No EU 'plot' to 'ban' shopping bags

Today's Express reveals the latest EU 'plot' to ban something:


The main headline - that this is a ban on 'shopping bags' - is at least clarified in the sub-head, where it becomes a 'plot to scrap plastic carriers'.

And Dana Gloger's article makes clear:

The EU was under fire last night for seeking a ban on plastic shopping bags to fight pollution. Shops in Britain could be outlawed from stocking them, or alternatively there might be a new tax to dramatically reduce their use.

Ah, so the EU isn't actually saying 'ban plastic bags' then?

Here's a tweet from Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for the Environment:


So a 'public consultation on reducing plastic bags' becomes the latest EU diktat to ban them outright, according to the Express.

The press release makes clear, in its opening paragraph:

The European Commission is asking the public how best to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags. It will ask if charging and taxation would be effective, or if other options such as an EU-level ban on plastic carrier bags would be better. Opinions will also be sought on increasing the visibility of biodegradable packaging products, and boosting the biodegradability requirements for packaging. The web-based consultation runs until August 2011.

And any citizen, organisation, NGO, university public authority or anyone else can fill in the EU's questionnaire (PDF) during the two-and-a-half month consultation period.

'Do you agree that an EU ban on plastic carrier bags is needed?' is included, along with questions about pricing, whether there should be distinctions between biodegradable and other types of plastic bag and even if it is necessary at all for the EU to act on plastic bags at all.

In other words, the EU has not devised a 'plot' to 'ban bags'.

But the comments on the Express' website makes clear that their loyal readers have swallowed their spin on the story completely, including JeffreyB:

The cat returns

In last Friday's Daily Star, a reader's text showed how stories that aren't true can nonetheless be believed and repeated as fact:

so gamu nhengu faces deportation. tell her to...get a cat. that should do it! [sic]
bresso

It was in October 2009 when a story appeared claiming that an 'illegal immigrant' had been saved from deportation because he had a cat. It started in the Sunday Telegraph, and was then repeated by the Mail, Sun, Express and Star, and in columns by Littlejohn, Platell, Holmes and others.

Despite the man's lawyer being quoted in the original article (and explaining on this blog) that the cat was 'immaterial' to the case, the story went on and on.

And 17 months later, the Star reader's text shows some people still believe it did actually happen.

(Many thanks to the comment spotter)

How the Mail's 'report a comment' system 'works'

The PCC have posted the details of a case where a complaint against a comment on the Mail website was ignored:

Complaint:

Diocesan Director of Communications, Gavin Drake, complained to the Press Complaints Commission that the newspaper had published an online article about a vicar's prosecution for downloading child pornography which was accompanied by an inaccurate comment from a reader. The reader had asserted that the Church had been aware of the vicar's crimes for years when this was not the case. The complainant contacted the website moderator with his concerns but was aggrieved that no action was taken.

Resolution:

The newspaper explained that the comment had been post-moderated and the moderator was aware of the abuse report logged by the complainant. It acknowledged that there had been a lapse in moderation on this occasion. While the complainant remained disappointed that the newspaper had not responded when he first reported the problem, the complaint was resolved when the newspaper permanently removed the comment in question.

Men and women, by 'Mitchy'

The Sunday Mirror's front page story about Wayne Rooney's private life has set off the usual tawdry feeding frenzy.

For example, this Mail article - which is, incredibly, credited to four journalists - contains only 1095 words (mostly anonymous quotes) in between nineteen photos of one of the women involved.

The Sun were also relying on anonymous quotes, including one spotted by Anton where someone described as a 'pal' said of the same woman:

She's not a very nice person.

Some pal.

However, a now-removed comment left on the Sunday Mirror's website was even more eye-catching:

'All the garbage that is coming into your country'

The Daily Mail reports that two Chilean Rose tarantulas have been found in Bolton, and a vulture and a corn snake have been spotted in Devon.

One person leaving a comment decides this is the perfect story for an anti-immigration rant.

And this comment was approved in advance by the moderators:


(Hat-tip to Guy Kelly)

'I'm not racist, but...'

From the letters page of Monday's Daily Mail, in response to the 'swimming pool cover-up' story:

What is this country coming to when the windows of a public swimming pool in Walsall are blacked out to protect the modesty of Muslim women?

We seem to be letting Muslims take over this country. We appear to be afraid to upset them.

If they don't like the way we lead our lives, let them go and live in a country that panders to their religion.

We are a Christian country, our laws and way of life are built on our religion.

I'm not racist, but I'm getting fed up with opening the newspaper every day to read that we're bowing and scraping to the Muslim community.

Would they get so much freedom of speech in Afghanistan? I doubt it.

Edd Butler, Shoeburyness, Essex

Mail attacks BBC for 'voyeuristic' Wimbledon coverage

Last week, this blog pointed out that tabloid coverage of Wimbledon had been dominated by pictures taken up the skirts of the female competitors.

As if to prove the point, the Mail followed it with not one, but two more of these pervy, pointless articles:



(Not to be outdone, The Sun produced a slide show of the 'ten best tennis bottoms'.)

But today we find the hypocrites at the Mail attacking the BBC for, believe it or not, 'voyeurism' in their coverage of Wimbledon.

Words fail.

The Paul Revoir article is based on a few anonymous comments (left on an unnamed messageboard) but the Mail article is currently second story on their website so they're happy to make the point. Never mind that the article makes clear the BBC haven't received any actual complaints - so much for the claim the camerawork has 'sparked fury'.

The Mail happily prints little else but upskirt pictures of female tennis players in their Wimbledon coverage (they published another yesterday, of Tsvetana Pironkova). But when the BBC shows a couple of spectators kissing - in a public place, among hundreds of people, at an event that is televised - that is described as 'voyeuristic camerawork'.

Oh, and the Mail decides to helpfully post a picture of one of the couples in question - for the benefit of the millions of people who visit their website. So it's voyeurism for the BBC to show them, but fine for the Mail.

UPDATE: The Mail updated their article at 11:27am, adding:

Of the 150 viewers who expressed their displeasure on the BBC's message boards about various matches...

This is an outright lie. The discussion thread 'Voyeurism at Wimbledon' on the BBC's Points of View pages had a total of 150 comments at the time of their update. Several of the people complaining about the coverage had posted multiple comments - for example, in the first 60 comments posted, only six different people are complaining about the 'voyeurism' and they posted 22 messages between them. Moreover, there are a large number of comments from people who didn't have a problem with the shots of the crowd.

Therefore, to claim '150 viewers...expressed their displeasure' is totally wrong and having trawled the thread for the critical comments, they are very well aware of that.

Dear Daily Mail

From the letters page of today's Mail:

Wouldn't it be great if TV coverage of the World Cup was limited to England's games, those of hosts South Africa and of the tournaments 'big guns'.

Then we would be spared the ordeal of having to sit through a match between Bongo Bongoland and the Former Soviet Republic of Bulimia and other meaningless events.

Mike Phelps
Yeovil, Somerset

About that ban on England shirts...

As anyone with a Facebook account already knows, a depressingly large number of people believe the 'PC brigade' is planning to ensure no one steps inside a pub while wearing an England shirt for the entire duration of the World Cup, if not for all time.

None of them seem to have been much thought as to whether this was either true, likely, or even possible.

It seems to have started in the Sun, with the headline: Bid to ban England tops in World Cup pubs.

Unfortunately, once you read the first line of that article, with the all important 'could be banned' by 'killjoy cops' you knew it wasn't actually happening.

The more you read, the more it unravelled:

The advice comes in a letter from the Metropolitan Police to pubs in Croydon, South London.

Among World Cup guidance, it suggests 'dress code restrictions - eg no football shirts'.

So it's 'advice', rather than some all-encompassing, this-must-be-obeyed diktat. A Met Police spokesman said (when it was issued several weeks ago):

“There’s no obligation to follow the advice. It’s a series of suggestions sent to pubs in Croydon.”

And it's a letter from one police force, to pubs in one part of the country (where there were riots when England lost to France in the Euro 2004 championship - the advice also included plastic containers and extra security on the door).

And the advice it asks landlords to consider is actually 'no football shirts', not 'no England shirts'.

But apart from all that...

Sunny Hundal and Anton at Enemies of Reason (here and here) have already posted on this story, and debunked it, but as if to make it absolutely clear, the Met Police finally denied the story yesterday:

A spokesman said: "This letter contains a series of suggestions to make pubs safer for everyone.

"However, licensees are not obliged to follow our advice and there is no policy to stop the wearing of England shirts."

And an Inspector from West Midlands Police also denied there was any ban on flags:

"It is nonsense. Police officers are football fans too and patriotism should be an important part of enjoying the tournament in a fun and friendly atmosphere as long as people are sensible."

What is frightening is not just that people still manage to get whipped up by believing an obviously bogus story in the Sun, but that it unleashes a streak of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment despite it being both untrue and nothing to do with either group.

'Shite like this'

When David Cameron appointed Baroness Warsi to the Cabinet - the first female Muslim to have that honour - the reaction of some people on the Sun's messageboards was loathsome:



'They should have nothing to do with running our country'. Having been born in Yorkshire, how is Britain not Warsi's country?

Newspaper website messageboards, like the interwebs in general, do attract extremist views - anyone who saw the gloating of some Mail readers over the death of an illegal immigrant would know that.

MySun also attracts such comments, but the moderators do little to remove them once the appear.

So we get this:

And this:


And this:


The last two comments were in reaction to the case of Bashir Aden, an asylum seeker from Somalia.

How has the immigration debate gone so awry that immigrants are referred to as 'shite' and 'excrement'?

The Sun's own house rules state:

Prohibited content includes, but is not limited to content that, in the opinion of Provider:

14.1 is offensive;

14.2 promotes racism, terrorism, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual or links to websites that promote the same;

How do comments such as these not fall foul of that?

How newspapers influence their readers

Over at Angry Mob, Uponnothing has written about the brainless comments left on the Mail website about the treatment of Gurkhas and immigrants.

The gulf between what Mail readers (and indeed, Mail columnists) think immigrants, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers each get when they come to Britain, and what they actually get (or more likely, don't get), is immense.

And another comment on another story on the Mail website today showed the same thing:


So Steve believes illegal immigrants register to vote and he pays taxes just so they can claim benefits and housing for a 'lifetime'. You might think that would be hard to do while remaining 'illegal'.

Yet the Mail moderators think this nonsense is a legitimate comment to be posted.

And, sigh, at least 721 Mail readers agree with them.

Mail creates a new health and safety myth

Here's a classic Mail headline:


A two-hundred-year-old British tradition ruined by 'health and safety killjoys'? It's a Mail wet dream:

One of the UK's oldest traditional events has been killed off this year after falling victim to health and safety concerns.

But, as usual with such stories, it's not entirely accurate.

Yes, this year's race at Cooper's Hill in Gloucester has been cancelled. But:

The organisers of the Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake regret to announce that the 2010 event has been cancelled.

The attendance at the event has far outgrown the location where it has traditionally been held for several hundred years: last year more than 15,000 people tried to attend (according to official estimates) which is more than three times the capacity of the site.

So the organisers cancelled it. Not 'health and safety killjoys' then?

And it's nothing to do with the actual cheese-roll race itself, which the Mail seems to imply.

While quoting some of the comments left on the Committee's blog, they ignore some of the others. Such as:

Being another committee bloke can we just make it clear here that the police, council or hse do not organise the cheese roll, nor have they stopped it. We the committee organise the event and now that we have the support and help of the council and police, we WILL continue to do so.

Not 'health and safety killjoys' then?

Another committee member says:

Last year the roads around the site were blocked for miles, visitors' cars were abandoned everywhere when traffic stopped flowing and many were then vandalised.

Not 'health and safety killjoys' then?

In their official statement, they say:

The organisers are working with the local Authorities and Police to control numbers which will enhance:

- crowd safety

- respect for the local community

- emergency vehicle access

- traffic flow on local and trunk roads

Unlike many of the commentators on the Mail website, I have been to Cooper's Hill and it's a very awkward place to get to, along some very narrow roads. Given that accidents and injuries do happen, access is important.

And how many Mail readers would appreciate roads around where they live being 'blocked for miles' by outsiders?

Although the Mail moderators have let through quite a few comments which point out the headline and article are wrong, there are still plenty of mindless, frothing, ignorant outbursts.

'Best' of the lot? This cracker:

Followed by the....what?

Yesterday, a homophobic comment on the Mail website, which crept through while moderation was switched off, somehow avoided being deleted.

But this comment was moderated and approved for publication:

'The straights'?

The Mail's article on a schoolgirl who died of a heroin overdose saw a spat break out in the comments between 'Cheeky' and 'Unbelievable'.

At first, comments were moderated, then they all disappeared, then returned unmoderated. Some of the insults that passed between these two have since been deleted, but this one hasn't:



Even if that has got through because the comments aren't being moderated, there's no excuse for it to still be there some eight hours later.

(Hat-tip Guy Kelly)

Myleene, Twitter, racists and terrorists: a round-up of links

Last week, Terrance Gavan - bomb-maker, gun-collector, immigrant-hater, BNP-member - was jailed for eleven years for 'collecting information useful for terrorism and possessing explosives and firearms'.

Both Anton and Uponnothing have done excellent jobs in examing the media coverage of his sentencing.

Anton looks at the difference in the coverage of Muslim terrorists and those from the far-right, whereas Uponnothing shows how uninterested the Mail seems to be when terrorists are white. They even put a non-story about a Muslim getting married higher up their homepage than the Gavan coverage.

Gavan didn't make the front page of any of the national newspapers. Would a Muslim convicted of hoarding 54 explosive devices and 12 firearms been similarly ignored?

Another post by Uponnothing that is well worth reading is about the comments left on the Mail article about the thug who poured bleach over a woman in a cinema after she had asked him to be quiet.

When the mugshot of 16-year-old Jordan Horsley was released, the fact that his skin wasn't white brought out the unrepentant racists:


All these comments had been moderated in advance - and thus deemed suitable by people at the Mail - and remain up ten days on, with even higher green arrow scores.

On a lighter note, last week's very suspicious story about Myleene Klass being warned by police for wielding a knife at intruders looked increasingly dubious. Marina Hyde in the Guardian had - unlike just about every other journalist who wrote about it, including ones at the Guardian and Observer - 'bothered to establish the chain of events' and discovered:

the initial call to police was not placed by Myleene but by a man believed to be her agent or publicist, to whom she was naturally on the phone at the time.

And:

As for the story's appearance in the Sun the very next day, Hertfordshire police state: "We believe the media found out about the incident following a phone call from Ms Klass's publicist to Emma Cox from the Sun."

And, not in the least bit suspiciously:

despite having given copious quotes and assistance on the story all week, both publicist and agent declined to discuss this yesterday.

Hyde then reveals that Klass seems to have a bit of form in, shall we say, exaggerating...

Elsewhere, the Sunday Express had two (alleged) journalists write up a feeble BBC-bashing story. The article by David Jarvis and David Stephenson was so poor and so inaccurate that it was deleted from the Express website before end of play Monday.

They tried to prove that BBC employees were wasting their time, and your money, by being on Twitter. Yes, bashing the BBC and new-fangled-technology in one.

The problem was they are inept and their research was even worse. They didn't understand how Twitter works and misunderstood the difference between 'followers' and 'following'. They claimed, for example, Victoria Derbyshire had two followers when she actually has over 3,600.

It was unbelievably pathetic. More so, because it appears Stephenson, the paper's TV critic, is actually on Twitter.

Full story at No Rock and Roll Fun.

And finally, hat-tip to badjournalism, Paul E Smith and Bitter Wallet for this tastefully placed advert in the Metro.

Mail readers think death of illegal immigrant is 'good news'

Five Chinese Crackers has highlighted just how horrendous some Mail readers are, following the comments left on the story Migrant found dead in the back of a lorry as it prepares to enter Channel Tunnel.

The thirteen comments so far all revel in the death of this person, and they are all rated positive from +47 to +120. Here's some the 'best':

one down, millions to go
- crackers, yorkshire, 31/10/2009 2:42

Good news. One less to worry about!
- keith jones, porthcawl, south wales, 30/10/2009 22:13

Shame but I would be a hypocrit if I said I was sorry!
- Nanny B, West Sussex, 30/10/2009 17:42

Has the Mail's constant attacks on immigrants (illegal or otherwise) now meant that they have become so de-humanised that the death of one of them is a cause for celebration and described as 'good news'? Are there really hundreds of Mail readers happy to call for the deaths of 'millions' of people?

And - as 5CC asks - are the advertisers happy that their wares are associated with this story and these comments?

No oppression under the Nazis, says idiot comment on today's Littlejohn column

In the comments section of today's Littlejohn column, there is the following exchange:

John, Bristol, 12/10/2009 23:08:

You keep referring to stories about the policies of isolated councils or groups of councils, and suggesting that that means the entire country is subject to state oppression. It simply isn't so. If you had lived under a regime like Zimbabwe or Communist Russia or Nazi Germany you would know what real state oppression is, and you would realise how totally inappropriate it is to suggest that that is anything close to the reality of life in Britain today.

Pete, Essex, 13/10/2009 9:12

John Bristol - "If you had lived under a regime like Zimbabwe or Communist Russia or Nazi Germany you would know what real state oppression is"" And you have lived under these regimes have you? No, I thought not. Clown.

John, Bristol, 13/10/2009 10:03

Right, Pete, Essex, so no-one has any knowledge of what it is like to live under real state oppression unless they have personally experienced it, do they? We have to ignore the testimony of the millions of witnesses who have, do we? Why do you even bother to read newspapers if that is what you think? There's only one clown here, Pete, and this message is addressed directly to him.

Pete, Essex, 13/10/2009 10:55

John, Bristol - Yes that is right. You really haven't got a clue have you or are too blind/naive to see what is happening in this country. Oh and the last time I looked the Nazi''s were voted into power by a democratic election so that is hardly oppression is it?

Muslims aren't taking over

One of the top stories on the Mail website at time of writing has this headline:

One in four people in world practice Islam... and 1,647,000 of them live in Britain

To which the overwhelming response must surely be - so what?

Of course, what the Mail really wants to do is provoke a reaction along the lines of - 'isn't that shocking how we're being overrun by them Muslims'.

Except, it clearly isn't true.

Look at the British figure for example. Looks quite big, what with all those numbers. But as it amounts to just 2.7% of the British population, it isn't a large section of the population at all.

Why not use 2.7% in the headline? Or say: 'Three in four people in the world aren't Muslim'?

The report - from Pew - reveals that Muslims make up only 5% of the population of Europe.

So much for the Telegraph's recent 'Muslim takeover of Europe' scaremongering.

Or that nonsense about the popularity of the name Mohammed for newborn babies.

The Mail has decided to illustrate the story with a picture of several women wearing the niqab, in order to create a certain impression. One of the comments - currently 21 positive, but unlikely to stay that way - says:

the vast majority of Muslim women in Britain don't wear that attire. This paper is a disgrace.
- B Cave, Manchester, 8/10/2009 10:41

And another - in a bizarre outburst of good sense on the Mail messageboards:

A mere 2.7 per cent of the British population, that hardly fits the view that this "once great Country" is being overrun then!
- Anne, West Midlands, 8/10/2009 10:39

Of course, don't expect everyone to believe anything based on three years of research:

The 1.67 million seem a bit low,or is that only those the authorities know about?
- Dave Pickup, Tarragona,Spain, 8/10/2009 10:31

Muslims form 2.7% of the UK population and the other 97.3% have to bend over backwards to pander to them.
- William J., Plymouth UK, 8/10/2009 10:35

And in the not too distant future they will all live in Britain.
- Anne, London, 8/10/2009 10:33

Very worrying report!
- Simon, London, 8/10/2009 10:35

And best of all, in the face of all evidence to the contrary:

We ae being colonized.
- Richard widmark, Newcastle uk, 8/10/2009 10:30

That means the Mail has done its job of presenting myth-destroying facts in a way that keeps the myths going.

Mail wants you to check out a teenager's bum

The Mail is reporting that a school in Nailsea has been sending female pupils home because they are wearing inappropriate trousers.

Several girls have been told off for wearing 'too tight' pairs of 'Miss Sexy'-branded trousers, and ordered to buy normal school issue ones.

The Mail decides to illustrate the story with a picture of one of the pupils, 14 year old Alex Dalby, with her back, and therefore bum, to camera.


The caption asks:

Too tight for school? Alex Dalby models the ''Miss Sexy' trousers

Is the Mail actually encouraging readers to look at this young teenager's bum, and see if her trousers are indeed 'too tight'?

More disturbing still is a comment from Dan Wilson in Bath:


Seems like Dan was just the audience the Mail were after...

The Mail's running commentary on Strictly

The news that Strictly Come Dancing hoofer and Brucie-wannabe Anton du Beke described his partner Laila Rouass as a 'Paki' in a woefully misjudged 'joke' about her spray tan, leaves the Mail and its readers in a predicament.

They inevitably want to criticise the BBC and anyone who works for it.

But at the same time, they believe that everyone should be free to use words as offensive as 'Paki', and to stop their usage is political correctness gone mad.

What to say? Well, this apparently:


Incredible. For the record, Rouass has an Indian mother and Moroccan father.

But they all look the same, don't they?

In other Strictly news, the Mail claims that one of the dancing couples, Ali Bastian and Brian Fortuna, are in a relationship. Two single people start dating - hold the front pages! And follow them with long-lens cameras when they go for a walk.

Of course, the Mail does seem peculiarly obsessed with stalking Strictly contestants.

But what is interesting about the Ali and Brian story (yes, there is one thing) is the presentation. The headline is:

Ali does a Kristina: Yet another Strictly couple are getting closer in training...

The Kristina in question is Ms Rihanoff, who has apparently struck up a relationship with her dance partner, boxer Joe Calzaghe. If you search for their names on the Mail site, you get 30 results, charting exactly whether or not they are in fact a couple.

But notice how it is the women who are the subject. Why would the headline not be 'Brian does a Joe'? Or 'Ali does a Joe' if you are sticking to the celeb angle?

Not for the Mail - the women are always to blame.