Recommended read

Martin at The Lay Scientist has written a fine post about the Daily Mail's 'Patrick Swayze death prediction game'.

How they are related

Today's Daily Star front page is a classic for the dismal rag. Firstly, it has Jordan on the front. Secondly, it is completely misleading. Here's the headline:


And here's the first line of the story:

Troubled Kate Price yesterday sparked a showbiz whodunnit, saying she was raped by a “famous celebrity”.

Spot the difference?

While she has claimed a sleb raped her, she hasn't said who it was. She has not 'named' anyone.

And so the Star's totally misleading suggestion that it has the name is - inevitably - revealed as bullshit.

The story goes on to draw parallels with Ulrika Jonsson, who also claimed she was raped by an unnamed sleb, who was then 'named' as John Leslie. The Star says:

There is no suggestion that Leslie is the person Kate has accused of attacking her.

Because obviously it wouldn't want to give the wrong impression, after mentioning Leslie four times in the article.

The other notable thing about the story is that Jordan's rape claims have appeared in OK! Magazine. And don't Star readers know it:

Police could now be gearing up to question 31-year-old Jordan about the “rape” after she told all to OK! magazine...

Kate told OK!...

Kate told OK!...

She told OK!...

For the full interview and pictures see the latest issue of OK! magazine – on sale now.

That's five references in just over 800 words.

Anyone would think that the Richard Desmond-owned Star had some interest in advertising the Richard Desmond-owned OK!.

Not that Desmond would ever have his 'newspapers' doing advertising-as-editorial. Well, not for a fifth time anyway.

P.S

The Sun's coverage of the baby names story included this claim from journalist George Pascoe-Watson:

The name spelt as Mohammed has shot up 18 places over the last year to 16th.

Mohammed was indeed 16th in 2008.

But it was 17th in 2007.

That would be 'shooting up' one place over the last year then. Not 18.

Mohammed was 34th in 1998, so it has 'shot up' 18 places over ten years. Not one.

Indeed, the number of babies named Mohammed - of that exact spelling - actually went down (albeit by only one) between 2007 (3,424) and 2008 (3,423).

A deliberate error to increase the scare, or just sloppy journalism?

Sun admits error we knew about months ago

The Sun has finally admitted its 7 January front page story about a hit list of prominent Jewish targets was fictitious:

A PHONEY terrorism "expert" has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician.

Glen Jenvey has admitted making up stories about Islamic fundamentalism, including a faked list of prominent Jewish "targets", which included Lord Alan Sugar.

He revealed his scheming in an interview with BBC reporter Tom Mangold, aired on Sunday's edition of Donal MacIntyre's Radio Five Live show.

Jenvey told how he fabricated the list of Jewish targets by posing as a fundamentalist on an extremist website where he urged others to suggest names.

He then leaked the made-up list to a trusted news agency, used by The Sun, and online forum Ummah.com was wrongly accused of being used to prepare a backlash against UK Jews.

Jenvey - who had been described as "an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst" by Tory MP Patrick Mercer - said: "I'm fully responsible for the story. The Sun was deceived.

"The Sun did not know that I was behind the postings.

"I would like to apologise to all the British Jews who we scared and I'd like to apologise to The Sun newspaper."

Of course, by writing all that under the headline Apology over 'terror list' con it makes it clear the apology is not from the totally blameless Sun (ahem), for its completely misleading front page, but from Jenvey. How convenient.

It also doesn't hint at how many other anti-Islam stories the Sun ran based on info from Jenvey.

More on Jenvey at Notes on Religion and Bloggerheads.

Dick Littlejohn

The Mail have decided that Richard Littlejohn's columns are now so important and valuable, they have stopped running them in full on the website so you just have to buy the paper to read the rubbish in full.

That seems to be quite positive news - his ignorant, repetitive, feeble rantings are now going to be seen by far fewer people. Good job Daily Mail!

After the blog post here about his inability to spot some 'babies' were actually puppies, he issued a 'correction' on 11 September. But only in the print version, and under the headline 'How the Times readers were sold a pup', thus implying it's the Times' fault he got it wrong. Nothing to do with the fact he's an idiot who can't do basic journalistic research.

(If anyone has the full text, please do send it over).

His 'PC gone mad' fiction of the week was about the renaming of Spotted Dick, which has been covered by Jonathan and Uponnothing. Littlejohn says:

killjoy canteen chiefs at Flintshire council have banned Spotted Dick.

These Welsh puritans have ordered the name of the popular pudding changed to Spotted Richard. If they knew anything about cockney rhyming slang, they'd have given that a miss, too.

Because, in cockney rhyming slang, it means turd.

Who could have possibly imagined that 'Richard' means 'shit'?

Anyway, was it another ghastly plot by politically correct council chiefs? Well, umm, no. A spokesman said:

"The correct title for this dish is 'Spotted Dick.' However because of several immature comments from a few customers, catering staff renamed the dish 'Spotted Richard' or 'Sultana Sponge'.

"This was not a policy decision, canteen staff simply acted as they thought best to put an end to unwelcome and childish comments, albeit from a very small number of customers."

So canteen staff changed the name because they were sick of childish jokes, rather than any sinister plot to destroy Britain's heritage etc. And how does Littlejohn continue his article? With lots more childish jokes:

Where does this leave cock-a-leekie, let alone coq au vin?

And woe betide anyone who asks for a knob of butter or meat and two veg.

Laugh? I nearly did.

The main focus of his column is the Michael Shields case, which includes this gem:

Louise Ellman, LibDem MP for Liverpool Riverside

The name and constituency are right. But she's a Labour MP, not a Lib Dem. Oopsy. Again.

So that's mixing up Devon and Cornwall, thinking dogs are humans, and confusing Labour with the Lib Dems. All in the space of a couple of weeks.

He really is trying his best to make it up.

Max and Mohammed

Last week, while this blog was taking a well-earned break, the Office of National Statistics released the list of the most popular baby names in 2008.

The coverage has been mentioned fairly comprehensively elsewhere, notably by Anton and Claude.

The Telegraph claimed in its headline that Jack had 'pipped' Mohammed to the top of the list, despite the fact Mohammed came in...err...16th.

But what they did was add up all babies with names which are variations of Mohammed (Mohammad, Muhammed and so on) to give the impression that England and Wales is being overrun with Muslim babies. Despite the fact, as Martin Belam as pointed out, Judaea-Christian names are totally dominant on the list.

The Telegraph neglected to mention that there doesn't appear to be any outwardly Muslim-sounding names in the top 100 girls list.

But it does get a juicy quote from Douglas Murray, the Director of the never-not-complaining-about-Islam-think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, who howls:

'It’s pretty disingenuous to put out these different spellings. The names are pretty much spelled in the same way.'

It's a theme that Max Hastings took up in his nasty rant in the Mail.

But why is it deemed beyond criticism that the girl's list contains Isabel, Isobel and Isabelle, but separating Mohammed and its variants is 'shabby' and 'disingenuous'?

You could make a similar case for the (separate) appearances of Joe and Joseph, Ben and Benjamin, Samuel and Sam, Zak and Zachary, Reece and Rhys.

But they don't.

In fact, there are perfectly sound (and rather obvious) cultural reasons for the fact Mohammed is so high. As Alex Massie wrote in the Spectator:

Muslims are much more likely to name their sons Mohammed than Christians are to call their son any single name. That is, there's much greater variance amongst non-Muslim families. In other words, unless you're wanting to stoke panic and resentment what kids are called is not a terribly useful metric.

Quite so. But stoking panic is the order of the day. Here's a quick look at the available figures. Based on the three top 100 entries (that is Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohammad) there were 6,591 babies given those names in England and Wales in 2008. That represents 1.81% of the total (362,963) of boys born that year.

Even of you include all the other variants mentioned by the Telegraph, it only comes to 2.09%.

In 2007, those top three totalled 6,245 out of 354,488 - 1.76%.

In 1997 it was 3,635 - 1.12%.

So the number of boys being given the names Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohammad - the three most popular versions - has increased by 0.69% in ten years.

This is what the BNP refer to as 'Islamic Colonisation via the Cradle'. And here's what Hastings says:

The ONS's hit parade of children's names, as released for publication, seemed designed to mask a simple truth which dismays millions of people, and which politicians and bureaucracies go to great lengths to bury: the Muslim population of Britain is growing extraordinarily fast.

Obviously there are other factors that increase the 'Muslim population of Britain' - such as immigration - but an increase of babies called Mohammed of less than one percent over ten years doesn't appear to warrant the claim of 'growing extraordinarily fast'.

But Hastings talk of masking truths is apt given his very next paragraph:

In 2007, 28 per cent of children born in England and Wales, rising to 54 per cent in London, had at least one foreign-born parent. In 2008, 14.4 per cent of primary school children claimed some other tongue than English as their first language.

See what he did there? Talking about Muslims one sentence and then slipping into overall immigration figures the next and hoping Mail readers think the two are the same thing. And he has the cheek to accuse the ONS of being 'deceitful'.

He goes on to repeat claims of a Muslim takeover of Europe, suggesting it is respectable American neocon (no, those words shouldn't go together) pundits, rather than the BNP, who believe:

Europe, and Britain in particular, is threatened by a Muslim tide which will not merely transform its traditional culture but, frankly, bury it.

In a series of recent books, they argue that Islam is colonising this continent in a fashion that will render it unrecognisable a generation or two hence.

It's a crass and unpleasant bit of rhetoric and could easily have come from the BNP. And indeed has. In a recent story about Europe being 'overrun by Islam' they wrote:

The controlled media has finally admitted what the British National Party has been saying all along: that all of Europe stands on the brink of being overrun and colonised by masses of Third World Muslim invaders...

The BNP has been the only party to warn about the coming demographic tidal wave which, if left unchecked, will extinguish all of Europe and bring an end to thousands of years of Western civilisation.

Spot the difference? So the BNP is taking comfort from the 'controlled media' peddling myths that supports its racist views. Well done Max. Again.

In fact, that BNP article was based on an earlier Telegraph piece which was discussed on this blog before and which doesn't really stand up to any close scrutiny. And Max draws the same incorrect conclusions.

He goes on to claim:

Today, the adolescent children of immigrants tell pollsters that they feel much less integrated into British society than many of their parents profess.

It's hard to know where is evidence is for this, because the latest academic research done on integration showed:

Watching soaps, reading tabloids and turned off by politics – the children of International Migrants in Britain show a high degree of cultural assimilation compared to their European Neighbours.

Alas, most of the media ignored the findings, for obvious reasons, so no wonder Max (conveniently) missed that one.

But Max warms to the theme, suggesting unless they read Jane Austen or listen to The Archers they aren't integrating. As less than 5 million people a week listen to The Archers, that seems a hard test - and one that anyone with no tolerance for utterly tedious radio programmes would probably fail.

But it's also a very particular test. Because The Archers is so crushingly Middle Class, Middle England, white it reveals what Hastings is really on about: They aren't like you, the Mail reader, and me, the Mail columnist:

Parts of this country - its middle-class islands - are still wonderful places to inhabit. They are still definably old Britain.

Others, above all the inner cities, seem lost to civilisation. Everyone outside them, and especially our politicians, have abandoned them to unemployed families, feral children, unchecked crime and huge immigrant communities which may live in this country, but are tragically not of it.

Got it? If you aren't in Middle Britain, you aren't British. If you are in Middle Britain, you won't find a single criminal or out-of-control kid or unemployed person. And most importantly, no bloody foreigners.

He doesn't exactly hide his real thoughts either:

in Birmingham or Leicester...Muslims are soon expected to outnumber whites.

Is Hastings really peddling some imaginary battle between Muslims and whites here?

But he surely misses another point. If he thinks there is a problem with Muslims integrating into British society, maybe he should consider the impact of daily, misleading scare stories from tabloid newspapers and their ill-informed columnists about how evil and threating Muslims are. The type of articles that give succour to racist groups such as the BNP and the English Defence League and which put a 'respectable' face to their intolerant views.

In other news, Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has found her latest book added to the BNP's 'recommended reading' list.

Smartwatch

Anyone who was a regular reader of the Vickywatch blog will see not much has changed at The Sun's Bizarre column. Vicky Newton had a habit of stealing stuff from other celebrity gossip websites, or claiming stories were exclusives when other journalists were reporting the same thing.

It seems current Bizarre editor Gordon Smart has learnt all of Newton's lazy tricks. On 11 September he wrote:

I have been concerned about the whereabouts of H from STEPS for a while. Luckily Bizarre's biggest fan, Ross Allan, from Minathort, Scotland, has found him. It's a bit of a Tragedy really. Here's the camp little Welsh fella, buried at the side of a B-road somewhere in east London.

It accompanied by this (quite funny) photo:

But it was ever so slightly funnier the day before, when the same pic was in the Popbitch newsletter and posted on their website.

And Popbitch left out the needless reference to H's sexuality.

Sorry our info was 7 years out of date

A PCC-brokered apology from Mail diarist Richard Kay:

My story of January 2 suggested that Prince Hussain Aga Khan had added a spare room to his house "despite the credit crunch". In fact, the renovation work took place between 2001 and 2002. Prince Hussain has also asked me to point out that his wife is also not a psychologist, as has been reported. My apologies for the errors.

Sorry we said your relationship was in trouble (twice)

From yesterday's People:

On 25 May 2008 and 3 May 2009 we reported that Michael Essien had cheated on his long term girlfriend Nadia Buari by having numerous affairs behind her back including one in which he fathered a child.

On 3 May we reported that as a result of his behaviour Ms Buari called their wedding off.

We now accept that these allegations are untrue.

We apologise to Mr Essien for any distress or embarassment caused.

Kelly Brook in 'soft porn' - Mail wet dream rather than reality

Back in June, the Mail website, in one of its serious news items, published several pictures of Kelly Brook dancing with pornstar Riley Steele in a bikini and tried to take some moral highground over her 'tacky' 'cavorting'.

By 'cavorting' they meant 'scenes of her acting in a horror film'.

By 'tacky' they meant 'pictures of nearly naked young women that we will find any excuse to use and will get us lots of hits'.

Today, the Mail is reporting Kelly Brook's boyfriend Danny Cipriani is (apparently) upset about her appearance in the film - and it's currently their top picture story. To illustrate it, they use two of the same pictures of La Brook 'cavorting' with the pornstar, and two others of her in a bikini - all purely for their news value, of course.

This is how journalist Katie Nicholl has begun her 'story':

Kelly Brook's latest movie role has landed her in hot water with boyfriend Danny Cipriani.

England rugby star Danny, 21, is less than impressed with her new horror flick Piranha, which has been dubbed ‘soft porn’ by movie critics.

Kelly’s co-actress Riley Steele has starred in several adult movies and the film is becoming a hit on unsavoury websites.

There's lots of problems with this. For one thing, Piranha 3-D isn't actually released until March 2010 and as filming only finished in June, it seems unlikely that the film is completed (IMDB currently says it's in post-production). Rotten Tomatoes is showing no reviews currently available so it's not entirely clear who these 'movie critics' are.

In a perfect 'Mail outrage' phrase, the claim the film has become popular on 'unsavoury websites' doesn't stand up if the film isn't finished.

And what is an 'unsavoury website'? One which shamelessly publishes images of Kelly Brook and Riley Steele perhaps?

The 'soft porn' claim hardly needs challenging. It's obviously bogus. Look at the CV of director Alexandre Aja or a cast that includes Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd and Elisabeth Shue. Or just watch the original Piranha.

Later in the story, if you can find the sentences among all the pictures, a 'spokesperson for Kelly' says:

there are no topless scenes

Really? So it's a 'soft porn' film with 'no topless scenes'?

That would be like some high profile 'news' story with no news content.

Holiday

Yesterday's post on Richard Littlejohn got lots of attention, spreading through Twitter messages from Richard Bacon, Andrew Collins and others. It meant a huge increase in traffic to the blog, which is probably the worst time for me to take a holiday. But I am off for several days away from the Daily Mail.

After seven months of very frequent posting, a break will be good. I do hope all the new readers will look back through the archives and still be here in a week or so.

In the meantine, as this blog is constantly pointing people to dreadful journalism, here's an example of some very fine investigative journalism: Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man? by David Grann.

Tony Parsons and Jack Tweed

The news that Jack Tweed has been charged with rape gives the tabloids plenty of opportunity to talk about St Jade. Again.

It will be interesting to see what Mirror columnist Tony Parsons makes of this news as back in March he was singing the praises of the thug in his article Tweed has turned his back on Jack the lad.

In recent weeks Tweed has spent the night with three girls from the same band, and been quoted saying he felt 'sick and dirty' when he had (got caught after) a one night stand. Now he stands accused of rape.

Parsons wrote about the man who has twice been sent to prison for violence:

He is far, far more than some dumb yob and is proving it every day...Wild boys who get into a few scrapes when they are young but who grow out of it.

Two prison sentences is 'a few scrapes'? With misty eyes he continued:

I don’t know Jack Tweed yet I feel that I recognise him.

And ended his ode:

Give the lad some credit. Before our eyes, the boy has become a man.

Bless.

'Breath of fresh air' agrees with the Taliban

The Daily Quail has written a new post about Doncaster Mayor Peter Davies, who is back in the Mail for saying:

'We could all learn something about family values from the Taliban'

The Mail seems to have picked this up from Davies' remarks in an interview with the Yorkshire Post, which was reporting on the outrage caused by this statement.

But why has it taken the Mail over a week to report on these comments when they were included - although only vaguely - in Robert Hardman's profile of the Mayor last Saturday. In the Mail. Hardman wrote that Davies:

believes the Taliban could teach us a thing or two about family values.

Surely the Mail didn't gloss over this so it could focus on the hero worship?

Littlejohn doesn't do research shock

Today's Littlejohn column includes a story about Kate Pong in Shropshire, who gave birth to five babies who were named Beyone, Barack, Bobbi, Tyra and Earl. Here's the Mail's 'star' columnist:

My first reaction was that this must be a wind-up, probably placed for a bet by someone at the swine flu hotline with nothing better to do.

We rang The Times advertising department and they assured us it was genuine.

There’s no mention of a Mr Pong, or any father’s name for that matter.

If true, which I still doubt, somewhere out there in Shropshire is a single mother called Kate Pong with quins, variously named after an American pop singer, a model and the U.S. President.

You couldn’t make it up.

Why didn't he just enter Kate Pong in Google and find out from the Newport Advertiser that it's a labrador?

He says 'we' rang the Times, which suggests he couldn't even do that himself either. And notice how he even includes a snide remark about single mothers. In a story about a dog.

As Ben in Chelmsford comments:

Wow, Richard, the level of your research on "Kate Pong" tells us all we need to know about the level of your research on climate change.

Indeed, in his curious rant about John Prescott and climate change he includes the admission:

I’ve no idea what a rapporteur does

Well Google it and the first result will give you a definition Richard.

Of course, it's almost impossible to believe he doesn't know what a rapporteur is (although it is one of those dirty foreign words that come over here and take the meanings of indigenous British words) but he just wants to say that to pretend someone has got a meaningless, do-gooding job that Guardian readers do.

And he includes that idea in his latest pop at Gypsies and Travellers. St Austell Council have advertisied for a Gypsy and Traveller Support Worker. In his typically 'hilarious' and not-in-the-least cliched way, he headlines the story:

And a year’s worth of clothes pegs to the right applicant

Brilliant. How original. He repeats false claims about Gypsies getting preferential treatment and then says:

Once a group of people is classified as a vulnerable minority, there’s no limit to the largesse available - or to the jobs created for Guardian readers.

Except, this job wasn't advertised in the Guardian.

But it's an interesting use of the word 'largesse' and later suggests this is wasted money:

Salary is up to £21,306 a year.

I hope the people of St Austell remember that next time the council bleats about ‘lack of resources’.

In fact, the starting salary is only £16,799 - considerably less than the average wage of around £25,000 and a small percentage of Littlejohn's reported £800,000 salary.

In any case, a support worker for a minority group who are on the end of repeated insults and bullying by Littlejohn and his paper isn't a waste of money.

Back to his climate change rant (what is his obsession with polar bears?) and his previous claim he 'merely reports the facts'. He shows again this isn't true, by claiming:

All you need to know about the Kyoto ‘deal’ is that the rest of the world ignored it, while here in Britain it has been used as a catch-all excuse for everything from the extortionate tax on petrol to fining people £500 for putting out their dustbins on the wrong day.

As proved here the other day, that wheelie bin statement is not true, and could be proved untrue by a bit of research - which is clearly beyond him. But it's a claim that has been repeated twice in a few days now and that is how urban myths are born. Sigh.

One more comment from the messageboards that it's worth quoting because it does highlight how intellectually empty Littlejohn is. He spends 877 words discussing John Prescott's travel arrangements and his 'yeti-sized carbon footprints' but calls global warming 'nonexistent'.

As one of the comments says:

I don't get it. If you think global warming is a myth, why do you keep going on about Prescott's carbon footprint?
- Siobhan, Teddington, 4/9/2009 3:53

As further evidence of his lack of research, his column includes an apology (yes, really) that he said on Tuesday Dobwells was in Devon when it is actually in Cornwall.

Shame he will correct that, but not more serious errors such as the 'all burglars are Eastern Europeans' one.

She's back!

Yes, St Diana of Still Dead is back on the front page of the Express after a 'top QC' fuels the conspiracy theories that the Express has always believed (thanks to Richard Desmond's friendship with Mohammed Al Fayed).

But there are two important things to remember about this 'top QC', who happens to be Michael Mansfield.

1. He represented Al Fayed during the inquest into the Paris car crash.

2. He's got an autobiography to flog.

Rather than read that garbage, look instead at the statements from the Express' NUJ Chapel over the proposed cuts of 70 jobs from the Express and Star titles.

"These jobs are burning on the bonfire of the chairman's vanity by taking Tom Bower to court," an Express NUJ chapel spokesman said. "Everyone's appalled and thinks that the Express titles could sink out of sight if these cuts go through."

And particularly damning is this:

"The chapel also demands a health and safety check of the second floor of 10 Lower Thames Street to address the problems of overcrowding; proximity of staff to noisy machinery such as photocopiers; filthy toilets and prevalence of mice," the chapel said.

Richard Desmond: a pornographer and liar who shouldn't be a newspaper owner.