Burying an apology

Remember last Wednesday's fictitious Express story about an EU ruling banning milk jugs?

They took some research from Spanish academics about milk served in restaurants and cafes in Spain and turned it into another 'EU meddlers' myth.

The fact the Express quickly re-wrote the story - without the EU references - proved they knew it was rubbish. But that did not stop them printing a letter from an outraged reader the following day - outraged about a story the paper knew wasn't true.

Today they've apologised for it:

'Milk jugs ban' - an apology

Further to our article 'Now the EU spouts off...about our milk jugs' on February 3, we have been asked to point out that there is no proposed EU ban on milk jugs or any other milk containers.

The tests referred to in our articles were carried out by the University of Valencia, not at the behest of any agency of the EU.

The European Commission entirely shares the advice of the UK’s Food Standards Agency, that milk jugs that are clean and stored appropriately before and after filling are totally in line with EU legislation.

Yes, the apology is in the headline, rather than the text, but at least it puts the record straight. And it has appeared within a week of the original which is unusually swift.

You can tell there's a 'but...' coming, right?

The original story was trailed on the front page:


The actual article appeared on page 3. There was a further opinion piece on page 12.

The Editor's Code policed by the PCC says:

A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence.

So three mentions of the lie before page 12, including one on the front page.

But where did today's duly prominent apology appear?

Page 19.

The PCC has censured the Express for burying apologies before. Although it's a feeble 'punishment', surely it has to do so again?

Pot and kettle

From Media Monkey:

Reaching for another stick with which to beat the BBC, the Daily Mail had much fun at the expense of its job advert for a "Change Lead" position who would be "responsible for shaping and managing the execution of the change ambition" at the corporation.

Almost as hilarious was the job ad on the Daily Mail website for a "human resources business partner", which includes a requirement to "define, collect, analyse, report and review human capital metrics for each major business unit" and "demonstrate real change through understanding of change dynamics".

The job is at Risk Management Solutions, part of the Daily Mail and General Trust, which owns ... the Daily Mail.

Links

Who knew?

Migrationwatch are advertising for a Director of Research. An opportunity to earn £45,000 for emailing press releases to the Mail explaining how there are too many evil immigrants in the UK, it sounds like very easy money.

Anton Vowl's application is here. 5CC can always be relied upon to take apart Migrationwatch's 'research'.

Some personal favourites from this blog: the stupidly worded poll (makes that polls), the million failed asylum seekers joining the NHS queue (which was plucked out of the air), and the amazing assumptions behind 'Each illegal immigrant to cost us £1m'.

Migrationwatch say they are:

recognised as the leading source for independent expert commentary on matters relating to migration into and out of the United Kingdom.

Apart from by themselves and the tabloids, who 'recognises' them as that?

Also from Anton, the Express gets into a 'fury' about @dianainheaven on Twitter. Good.

Over at Angry Mob, Uponnothing reveals how the Mail changed a headline on an anti-Gordon Brown story when the comments turned against them; and another classic example of the Mail choosing to highlight crime based on race.

The Daily Quail looked at Melanie McDonagh's unbelievable defence of Jan Moir, whose infamous column about Stephen Gately was, apparently:

off-message but factually truthful.

This despite the fact the coroner had said the death was natural and Moir said it wasn't. Still can't blame McDonagh for missing that news - the Mail buried it at the bottom of page 36.

Also worth reading is a post on the Beer Blog of Pete Brown (via Jeff Pickthall) - a look at how the media distorted figures on children and alcohol.

Meanwhile, 5CC has looked at why the Mail seems to have fallen out of love with Julie Spence.

Talking of the Mail and love: look - it's Kim Kardashian wearing two dresses in one night.

That article included yet another example of 'look what [insert name] has posted on Twitter', which the media seems to lazily rely on for celebrity gossip these days.

A particularly curious example of this was when The Sun took a jokey tweet from pop singer Katy Perry and turned into an actual article about her 'skipping work to watch porn'. But they hid some of what she said with this exceptionally cryptic bit of censorship:

*** ***** *****

Any guesses?

Back to the Mail and their oh-so-consistent coverage of swine flu continued with this article:

It's official, the swine flu 'pandemic' is over (shame it cost us £1billion and scared thousands witless)

'Scared thousands witless'? Good job the Mail wasn't involved in any of that. Oh:

How swine flu could be a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear warfare

That was another gem from Michael Hanlon, the Mail's Science Editor, who also produced this astonishing piece of scaremongering nonsense:

Killers in your kitchen: Gender-bending packaging, exploding floor cleaners and toasters more deadly than sharks...

'Gender-bending packaging'? Really?

Over on the evil Facebook, Hugh has created a list of all the things the Mail says give you cancer, from bras to chips, peanut butter to talc, and, of course, Facebook itself.

Another Mail obsession is ageism. When Arlene Phillips was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the Mail was delighted to bash the BBC over claims of ageism and wrote lots of supportive articles about her.

Until she dared go outside without make-up on. Then she looked:

washed out

and:

ensured she looked her 66 years.

With friends like that...

In Amanda Platell's unsurprisingly useless review of 2009, she called Alesha Dixon, Phillips' Strictly replacement, 'Clot of the Year'. She wrote she was:

Nicknamed 'Ditto' Dixon because of the hopeless way she drearily parroted her fellow judges' comments

Dixon was, of course, nicknamed 'Ditto' by, err, Platell. That doesn't really count.

And Platell's unjustifably nasty attacks on women (and they almost always are on women) continued into 2010, when she turned on Andy Murray's mum for no apparent reason at all:

Of course I'll celebrate if Andy Murray wins tomorrow's Australian Open final, but does he really have to grimace like a savage?

You wonder what makes a young man so full of ugly, uncontrolled rage - and then you see his fishwife mother screaming from the sidelines.

Charming.

(Hat-tip to the contributors of the Mailwatch Forum)

Breaking news from the Mail: someone's buying quiche

The Mail's other Tesco story of last week was even more insubstantial than the ones about pyjamas.

For around five hours on Tuesday afternoon, this was the top news story on the Mail's website:


And then it was relegated to second place for a few more hours.

The Mail actually thought a story about a woman trying to buy quiche was the most important thing going on in the world.

The story is this: 24-year-old Christine Cuddihy had tried to buy a piece of quiche from Tesco and was asked for ID. Thrilling, huh?

Cuddihy was embarrassed but produced some ID and got her quiche. A Tesco spokesman said:

'We're at a loss to say what happened here. We couldn't find the staff member who asked for the ID. Age-related prompts at till are set centrally and there obviously isn't one on quiche.'

So, assuming it did happen - and given the story and the Tesco statement, that isn't certain - it's an isolated incident. A cock-up. A till bleeping at the wrong time. An overly officious member of staff. A funny (ish) story to tell your friends. That's about it.

Of course, for the Mail (and the readers who leave comments) this all represented the latest example of political correctness gone mad. You can't even buy quiche any more! It's the end of civilisation as we know it.

Errr, no, it's probably just a one-off.

Inevitably, Littlejohn had to mention it in his column on Friday, but only so he could make this 'joke' (although it is being exceptionally generous to describe it as one):

Are you over 21, madam? Give us a quiche and I'll tell you.

No wonder he gets paid so much...

What's curious about this whole incident is how it came to dominate the Mail's website for so much of Tuesday.

The story was first published - like so many national stories - in the local press. The Leamington Observer ran it on 1 February, in an article written by the Deputy Editor Kevin Unitt. He told Hold the Front Page:

I knew it was a good story, and hoped it would be picked up by the national press, but none seemed particularly interested at first.

The Sun ran just three lines on it on page 25 last week and the Daily Mail rejected it altogether because The Sun had already covered it, a bizarre decision given they would lead their own website with the story just a few days later.

Bizarre indeed. So what happened?

A press agency...tracked down the woman involved, slightly re-packaged the story, and sold it on to their national newspaper contacts.

On Tuesday, almost a week after we'd ran the piece, the Daily Mail finally screamed it from their website.

And then, Unitt makes a comment about the Mail's agenda:

Some treated it for what it was – a funny story...

But others began to de-construct and take the fun out, blaming it on everything from New Labour and the 'PC Brigade' to big corporations mentally preparing us for the introduction of national identity cards.

The Mail taking 'the fun out' of something. Imagine that?

Finally, Unitt explains the regrets of the woman involved:

Christine, who has had to change her name on internet social networking sites due to random friend requests and seedy messages, says she'd now be quite happy for the quiche incident to be forgotten.

She told the Observer: 'I really want all this to stop now. It's quite scary when you read all the comments about you. It was supposed to just be a funny story!'

OK, she went to the press in the first place, but it's unfortunate that it spun out of control in this way.

It's not clear what prompted the Mail's extraordinary change of heart. Not interested one day, top story a week later. Fun story one day, 'PC gone mad' outrage a week later.

It's common sense, gone mad.

One final note about the Mail's coverage. After claims that Mail journalists may have been caught plagiarising the LA Times, this part of their article:

did seem suspiciously similar to this from the Leamington Observer's original:


(And, an anonymous comment on this blog pointed out another case involving the Mail, from 2002, which apparently led an employee of the Mail to say 'But there isn't any rule against copying stuff off a website, is there?')

Mail uses story from 2007, claims it's new

At the end of January, news that one Tesco store in St Mellons, Cardiff had asked shoppers not to wear pyjamas was widely reported.

It was also widely implied that this was a nationwide dress code, rather than being limited to one store. Take this Mail headline, for example:


Tesco said they had received complaints from customers and so asked that all shoppers wear footwear, and that nightwear was not permitted. Hardly seems unreasonable to expect people to get dressed and put on shoes when they go out, but it caused a bit of a fuss.

A few days ago, Anton at Enemies of Reason blogged that 'glamour model' and Big Brother race row participant Danielle Lloyd had been 'targeted' by Tesco after she had gone into one of their stores in a tracksuit that was mistaken for pyjamas.

One question leaps out: why the hell is the Telegraph printing such trivial garbage?

But the other question - which Anton raised - is if St Mellons isn't Lloyd's local Tesco (it isn't) and the dress code isn't nationwide (it isn't), then how did this happen?

Surely it's isn't at all possible that Lloyd was just after a bit of publicity?

The Telegraph story is dated 5 February. They probably got it from The Sun, which published it the day before, under the only-in-The-Sun headline 'Tesco in jim jam Dan ban'. But at the end of the article by Brian Flynn is this:

Tesco said staff remembered her coming into the store but did not recall trying to stop her.

Which could, of course, be them covering their arses. Or it could be the story just isn't true.

Flynn's article begins:

Model Danielle Lloyd told yesterday how she was barred from Tesco after staff mistook her designer tracksuit for PYJAMAS.

But that is wrong because 'yesterday' would have been 3 February. In fact, Lloyd actually 'told' of this incident on Twitter on 31 January:


Maybe it happened as she said, maybe it didn't. It's not really important. One thing that did happen though - Lloyd got lots of free publicity, and every article seemed to have been based solely on her one Tweet.

That's quality journalism for you.

And it got better. On the same day as the Telegraph published that drivel about Lloyd, the Times Educational Supplement wrote a story on whether teachers approved of parents turning up to school in pyjamas. They mentioned:

Joe McGuinness, head of St Matthew's Primary School in Belfast, was so fed up with semi-clad parents dropping off their children at school in the morning that he sent a letter home with pupils.

Note 'was'. Past tense...

Unfortunately, the Mail didn't note that, as it stole the story to link it to the Tesco one:


Later in the article, author Laura Clark says:

EU law prevented [the Head] from banning mothers from wearing pyjamas to his school, St Matthew's Primary in Belfast.

So the headline isn't right. There was no ban. Is the story any more accurate? Clark begins:

Schools are following Tesco's example and taking a stand against parents who turn up at the gates wearing pyjamas.

They are chastising parents for dropping children off - and collecting them in the afternoon - without first changing out of their nightwear and slippers.

One head has written to parents warning that their failure to get dressed for the school run is 'slovenly and rude'.

The first word 'schools' is also wrong - it actually only has one example: Joe McGuinness at St Matthew's Primary in Belfast.

Clark went on:

The moves comes [sic] after a Tesco store in Cardiff took the unprecedented step of banning customers from shopping in their nightwear.

Except that's not exactly true either. It has nothing to do with Tesco. Why not?

Because McGuinness' letter to parents about their clothes was written before the Tesco dress code incident.

How long before?

Two years and eight months before.

In June 2007.

When the Times and BBC reported it.

(Hat-tip to mr_wonderful at the Mailwatch Forum for the school story)

Payouts for man wrongly named in child porn case

In December, the Press Association wrongly identified a man convicted of child porn offences.

While the guilty Martyn Smith had worked at the BBC, he is not the same Martyn Smith as the producer of Dragon's Den - but it was this Smith that the PA named as the one involved.

The PA's error was compounded when one media outlet after another mindlessly repeated the mistake - a clear example of churnalism.

Last Thursday, it was announced that Smith had received £50,000 in damages from PA, £10,000 from the Mirror and £5,000 each from the Telegraph and Times.

Although others - such as the Daily Mail website, Brighton Argus, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Scotsman and Belfast Telegraph - repeated the same error, they haven't yet paid anything to Mr Smith.

It's not quite clear why that should be - given the seriousness of the crime, every newspaper who wrongly identified him should be putting their hands in their pocket to pay him the damages he deserves.

Mail's latest faux outrage

Too rude for TV? Billie Piper bleats like a sheep for perverted client in Belle de Jour's latest distasteful call girl adventure. So says the Daily Mail website. In full 'high horse' mode.

And it wasn't just 'perverted' and 'distasteful' but:

demeaning

and:

disturbing

Nice to see Daily Mail Reporter knows where the Mail's office thesaurus is kept.

Good job, too, that only 650,000 people watch the show and the details of this 'disturbing' scene aren't too widely known.

Oh:

In white lingerie and a pink robe, Belle is confident that she will soon remind him of what he has been missing.

Talking to camera, she says: 'It's so sad when they're like that. Give me an hour with him, he'll be a new man.'

But as the action hots up, Simon reveals he has a penchant for the farm yard - or rather pretending to be an animal.

He says: 'Let's do it like dirty dogs. You dirty cow. You little pig. You dirty, dirty, dirty goat.'

Belle obliges him, replying: 'I'm so dirty. I'm a goat. I'm a chicken. I'm a dirty ewe.'

In a scene which becomes increasingly humiliating, she has to fulfil the wish of her paying customer when he asks her to 'bleat like a sheep'.

It sounds so ridiculous that it must surely have been played for laughs. Does the uptight Mail not realise that?

Clearly not, because Daily Mail Reporter has taken it all very seriously, pretending to be outraged while also giving every 'perverted' detail of what happened and even included a screenshot of Piper during this 'distasteful' 'romp'. Along with three other pictures of her not wearing very much.

The article says:

As a high-class call girl, there is nothing that Belle de Jour won't do for money.

As a low-class website, there is nothing that MailOnline won't do for hits.

The priorities of the Daily Mail

In the last seven days, the Mail has had the antics of John Terry on the front page six times:

(Hat-tip to Political Betting for the above pic)

In the last 23 days, the Mail has had coverage of the Haiti earthquake on the front page this many times:







(That's...umm...none.)

The Mail clearly regards the sex life of a footballer as more important than the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Not swine flu then

Back in December, the Express asked this question-mark-free question about the death of Brittany Murphy:


It is well known that if a headline asks a question, the answer is almost always 'no'.

But if the hacks at the Express weren't sure, then they should have asked their colleagues at the Daily Star. They were absolutely convinced:


Granted the coroner had not announced an offical verdict, but it never really seemed likely, did it?

And not just because it was in the Star and Express.

Inevitably, today, the coroner has ruled the cause of death to be....pneumonia. With 'anemia and prescription drugs' as secondary factors.

The Desmond papers: wrong again.

The Express lies about milk jugs

The Express had two eye-catching 'political correctness gone mad' stories on its front page today:


Anton covered the taxi driver one (as reported by the Mail) yesterday.

So let's look at what the 'Euro meddlers' are up to now.

As it turns out, err, nothing.

Here's what the Express originally ran:


Yet clicking that link reveals the article has been removed. Why? Because the EU didn't 'spout off' about, or 'call to ban', anything, and there were no rulings by 'Euro meddlers'.

As the re-written article makes clear, it's solely about a team of researchers from the University of Valencia who:

found that up to a third of milk and dairy products served up in bars, restaurants and cafes breached EU health regulations and was not fit for human consumption.

Is that it? Well, the researchers did say milk jugs increased the risk of contamination but that's about it.

Indeed, the EU in the UK blogged about the story, saying there was 'absolutely no basis' for it, adding:

The Commission fully supports the advice of the UK’s Food Standards Agency: milk jugs that are clean and stored appropriately before and after filling are totally in line with EU legislation.

So the actual story is: one-third of the milk served in Spanish restaurants exceeds contamination limits, say academic researchers.

The 'World's Greatest Newspaper' turns that into: EU wants to ban the British milk jug.

It's another clear example of what Editor Peter Hill called the 'vastly improved...standards of writing' at the Express.

Immigration whistleblowers: spot the difference

Remember Steve Moxon?

He was the Home Office whistleblower who, in March 2004, told a Sunday broadsheet about a scandal in the immigration system. Migrationwatch rushed out a comment on the case. The following day, the tabloids repeated the claims and that Tuesday, the Mail and the Express had the story on their front pages.

Have you heard of Louise Perrett?

She is a UK Border Agency whistleblower who, on Tuesday, told a daily broadsheet about a scandal in the immigration system. Migrationwatch never issued a comment. None of the tabloids wrote a single word about her claims.

Why the difference?

Because Moxon exposed behaviour that was letting migrants in to Britain without the proper checks.

Whereas Perrett claims:

asylum seekers are mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency

And why would the anti-immigration papers be interested in that?

Her claims are shocking:

One manager said of the asylum-seeker clients: 'If it was up to me I'd take them all outside and shoot them.'

And:

If a case was difficult, Perrett claims, she was simply advised to refuse it and 'let a tribunal sort it out.'

And:

staff kept a stuffed gorilla, a 'grant monkey', which was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application.

And:

one official boasted to her that he tested the claims of boys from African countries who said they had been forcibly conscripted as child soldiers by making them lie down on the floor and demonstrate how they shot at people in the bush.

One method used to determine the authenticity of an asylum seeker claiming to be from North Korea was to ask whether the person ate chop suey.

As yet, these allegations haven't been investigated or verified, but that never stopped the tabloid press rushing to repeat what Moxon said.

But his claims were something that they wanted to believe because it made the immigration system look bad, and it made it seem as if Britain was letting migrants in unchecked.

These allegations make asylum seekers look like they might be being badly treated, like they might actually be victims.

And that just doesn't fit the tabloid agenda. So they pretend it isn't happening.

Preferring instead to write about buying quiche. And eggs with extra yolks. Twice.

(Hat-tip to Duncan Stott)

It's Tabloid Watch's birthday

Tabloid Watch has been going for exactly one year.

And after 579 posts it's clear some things never change.

For example, the first article this blog looked at was in The Sun and revealed that a 'Sky psychologist' had:

found a mix of bright colours, laughter and music can help lifts Brits from their winter gloom.

And where did this psychologist recommend gloomy Brits get this 'laughter and music' from?

Sky HD, of course.

And two days ago, The Sun was at it again. 'Fans thrilled by the first 3D telly in pubs' revealed:

An amazing telly revolution kicked off yesterday - football screened in 3D.

Fans who packed nine pubs for the ground-breaking trial were gobsmacked by the coverage.

Who could be responsible for this 'thrilling', 'gobsmacking', 'ground-breaking' 'revolution'?

Sky HD, of course:

And viewers across the country will be donning special specs too when Sky HD beams the cutting-edge pictures nationwide from April.

You would almost think The Sun has some vested interest in running ads-as-editorial for Sky...

(Hat-tip to Martin Burns)

Star apologises for front page lie

Back in December, this blog questioned several more Daily Star front page headlines which bore little resemblance to either the story that followed, or the truth.

This included 'Macca versus Mucca on ice', from 23 December. It was accompanied by pictures of Heather Mills and Paul McCartney and was clearly suggesting these two were going to be on the new series of Dancing on Ice. In fact, it was the daughter of McCartney's first cousin once removed and (surprise) not the ex-Beatle who was going to be twirling about in TV dance contest.

And so to today's apology. As this was a major front page story, the apology should have appeared on the front page too. It didn't:

Our December 23 Page One headline 'Macca Versus Mucca On Ice' may have been taken to mean that Heather was to compete against her former husband Sir Paul McCartney in television’s Dancing on Ice, so reigniting the family feud.

As the article stated it is Sir Paul’s second cousin Emily Atack, who is a competitor. In fact she and Heather Mills are on very good terms.

We apologise for this misleading article and any distress we may have caused.

Yes, 'may have been taken to mean...' All entirely accidental, of course. Just like when they (ahem) accidentally implied Peaches Geldof was a prostitute.

They couldn't possibly admit it was - like almost every front page they produce - cynically designed to be an eye-catching headline with not a shred of truth behind it?

Who are the zealots? (cont.)

The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday, with very little fanfare, that Olive Jones, the 'teacher sacked for offering to pray for sick girl' has got her 'job back'.

(The full background to this story can be read in an earlier post here.)

Like the original article back in December, yesterday's was also written by Jonathan Petre.

He has repeated the lie she was sacked, he has repeated the lie this was only about an offer to pray, does not retract the 'prayer was bullying' claim, he has not spoken to the family, nor to Jones' employers and has once again given Jones the platform to play the victim. He even conveniently forgets to mention the girl has leukaemia and is the real victim here.

It's just more agenda-first, facts-last journalism.

More than ever it is now clear that she was never truly 'sacked' - simply that her services (which only amounted to 12 hours per week in any case) were not being used while a serious complaint about her was investigated.

And a family complaining that she was upsetting their leukaemia-stricken daughter with inappropriate religious talk during maths lessons is a serious complaint.

And now it has been investigated, she is back to her job much as before (or she should be - the Council have said they have offered her further work but, curiously, she has not yet accepted this offer).

Petre does not say whether Jones will be returning to teach the girl whose parents made the complaint - the Council have not said anything on that either - but you would suspect she won't be. And Petre wouldn't want to say that, just in case it makes Jones look like she did something wrong.

Which she did.

He also fails to mention that Jones was repeatedly droning on about her belief in a 'miracle' which she thinks saved her when she was a teenager. It was astonishingly inappropriate for her to talk about that in front of this very sick girl and it is sad that the 'prayer offer' became the focus. But inevitably it did because it was easy and made the whole thing sound ridiculous - and so many unthinking, unquestioning people believed that was all there was to the story.

Jones makes some telling remarks:

'I wouldn’t have been able to do it without The Mail on Sunday.'

At the time of the original article, the Council made clear they were waiting to meet with Jones. But rather than arrange a meeting, Jones instead ran off to the Christian Legal Centre (who had gone through this before with the nurse Caroline Petrie case), in the belief that getting media attention with some one-sided, sympathetic coverage may help her with the investigation. Hopefully, the Council have not been bullied into this decision for fear of a media backlash.

She claims again she was unaware of the family's unhappiness with her expressing her religious beliefs, despite this being directly contradicted by what the mother said:

'Mrs Jones was employed to teach maths but used every opportunity to discuss religion, despite the fact I made it clear we were a non-religious family and didn't want to talk about these issues in this way...

'The sessions with Mrs Jones became increasingly traumatic and we decided it was not appropriate for this woman to come to my home.'

But Jones also says:

'Had I known [about the complaint] I would never have offered to pray'.

Which sounds like she is admitting it was inappropriate if the parents had said 'no' - which they, of course, said they did.

The Council talk about what is appropriate in their statement:

we agreed together that it can be appropriate for a teacher or tutor to offer to share their faith with a pupil or family. However, a careful professional judgement needs to be made as to whether this is appropriate and indeed acceptable to the person or family concerned. Olive also agreed that she would respect either the wishes of a family and/or guidance from a manager not to discuss faith matters with a particular pupil or family.

So no banning of religion. Just Jones being told there's a time and a place, and 'no' really does mean 'no'.

It's quite telling to look at the coverage of this new development, which was posted on the Mail website on Saturday night. No other media outlet appears to have covered it until Monday afternoon when the BBC, PA and a blog on the Guardian website mentioned it.

Yet there were scores of misleading, inaccurate, sloppy articles that appeared soon after the original, relying solely on the Mail on Sunday's dubious claims.

Almost none of them will be corrected, and it seems very few people will follow up to explain she still has her job.

But the fact that Jones still has her job isn't news. It doesn't fit the 'PC gone mad, Christians under attack' agenda that so many people mindlessly believe in despite there being almost no serious evidence to support it.

The Mail on Sunday's original editorial spoke of the:

fundamental problem, the slow takeover of this country by politically correct zealots

Given Jones is still teaching, how's that 'takeover' by 'zealots' going?

Apologies round-up

From Regret the Error, a few recent newspaper apologies.

The Mirror - sorry for mixing up victim and perpetrator in stabbing:

On 19 June 2008 we reported that Britain's Next Top Model finalist Jasmia Robinson's unnamed boyfriend, was in custody for allegedly stabbing a suspected love rival.

We wish to make clear that her boyfriend David Obanobi was in fact the victim of the knife attack and not the perpetrator and was not in custody.

We apologise to Mr Obanobi for the distress and embarrassment caused.

The People - sorry for using a photo of the wrong house:

On 20 December 2009 we published a story about Caroline Cartwight breaching her Asbo for noisy sex. However, the picture of her house was of a neighbouring property and the description of the house as 'an end of terrace' is incorrect.

We are happy to set the record straight and apologise to Mrs Marjorie Ball for the error.

The Express (Scottish edition) - sorry for lying and invading your privacy

On January 18, 2010, we published an article within the Scottish Daily Express concerning the recent purchase of a property by author JK Rowling, entitled 'Party must’ve been wizard – Rowling pays GBP 300,000 extra to move straight into new mansion'.

In it we published two photographs of the inside of Ms Rowling’s new property. Further, we alleged Ms Rowling offered GBP 300,000 on top of the purchase price in order for the seller to vacate the property within two weeks so that she could hold a Christmas Party there, and, that Ms Rowling viewed only two rooms in the property before deciding to purchase it.

Not only do we now accept that our article was false and wholly inaccurate, we also acknowledge that we should not have invaded Ms Rowling’s privacy, and that of her family, by publishing photographs depicting the interior of her new property.

We apologise to Ms Rowling and her family for any distress that our article may have caused.

The Mirror (and the Guardian) - sorry for saying your school is full of bullies:

On Monday last, under the headline 'Saoirse: Pupils weren’t Lovely to me', we reported remarks attributed to actor Saoirse Ronan concerning her experience at school in which it was stated that pupils, teachers and staff at school gave her a hard time.

We identified the school wrongly as being Kilkenny College. We acknowledge that, contrary to our report, Saoirse Ronan is not a pupil of Kilkenny College and has never enrolled as a pupil or attended classes there.

We accept that the remarks were not made concerning any teacher, staff-member or pupil at Kilkenny College and we apologise to them for associating them with this story and for any upset or embarrassment caused as a result.

We accept that Kilkenny College is an educational institution which guards the interests of all its pupils with care and we withdraw any suggestion to the contrary in our report. We are happy to correct the position.

And, not yet on Regret the Error but sure to be soon...The Telegraph - sorry we implied you were a bit racist:

In our article “Newsreader sues ITV for colleague's 'racist mimicking'" (22 Nov 09), which referred to an Employment Tribunal claim brought by Lisa Aziz against ITV, we repeated allegations made by Ms Aziz against Steve Scott, the ITV newsreader, including an allegation that Mr Scott had made racially discriminatory remarks about some of his colleagues.

For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make clear that we did not in any way seek to adopt or endorse any of the claims made against ITV or the allegations made against Mr Scott in particular. As referred to in our article, following an internal investigation by ITV - which it described as “full and thorough” - Mr Scott was cleared of the allegations made against him. We apologise to Mr Scott for any distress caused by any contrary impression our article may have given.