin Clarke told the Leveson Inquiry about reporting on pregnancy, and what his website actually does.

Lord Leveson was told by Clarke:

we don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject

and

we're not allowed to say somebody's pregnant unless they've confirmed it.

Recent articles about Drew Barrymore, Kate Middleton and Megan Fox suggested that wasn't entirely accurate.

And on 7 June, Charlotte Stamper spotted two more MailOnline articles which contradicted Clarke.

There was another article about Fox:

It includes the line:

The 26-year-old actress - who is understood to be pregnant with her first child - has so far refused to confirm or deny reports she is expecting.

And MailOnline also published an article about Gisele Bundchen:

This one begins by admitting:

She has so far failed to respond to rumours that she is pregnant.

So why did Clarke tell Leveson:'we don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject'?

'We don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject' (cont.)

In his witness statement for the Leveson Inquiry last month, MailOnline publisher Martin Clarke wrote:

For instance the other month a US website broke the news of Sienna Miller’s pregnancy which was swiftly followed by all our American rivals but not by us because we don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject.

At the time, this blog highlighted recent articles about Kate Middleton and Drew Barrymore which proved that MailOnline does sometimes suggest that someone is pregnant before they have confirmed it.

Today, MailOnline's Sarah Bull turned her attention to Megan Fox:

She has so far refused to comment on rumours that she is expecting her first child with husband Brian Austin Green.

But pictures of Megan Fox last week appeared to show a much-expanded stomach, suggesting reports that the actress is expecting are true...

Despite the fact that Megan has yet to either confirm or deny the pregnancy reports, it has already been claimed that the 26-year-old actress is expecting a little girl...

The couple will reportedly welcome their daughter into the world at the end of September with Megan having no movie commitments until 2013.

Star clarifies Lineker headline

On Saturday, the Daily Star ran a front page headline about Gary Lineker which he said was a 'complete fabrication'. The headline claimed he had said the England football team were 'losers' but admitted when challenged that:

'Only says this in the headline, the story itself does not suggest this is your quote'

Yesterday, the Star ran a clarification on page two:

Gary Lineker has asked us to point out that his remarks about England as reported in Saturday’s Daily Star were meant as a light-hearted jocular reference to how overexcited we get at our prospects before a big football tournament and do not reflect his feelings about the current England squad.

Lineker tweeted:

He added:

(Hat-tip to The Media Blog)

Star: 'Only says this in the headline, the story itself does not suggest this is your quote'

Today's Daily Star says:

Soon after this front page emerged last night, Gary Lineker took to Twitter to deny he had ever said the England team were 'losers':

'Only says this in the headline, the story itself does not suggest this is your quote'. 

Like when they said Simon Cowell was 'dead' - it only said this in the front page headline, the story itself didn't actually say he was dead.

And when they ran the front page headline 'Cowell: My feud with Cheryl' which included the actual quote 'we haven't had a fight'.

And when they said a celebrity couple had 'kissed and made up' in a front page headline, when the story itself said no such thing.

And so on...

This morning, Lineker added:

When she appeared before the Leveson Inquiry, Star editor Dawn Neesom refused to admit the 'Cowell is dead' headline was complete rubbish, saying instead:

you only have a finite amount of words you can fit on a page 1 as a headline...it was designed to be an eye-catching headline.

(Hat-tip to Martin Baker)

'We don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject'

In his witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry, MailOnline publisher Martin Clarke talked about reporting pregnancies:

For instance the other month a US website broke the news of Sienna Miller’s pregnancy which was swiftly followed by all our American rivals but not by us because we don’t report pregnancies unless confirmed by the subject.

He made a similar point in his oral evidence:

Similarly, there are things that we can't write, pregnancy stories, for instance. The PCC says that we're not allowed to say somebody's pregnant unless they've confirmed it.

All of which sounds as if the MailOnline wouldn't dream of reporting a pregnancy unless it is 'confirmed' by the pregnant woman.

From six days ago:

And in November, MailOnline was not shy about reporting some feeble speculation and rumour about an unconfirmed 'pregnancy':

(Hat-tip to satnav at the Mailwatch Forum)

Fake Twitter accounts have 'fooled other people' says MailOnline publisher

Martin Clarke, the publisher of MailOnline, gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today. He was asked by David Barr about the monitoring of Twitter for stories:

A. We monitor the Twittersphere and quite often Twitter will alert you to a story that you weren't otherwise aware of. Sometimes the tweet will be the story. If somebody tweets a comment, then obviously very often we will -- the fact that somebody's tweeted that comment is the story. Obviously you have to be careful that it is genuinely the tweet from the person you think it is, and there have in the past been rogue tweets with fake accounts that have fooled other people on the Internet, but Twitter now takes steps to make sure that celebrity accounts are who they say they are, they verify it, so you know if an account is the person it claims to be. Quite often the tweet will be the story.

Q.  Can I have some idea of the level of checking that your organisation goes to before publishing a tweet-based story?  Will you contact the maker?

A.  It depends.  If it was a celebrity who tweeted a picture of themselves and a comment attached and that is -- then that is the story, and providing we know from previous experience that that tweet account is genuine, then the story is checked. That's it.

If the tweet was alleging something contentious, then obviously you would have to check it out in the normal way to normal journalistic standards. It depends.

Q.  What steps do you take to ensure that tweets really are from who they say they are?

A.  Unless they're verified accounts, then we treat them with huge suspicion. 

Unfortunately, Barr did not then present Clarke with an example of MailOnline being fooled, which happened just last Saturday and was revealed by The Media Blog. MailOnline reported, in a now-deleted article:

(pic from The Media Blog)

The tweet in question had in fact come from the fake Twitter account @MissKatiePriice, not Katie Price's real account (which Price used to criticise the Mail's 'poor journalism').

And that wasn't exactly a one-off. In June 2010, the spoof Twitter account @ceostevejobs was the source for a Mail story, despite the clear announcement:

'Of course, this is a parody account'

Interesting, then, that Clarke, in saying 'there have in the past been rogue tweets with fake accounts that have fooled other people on the Internet', tries to pretend these things happened 'in the past' and only to 'others'. 

And it's not just spoof accounts, but joke tweets mistaken for genuine news. In the case of Jeremy Vine getting special permission to play hymns on BBC radio, and Carol Vorderman renting a luxury yacht, MailOnline hacks completely failed to get a joke. Not exactly 'check[ing] it out in the normal way to normal journalistic standards'.

'We have never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers'

Rupert Murdoch appeared at the Leveson Inquiry today. Under oath, he said:

I take a particularly strong pride in the fact that we have never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers.

Never?

The first article this blog ever wrote about was this one in the Sun:

Here's the full text of this 'news' article:

WATCHING telly can help you beat the winter blues.

A top psychologist studied British TV and found a mix of bright colours, laughter and music can help lifts Brits from their winter gloom.

Sky psychologist Donna Dawson identified what cheers viewers up and has compiled the Sky+ HD Happier Days TV Guide packed with shows to lift the spirit.

She has rated each programme using the categories Colour, Laughter, Music, Bonding, Escapism and Inspirational so viewers know how it will boost their mood.

Donna explained: “Colour research reveals bright colours lift your mood and can help you to feel more positive, excited, happy or relaxed.

“Laughter has also been shown to release endorphins from the brain, the body’s natural feel good chemicals.

“By watching an uplifting film or intense sports event in High Definition, fed-up viewers can enjoy the invigorating roar of a stadium crowd in their living room.

Click here to see a TV guide to help beat the blues

“Or they can enjoy a bit of escapism by being transported to the setting of a far-away exotic nature documentary.”

February’s Sky+ HD highlights include the upbeat Abba musical ‘Mama Mia!’ on Valentine’s Day.

‘Mr Bean’s Holiday’ and ‘Run, Fat Boy, Run’ should also have viewers chuckling.

If you’re after escapism there’s other films like ‘The Golden Compass’ and ‘Happy Feet’ on offer.

While documentaries such as ‘Wildlife Photographers Widescreen’ could provide a much-needed dose of colour this winter. 

Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 News adds:

The “I-Sky” column in “Private Eye,” listing constant references bigging up Sky’s output in Murdoch papers, would presumably come as a bit of a shock.

Mail admits Amanda Platell column went 'beyond fair comment'

The 'Clarifications and corrections' column in today's Mail apologises for comments made by Amanda Platell when she attacked some of the core participants at the Leveson Inquiry:

A column by Amanda Platell on 17 September 2011 referred to Sheryl Gascoigne as a ‘gold digger’ and as ‘sleazy and degrading company’ for the other participants in the Leveson Inquiry. We now accept that these allegations are entirely unfounded and went beyond fair comment. We have sincerely apologised to Ms Gascoigne in court for the distress caused and have agreed to pay her substantial damages and costs.

MailOnline doesn't do research, falls for Twitter joke

Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre told the Leveson Inquiry on 6 February:

I'm very proud of the Mail Online...it's evolving and clearly everything can improve, but I think to come from a cold start to being the world's number newspaper internet site is an achievement that British journalism should be proud of.

Yesterday, at 12:56pm, Carol Vorderman tweeted:

Someone at Mail HQ clearly thought this was a great story, and within six hours, an article appeared under the byline of Daily Mail Reporter:

You'll be all at sea, Carol! Vorderman unveils her new yacht... although it's hardly the right weather for sailing

She's made a name for herself as a TV star with plenty of brains behind her beauty.

But perhaps Carol Vorderman wasn't quite with it when she decided to rent a huge yacht.

The 51-year-old posted a picture of the large vessel to her Twitter page, proudly announcing it was moored at the Bristol docks.

However, it's hardly the weather for a sun-drenched cruise across the bay.

In fact, it's pretty miserable across the British Isles with rain and grey skies dominating this weekend.

That won't put Carol off though, the former Countdown presenter always seem to be of a sunny disposition.

In those six hours, it appears Daily Mail Reporter didn't do any research about this yacht. If they had, they might have found local news reports about its arrival in Bristol on 13 March, and that it is set to be delivered to its new owner in the Mediterranean later this week. It's not being 'hired for the season' by Vorderman or anyone else.

A few hours later, Vorderman tweeted again:

The Mail has a little bit of form on this: it fell for a spoof Steve Jobs twitter account in 2010, and last year used a joke tweet by Jeremy Vine as the basis for a serious article about the BBC attacking Christianity.

Meanwhile, in other Vorderman 'news', the Sun has published the words of Sam Amos, a 'psychic' who has done, err, 'rumpology' readings of Vorderman's bum.

(Hat-tip to James)

UPDATE: MailOnline deleted the article on Monday. 

From the Mike Sullivan archives

Yesterday, the Leveson Inquiry heard from Mike Sullivan, crime correspondent at the Sun and one of those recently arrested by officers from Operation Elveden.

During his evidence, journalist Samira Ahmed tweeted:

Ahmed had reported on the murder of Rochelle Holness at the time, and had interviewed Rochelle's mother for Channel 4 News.

The Sun's article, written by Sullivan, Alex Peake and Tony Bonnici, was untrue. It said (and still says):

The claim that the victim was 'STILL ALIVE' came from an anonymous source:

One source said: "The flat was covered in blood, which points to the fact Rochelle was alive when her body was cut up."

The anonymous source does not say anything about Rochelle being 'strapped to a table' however.

It wasn't just the Sun - the Daily Star also claimed:

"murdered schoolgirl Rochelle Holness was cut up with an electric saw while she was still alive — it was feared that she was dismembered while her heart was still beating."

Yet Rochelle was already dead when she was dismembered, according to the post mortem. 

Speaking in May 2006, after John McGrady was given a full life sentence for Rochelle's murder, her family:

criticised two tabloid newspapers which published lurid and false details about the case...

"We hope those responsible for causing us so much unnecessary pain will today feel the shame that has so far been absent, for their behaviour has been as inhumane as John McGrady's."

The Press Gazette reported:

The Holness family's lawyer, Andre Clovis, told Press Gazette that two stories in the red-tops had been particularly disturbing for the family. He said they appeared after Rochelle's body was found, but before the family had received details of the post-mortem findings.

He said: "Before they had received any feedback from the pathologist via the police, there were these articles written by these two papers."

And:

Clovis said that the pieces caused a rift between the family and the police — because they wanted to know why they were not being told this information first. He added the family found the stories extremely upsetting — not least, because the information was not true.

He said that the post mortem found that Rochelle had been dead for at least 15 hours when her body was mutilated and that there was no evidence that blood had been splattered over the flat.

He said: "When you are reporting about these issues you have got to report them sensitively because there are people involved. The family were devastated because they believed these stories."

Clovis added:

"We've sent in 30 other press cuttings from various other newspapers to the PCC to show that the rest of the reporting has been extremely sensitive. The question is why these papers felt they had to go a step further. The others reported the graphic details but didn't invent things and didn't try to make it any more gruesome than it was."

Mike Sullivan was also partly responsible - along with Anthony France - for a 27 April 2007 Sun article headlined 'Bondage killing of Muslim mum' which began:

A mum of four found murdered in her car boot was wearing rubber bondage gear, cops revealed yesterday. Last night they were investigating whether Muslim divorcée Janet Hossain, 32, was killed in a kinky sex session which got out of hand. She was wearing just the fetish outfit, which included belts and chains, and there were no obvious signs of injury.

This was almost completely untrue. Three months later, The Sun admitted:

Further to our article Bondage Killing of Muslim Mum of April 27 we would like to make clear the body of Ms Janet Hossain, of Manor Park, East London, was not discovered wearing bondage clothes as we stated. We apologise to her family for any distress caused.

So there was no bondage gear, no fetish outfit, no chains, no kinky sex session.

Are those two sentences really enough to atone for the 'distress caused'?

Remember the words of Sullivan's colleague Trevor Kavanagh, in his infamous 13 February rant about the situation at News International?

It is important that we do not jump to conclusions.

Quite.

(Hat-tips to Samira Ahmed and septicisle)

Solicitor challenges Mail over false story

In July 2010, the Mail and Sun apologised and paid damages to Parameswaran Subramanyam, a Tamil who they accused of secretly eating hamburgers while claiming to be on hunger strike.

The Leveson Inquiry has now published a witness statement from Magnus Boyd, the solicitor who represented Subramanyam. He focuses on the Daily Mail's article and says:

The Article, which in its original hard copy form also carried a photograph of Scotland Yard, stated that the source of the allegation was the police and contained the following words:

"Scotland Yard surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief as he tucked into clandestine deliveries.

"A police insider said: 'In view of the overtime bill this has got to be the most expensive Bie Mac ever. ’

"Scotland Yard made no official comment but senior sources said police decided against dragging the bogus hunger striker out of his tent for fear it would start a riot.

"’One source said: 'This was such a sensitive operation that it was felt officers could inflame the situation if we brought the strike and demonstration to a premature end.."

Boyd then explains what happens when they looked into the story:

Following publication of the Article, Michelle Riondel, the solicitor then instructed by Mr Subramanyam, spoke to the Metropolitan Police Superintendent who was in charge of the operation who confirmed that:

- there was no police surveillance team assigned to watch him;

- there was no use of 'specialist monitoring equipment’;

- the police had no 'evidence’ of the allegations made in the Article;

- he was not aware of any police decision 'against dragging the bogus hunger striker out of his tent’ or 'that it was felt officers could inflame the situation if [they] brought the hunger strike and demonstration to a premature end’.

Boyd concludes:

Neither I nor my client know how the statements in the Article quoted above at paragraph 2 found their way into the Article. As a matter of logic there are only two possibilities which are either that:

i. a police source simply made up these allegations and communicated them to The Daily Mail; or

ii. The Daily Mail made up the police sources.

If i) happened then The Daily Mail must have been so confident in its police source so as not to consider it necessary to request the footage in order to verify it. Had The Daily Mail done so, it would have become clear that none existed.

If ii) happened (and the newspaper invented police sources for an article being published to the nation at large both in hard copy and on-line) then that would seem to indicate that the newspaper was sufficiently confident in the strength of its relationship with the police not to fear repercussions from the police for falsely presenting them as the source and/or that the newspaper thought that Mr Subramanyam would not have the means and wherewithal to sue.

(Hat-tip to David Allen Green)

Dacre, the Mail and cancer

In his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today, Mail editor Paul Dacre said it was a 'caricature' that his paper wrote lots of stories about things that can give you cancer.

This claim came as he was being asked about the Mail story 'Cancer danger from that night-time trip to the toilet', which was dimissed as an 'eye-catching fabrication' by the University of Leicester, whose research was being reported.

Inevitably, there was a 'x causes cancer' story in the Mail today, based on soon-to-be-aired Government ads on drinking:

It begins:

Just two glasses of wine or two strong pints of beer a day can treble the risk of mouth cancer, ministers warn.

The news that two pints of beer could treble the risk of mouth cancer may come as a surprise to some Mail readers who saw this story two days ago:

This article included the claim that:

We have long been told that a glass of red wine is good for our health, but now an increasing number of clinical studies show that beer can have even greater benefits...

‘It needn’t be an expensive beer – just don’t drink so much you cancel out any of the benefits,’ adds Dr Philliskirk. ‘This means no more than a pint a day for a woman and between one and two pints, depending on the beer’s strength, for a man.’

Dr Philliskirk is, incidentally, from the Institute of Brewing and Distillery:

a members organisation dedicated to the education and training needs of brewers & distillers and those in related industries.

He might just be considered to be someone with an interest in promoting the benefits of alcohol.

But there it is: two pints of beer a day might be good for you or it might increase your risk of mouth cancer, depending on whether you read the Mail on the 4th or the 6th.

Just like last year, indeed, when a glass or two of red wine was reported by the Mail (and Express) to both prevent and increase the risk of breast cancer.

Similarly, the Mail reported that drinking wine with an evening meal was a 'deadly risk' that increases the risk of cancer (29 August 2011) and a good way to be 'free of the ills of oldage', including cancer (7 September 2011).

Dacre told the Inquiry:

I categorically dispute that we adopt an irresponsible stance on medical stories.

Richard Desmond and the McCanns

At the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday, there were intriguing exchanges about the McCanns between a clearly unimpressed Robert Jay QC and Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star. Desmond coughed up £550,000 in damages for a relentless barrage of defamatory articles and all his papers published front page apologies which read:

The Daily and Sunday Express have taken the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.

We did so because we accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.

We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.

We trust that the suspicion that has clouded their lives for many months will soon be lifted.

As an expression of its regret, the Daily Express has now paid a very substantial sum into the Madeleine Fund and we promise to do all in our power to help efforts to find her.

Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress.

We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well and will be restored to her loving family. 

Here's how some of the exchanges went at the Inquiry:

Q. But isn't it fair to say, Mr Desmond, that if you look at the hard facts, I think the McCann litigation involved 38 defamatory articles. It is right, and Mr Ashford has drawn to our attention that there are other newspapers who also perpetrated defamations, but not to the same extent as your papers.

A. Is that -- I'm not sure that's right. I'm not sure that's right at all.

Q. If it's wrong, Mr Sherborne here, who -- the McCanns are his client -- will demonstrate that in due course, but it's certainly my understanding that we're talking about 38 defamatory articles over a four-month period and that your paper was guilty, if I can put it in those terms, of the most egregious and serious defamations, and other papers were guilty of defamations of perhaps less severity in terms of quantity. Do you accept that?

A. Once again, I don't wish to minimise it, right? But four months is -- let me see now, it's 12 weeks?

Q. It's 17 weeks, on my reckoning.

A. 17 weeks, thank you. 17 weeks times 6 -- you have to help me again.

Q. 102, is it, Mr Desmond? I don't know. You're the businessman.

A. Well, I don't know. 102, very good. Is 102.

Q. Yes.

A. And there were 37 --

Q. 38.

A. I'm not trying to win points here, because we did do wrong, but I could say there were more, if there were 102 articles on the McCanns, there were 38 bad ones, then one would say -- and I'm not trying to justify, please, I'm not trying to justify anything, but you could argue there were 65 or 70 good ones.

In other words: yes, we may have accused the McCanns of 'selling their daughter for money and hiding her body in a freezer', but hey, some of our other articles were 'good'.

Yes, you 'could argue' that, although it's hard to see why you'd want to.

Moreover, just because the stories weren't defamatory doesn't make them 'good'.

Desmond continued later:

A. At the end of the day, the McCanns, you know, as I understood it, although I've never met them, were perfectly -- if we ran it for four months, you know, it took them a long time to get involved in a legal dispute with us. They were quite happy, as I understand, in articles being run about their poor daughter, because it kept it on the front page. I think it was only when new lawyers came along, who I think were working on a contingency, that the legal --

Q. I can't --

A. Well, that's the facts. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. Mr Desmond I'm going to interrupt you.

A. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. That must be a grotesque characterisation.

A. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. Your paper was accusing the McCanns on occasion of having killed their daughter. Are you seriously saying that they were sitting there quite happy, rather than entirely anguished by your paper's bad behaviour?

A. I'm sitting here --

Q. Just think about the question before you answer.

A. I'm going to answer your question, and I've already answered it. We ran -- on your suggestion, we've run 102 -- your figure, 102 articles. For four months you say we ran it, right? Nothing happened, to the best of my knowledge, until a new firm of lawyers were instructed, who were on a contingency, that then came in to sue us.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said in response to Desmond's evidence:

"Mr Desmond's memory is apparently doing him a great disservice. For him to suggest that Kate and Gerry were happy with Express Newspapers' coverage, he must be living in a parallel universe." Desmond's portrayal of the McCanns' reaction to his papers' coverage of their daughters' disappearance was "grotesque in the extreme", he added. He said that the coverage, some of which was just "lies", had added to the suffering they endured.

Still, at least Desmond's many apologies to the McCanns sounded genuine. Didn't they?

But once again, please, I do apologise to the McCanns. I'm not trying to -- I am very sorry for -- you know, I am very sorry for the thing and I am very sorry that we got it wrong, but please don't, you know, try and -- every paper was doing the same thing

...

once again I do apologise to the McCanns, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but there are views on -- there are views on the McCanns of what happened. And there are still views on the McCanns of what happened.

Somehow, ending an apology with 'et cetera, et cetera, et cetera' doesn't suggest it's entirely heartfelt.

Ethical

From the Leveson Inquiry yesterday:

Robert Jay QC: What interest, if any, do you have in ethical standards within your papers, or is that purely a matter for the editors?

Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star: Well, ethical, I don't quite know what the word means, but perhaps you'll explain what the word means, ethical.