Recommended reading - links

Angry Mob looks at the Daily Mail's latest article on the 'exaggerated' and 'vastly over-stated' swine flu 'pandemic that never was' - conveniently forgetting their own headline such as 'How swine flu could be a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear warfare'.

Martin Moore from Media Standards Trust considers the backlash against the Mail on Sunday for its article about Lord Triesman. Last week, the News of the World's managing editor revealed that they turned down the story on the basis that it was 'too thin.' Too thin for the News of the World? Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Janet Street-Porter recently joined the lengthy list of Mail columnists who have written some ill-considered rubbish and suffered a backlash. Her 'Depression? It's just the trendy new illness!' was castigated by Musings of a phenomenologist, Andrew Brown in the Telegraph and three mental health charities, among many others.

Sian Norris and Dr Helen Mott were labelled 'hypocrites' by the Evening Post after they raised objections to a burlesque performance at Bristol Museum. After they complained the front-page story had completely misrepresented their views, the online article was removed and Norris and Mott were given a right of reply - a two-page spread on pages 16 and 17. It is good that the paper gave them the opportunity to give their side of the story over two pages.

The Media Blog has written (two posts) about the Mail on Sunday's latest attack on the interwebs and claims that firms are 'spying' on people through what they say on Twitter and Facebook. More from Martin Belam and Peter Kirwan, who was himself contacted by someone from the Mail via Twitter because of his comments - exactly what the Mail was complaining about...

In a longer post about the media and Cumbria, Matt Gardner looks at yet another feeble Georgina Littlejohn article on the Mail website about Lady Gaga and how she (apparently...) insulted the victims of Derrick Bird's rampage.

Five Chinese Crackers suggests a Sun front page headline beginning with the words 'Cannibal cops' may give the wrong impression.

Some other Mail-related fisking by Angry Mob:

• 'live' grenades at the Dad's Army play that weren't actually live
• shamelessly dragging 'health and safety' into the Cumbria shootings
• criticising a school for closing early for the World Cup
• a useless bit of churnalism about dating
• swallowing a story about a baby being stamped on
• a 'first look' at James McAvoy in the 'new X-Men' film which happens to be a still from a completely different film from two years ago

And finally, from Adam Bienkov, a picture taken back in April of two Sunday newspapers (both from the same stable) who couldn't quite decide which way Cheryl And Ashley Cole's marriage was going to go:

Did the Express get it wrong? Surely not

The Mail on Sunday sent two journalists undercover at a swine flu helpline call centre. Two things stand out:

One, why the need for two, and did they take the place of two people who might have been there to do a proper job, long term?

Two, they didn't report seeing any non-English-speaking migrants at all. Strange that.

Swine flu and immigrants: Express heaven

Here's the Express' fourth swine flu front page in five days - the same paper that was telling everyone to 'keep calm' about swine flu on 17 July.

But now it's managed to take two of its favourite type of stories - health scares, anti-immigrant lies - and put them into one article.

The idea that 'migrants man swine flu helpline' should surely be seen as a positive thing. But of course it isn't - this is the Express after all.

The story starts:

Immigrants who can barely speak English will be used to man the phones at emergency swine flu call centres, it was revealed yesterday.

Which, after the headline, makes it sound as if immigrants who don't speak English will be the only people you can speak to if you call the swine flu helpline. It goes on to say:

hundreds of people with few English language skills and no medical training will join the 1,500 team taking calls from the public.

So now it's only hundreds and not all? And is that hundreds 'with few English language skills' and hundreds with 'no medical training'? This whole story, incidentally, is based on quotes from anonymous sources, so it is of course entirely reliable.

But no English and no medical training? Sounds serious. At which point, you start to wonder: if the helpline needs 1,500 operators, where is it going to find that many people with 'medical training' in a few days? Wouldn't they be doing their medical jobs? And is medical knowledge really necessary - surely it's only asking what symptoms a caller has from a prepared list?

Then an 'insider' involved in the recruitment process reveals:

hundreds of immigrants were being signed up to offer a swine flu diagnosis to the public because the posts had to be filled quickly.

'Hundreds of immigrants' and 'hundreds of people' who can't speak English and with no medical training. Must be the same people, right?

Well, not quite.

Once you turn to the page 5 continuation, it becomes very clear that the claims of 'taking anyone off the street' and having no 'medical background' actually applies to everyone. Indeed, the second half of the story doesn't mention immigrants at all.

And then there's the pictures on the story. Both are very blurry and both credit the BBC as the source. It seems they have been very selectively chosen to focus on bits of a queue where there are a few foreign looking people in order to bolster the slant they have put on the story. In fact the front page picture of the back of some heads - one of the least revealing pictures ever seen on a front page - could be taken from a queue from anywhere for anything.

But if we take the pictures at face value - the caption says they are queuing 'to be interviewed for jobs at the call centre in Watford' - how does that square with one of their source's statements that:

As long as they can provide proof of their date of birth, they can get through the recruitment process. When I speak to them on the phone they can barely understand what I’m saying and even those who can speak English are very difficult to understand.

They're queueing to be interviewed but he's talking to them on the phone? And anyway, in the current economic climate, it seems highly unlikely that there aren't lots of people who would be willing to do the job.

If he (as the anonymous person involved in recruiting) is recruiting people who can't speak English very well, it seems it's him who's not doing his job very well. Yet he's still reliable enough to be the source of a front page story...

Littlejohn steals joke from comments pages

Remember all those messageboard cretins laughing because Cherie Blair had swine flu, and all those soi-disant comedians repeating the 'that's because she's had her nose in the trough' 'joke'?

Apparently, one more cretin thought the joke needed repeating.

Making sure all options are covered on swine flu

Today's Express front page headline - Swine flu will kill 350 people every day

Today's Express editorial - Keep calm as swine flu spreads

Mail laughs at woman with virus

Woman gets virus that has killed 29 people. Daily Mail comments people think it's hilarious. Sadly predictable, but still unbelievable, that the Mail moderators allow these comments on the story that Cherie Blair may have swine flu:

• Can't stop laughing, how very appropriate she should get it - I hope Tony isn't spared.
• The best news I've heard all day!
• Deepest sympathy NOT!!!
• Its the best laugh i have had for years ,what goes around comes around.
• Well, this is very sad and serious news indeed. I really feel sorry for.... oh, who I am I kidding, HA HA HA!
  

And there are 13 trough 'jokes' along the lines of:

• Thats what you get when you spend to much time in the trough.
• Snout too far in the trough.
• do you think that perhaps she caught it from the trough?
• Caught whilst having her snout in the trough no doubt!
  

Needless to say, one of the comments wishing her well - 'I hope that mrs blair gets better quickly...people cannot be hard towards another suffering human....' - is marked -473.

Such a charming lot who read and run the Mail.