Mail reports on 'backlash' from 'outraged' BBC viewers

The Mail's fondness for making a 'news story' out of a few critical comments on Twitter or the BBC Messageboards remains undiminished.

Yesterday, the Mail reported on this 'outrage':

Yes, apparently viewers were 'outraged' that the presenter of a documentary filmed over more than one day was not wearing the same clothes every time she was on screen.

It is questionable whether such a question would have even arisen had the presenter been a man.

The Mail's John Stevens states:

many viewers appeared to have found it hard to concentrate on the show as several lingering shots showed Miss Maitlis striding through the sunny streets of California and Facebook’s headquarters.

Found it hard to concentrate? Really?

So what do these 'outraged viewers' have to say?

‘Think I learned more about Emily Maitlis’ wardrobe than about fb or Zuckerberg,’ one poster wrote on Twitter.

Another wrote: ‘I thought it was a docu about Emily Maitlis wandering about looking hot and occasionally stopping to chat to folk.’

While another viewer posted: ‘Did you catch the Facebook prog on BBC2 last night? More shots of Emily Maitlis in sunglasses than interview time with Mark Zuckerberg.’

It's not the most convincing display of 'outrage' ever. And at the end (of course) the BBC spokesman explains why:

The Corporation has received four official complaints about the documentary, but none have been out Miss Maitlis’ wardrobe.

A similar non-story emerged in the Mail after a da Vinci documentary presented by Fiona Bruce aired at the end of October. Once again, it was made up of what a few people had tweeted.

Today, Paul Revoir, the Mail's chief BBC-basher, reveals a new viewer 'backlash' - this time regarding audience cheering on Strictly Come Dancing:

Revoir says:

Strictly Come Dancing has been attacked by fans over the ‘cheering’ and ‘screaming’ from spectators during its broadcasts, which critics claim seem ‘stage-managed’.

A prime-time light entertainment show with 'stage-managed' cheering? Surely not...

He goes on:

After fans vented their frustrations on the BBC’s online discussion pages, the Corporation admitted it had received more than 30 complaints about the issue.

So once again we see Mail hacks scouring the BBC's own messageboards for any criticism it can blow up out of all proportion.

Still, 'more than 30 complaints'. How many more than 30? The BBC spokesman says (at the end of the article):

‘There have only been a total of 31 complaints since the series began three months ago, which is a very small amount given the show has been achieving peak audiences of more than 11million each week.’

31 complaints, over three months, out of 11 million viewers each week.

What was it Richard Littlejohn said yesterday about a 'phoney furore'?

Quote of the day

Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn wrote about the Jeremy Clarkson controversy today:

I can’t believe the phoney furore over Jeremy Clarkson is still rumbling on, just because he joked that public sector strikers should be shot. The plot has well and truly been lost. Where does all this puerile hair-trigger outrage come from?

Complaining about 'phoney furore' and 'puerile hair-trigger outrage'?

In the Mail?

Churnalism to sell pomegranate-extract capsules

When former Daily Star reporter Rich Peppiatt gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry last week, he referred to the 'huge influence' of PR on tabloid 'stories':

There are more PRs than there are journalists. You get into your inbox every day dozens upon dozens upon dozens of press releases from various companies all trying to get in the paper, get their brand mentioned.

And many of them do get into the paper. Every day there are numerous 'stories' in the papers based on surveys of 2,000 people (so we're told). But, said Peppiatt:

the veracity of where that survey has come from -- is it representative, how many people were asked -- are simply not questions you're encouraged to ask. You know, you just take it at face value: "Yeah, I'm sure that will do for us." Because as I say, it's not about necessarily finding the truth of something; it's simply sort of filling the hole.

If it's not based on a survey, it's based on academic or scientific research. For example, a few weeks ago, this press release was repeated by the Express:

The paper's Nathan Rao stated:

Now a study shows an extract of it taken regularly could slow down the deterioration of the body’s DNA cells, which in turn can delay the ageing process.

Later in the article, he reported that it was an 'industry-funded study'.

The press release was designed to sell pomegranate-extract capsules PomeGreat PurePlus. The Express mentioned the product:

Commercial versions of the extract are already available in the UK from the Pomegreat PurePlus company in a capsule form or as a juice drink.

They also mentioned that the 'study' had been untaken by Dr Sergio Streitenberger at 'Spain’s Probeltebio laboratories'.

What the paper didn't say was that Streitenberger is: 

head of research

at ProbelteBio - and ProbelteBio just happens to be: 

the manufacturer of PomeGreat® PurePlus.

The Mail's Tamara Cohen also wrote up the press release uncriticially.

'A bit cheeky'

In the wake of Jeremy Clarkson's comments about strikers on The One Show, the Mirror asked:

'No' said Mirror columnist Tony Parsons. The 'yes' argument was outlined by Dave Gorman. But Gorman was a little surprised to see his remarks in the paper:

Gorman elaborated on his blog:

I was surprised because I hadn't written anything for the Mirror....If the words are familiar to you, that'll be because you read my last blog.

As did someone at The Mirror. Who then cut and pasted it into the paper. Odd.

Apparently someone on the Radio 2 breakfast show was talking about how I'd written a piece for The Mirror on the whole Clarkson thing too. I don't imagine many of those who read it thought that it wasn't written specifically for the paper.

Which is a bit cheeky of them to say the least.

(Hat-tip to Laura)

The People apologises to Charlotte Church

Three weeks after the event but, coincidentally, one day before she appeared at the Leveson Inquiry, the People published an apology to Charlotte Church over the false claim that she had drunkenly proposed to her boyfriend:

On November 6, 2011, we said Charlotte Church had proposed marriage to Jonathan Powell at a boozy karaoke night at the Robin Hood pub in Cardiff. We were misinformed.

On the night in question Ms Church and Mr Powell were performing a gig at studios in Pentyrch, Cardiff and Ms Church did not propose that night or at all.

We are happy to set the record straight and we apologise for our mistake.

However, in her evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, Church and her lawyer made clear this wasn't necessarily the end of the story. Church said:

we didn't just want a normal run-of-the-mill apology because it's just not good enough

David Sherborne added:

What Ms Church was saying, though, was that with the apology -- and it was a unilateral one, and that's obviously a matter that's of wider interest to the Inquiry in terms of what the appropriate form of redress is -- the apology she was seeking in agreed terms was also the answers to a number of questions which are rather similar to those questions Ms Patry Hoskins had put about how it was this story was written and how there are quotes from Ms Church and her partner, given that this is all entirely fabricated.

Church also raised the issue of how her statement denying the story was treated by the media:

I gave a statement saying that it was a complete fabrication and that this was a case -- you know, this was an exact reason why this Leveson Inquiry is happening and how it's out of control and it simply shouldn't be allowed to happen, and part of my statement which was basically the denial was printed in a few publications. 

Most of -- most of the rest of it, the stronger parts of the statement, were just totally ignored and in one instance -- I think it might have been the Press Association who basically wrote back when we'd given the statement, saying, "We can't print this whole statement because our consumers don't like to hear anything negative about us or our conduct."

Desmond gets his figures wrong

As Richard Desmond unveiled his new printing plant in Luton yesterday, he was asked by the Press Gazette:

why he was making the investment at a time when print newspaper circulations in general are declining.

He replied:

“My newspapers haven’t declined over the last 11 years. The Daily Star was selling 400,000 when we bought it, it now sells around 800,000. Eleven years ago there wasn’t a Daily Star Sunday, it now sells more than 800,000 every Sunday. The Daily Express and Sunday Express are in line with the market.”

He is right that sales of the Star haven't declined overall. But only just - and his figures are completely wrong.

The Daily Star was actually selling 627,317 in November 2000, when he bought it.

Not 400,000.

Based on the October 2011 ABCs, it now sells 658,690 copies per day.

Not 800,000.

The Daily Star Sunday doesn't sell 800,000 every Sunday either.

The figure, from the October ABCs is 688,058. It has benefitted a lot from the closure of the News of the World as back in June it was selling only 305,978 copies every Sunday. 

And the Daily Express? When Desmond acquired it, it had a daily circulation of 985,523.

The October 2011 ABCs show a daily circulation of 614,534.

A decline of 370,989 copies per day.

So he wasn't correct to say there has been no decline over the last 11 years. But at least he didn't repeat the claim he made in June when he said sales of the Express had 'increased dramatically'.

Express: 'every criticism we levelled against the EU has been justified'

On Wednesday 23 November, Patrick O'Flynn of the Daily Express penned an article that ran under the optimistic headline 'A year in and our EU crusade is on course for victory'.

Flynn told his readers how wonderful the Express' campaign to withdraw from the EU has been so far and he said:

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

Every criticism justified.

Five days before, the Express front page carried the lead headline 'EU says water is not healthy'.

In fact, the ruling by the European Food Standards Agency was about water and dehydration and not about whether water is 'healthy' or not. Indeed, the word 'healthy' doesn't appear anywhere in the EFSA's 7-page ruling. But the Express knew that because at the end they included this:

EU spokesman David D’Arcy said last night: “Of course drinking water is essential for health and the commission is not stopping anyone from saying so."

(More on this story from Richard Laming, Martin Robbins and Tim Fenton)

Also at the end of Giles Sheldrick's article on water was this 'criticism':

The EU has a long history of passing bizarre regulations...last year attempts to regulate the use of root vegetables in Cornish pasties sparked chaos.

But this claim isn't 'justified' either. It was the Cornish Pasty Association that had applied for:

Protected Geographical Indication to request that only Cornish pasties made in Cornwall and to the traditional recipe and manner are called Cornish pasties.

As the Association pointed out in response to inaccurate media reports at the time:

the European Commission (EC) does not dictate ingredients or names of ingredients

It's also not clear what 'chaos' was sparked by this.

In October, the Express joined other newspapers in claiming 'Now Euro killjoys ban children's party toys' which forced the EC Representative in the UK to explain the story was 'nonsense':

"Brussels" has not banned balloons or any of the other things mentioned.

Was the Express 'justified' in claiming the University of Northampton had been fined £56,000 for not flying the EU flag?

No. The response from EC regional spokesman Tom van Lierop:

"you don't have to wave a big flag above a project: that's nonsense...We're not fining anyone...We don't want to be flying the EU flag above any kind of project...these stories are total lunacy."

This wasn't the only 'EU flag' story that the paper got wrong. In May the Express front page said 'Now we must fly EU flag on our public buildings'. The article added that there was:

a swingeing fine from Brussels threatened for those that disobey

Jonathan Scheele, Head of European Commission Representation in the UK and Michael Shackleton, Head of European Parliament Information Office in the UK wrote to the Express:

only 2 buildings in the UK are expected to fly the European flag for Europe Day and the Commission would not fine countries that did not do so...No other public building has to fly the flag on 9 May.

The Express' decided not to publish this letter but chose instead to publish three readers' letters that repeated the original claims, despite the paper being aware they were false.

But remember:

every criticism we levelled against the EU has been justified.

A few days before that one, another front page headline claimed: 'EU wants to merge UK with France'. The Arc Manche network was set up in 1995 for co-operation between southern British and northern French regions. But this is clearly not the same as 'merging the UK with France'. 'Absurd' and 'untrue' said the EC in the UK.

Also in May, an Express front page stated: 'Ban shopping bags says EU'. As with the healthy water headline, the Express used 'says' when they meant 'haven't said'.

The European Commission had launched a public consultation:

asking the public how best to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags

There was a question about whether a ban was needed, as there were questions about charging for bags and other possible options. The EU has not said 'ban plastic bags'.

Is the EU 'employing 33 people to help boost the EU’s profile in Fiji'? No. Although based in Fiji, the delegation:

covers the entire South Pacific region. It carries out countless development projects on behalf of the EU as well as foreign relations and political work.

Do 'Cars face ban from all cities' as part of 'another plan forced on us by crazy EU'? No:

the European Commission is not considering an EU level ban on cars in city centres by 2050. Cities are of course best placed to decide their own transport mix.

As O'Flynn specified 'the past year' it would, of course, be unfair to mention earlier stories such as 'EU says: hammer British drivers' (once again, they hadn't said this) or 'EU’s plan to liquify corpses and pour them down the drain' ("The EU has no competence in this matter and to suggest otherwise is wide of the mark").

It would be wrong to mention their July 2010 front page headline 'France votes to ban burkha' which came a month after their front page headline 'You can't ban burkha, says Eurocrats' (again, they hadn't said this).

It would not be 'justified' to mention the Sunday Express' claim that the EU was spending '£670million on making explicit films' was overblown. But it was, perhaps, understandable - after all, Richard 'pornographer' Desmond doesn't want too many rivals in the 'explicit film' business, does he?

And it would be best to forget the Express story 'Euro meddlers rule we can't have milk jugs'/'EU spouts off...about our milk jugs'. This took research from a Spanish university and claimed it was evidence that the EU wanted to ban 'our milk jugs'.

Similarly, in October 2011, the Express labelled 'scientists from the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)' as 'Eurocrats'.

These are just some of the Express' anti-EU stories covered by this blog and others over the last couple of years and which have been inaccurate, misleading and wrong.

With the Express newspapers being outside any form of regulation, there is no way to challenge these stories. As shown on the flag issue, when the EU tries to deal with the paper, the Express ignores them and carries on repeating untruths.

Yet to O'Flynn, the paper's Chief Political Commentator:

every criticism we levelled against the EU has been justified...

'There is absolutely nothing in our study to support these kinds of conclusions'

'Looking at Page 3 makes you brainy' claimed the Sun on Monday:

The article by Emily Fairbairn - which includes one picture and two videos - begins:

Admiring The Sun's Page 3 lovelies can speed up your mental reactions, scientists say.

So Page 3 can make you 'brainy' and 'speed up your mental reactions'? Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

In fact, the scientists didn't look at Page 3 or whether looking at naked people made people brainier:

Recent event-related potential studies have shown that the occipitotemporal N170 component - best known for its sensitivity to faces - is also sensitive to perception of human bodies...

In two experiments, we measured N170 responses to nude bodies, bodies wearing swimsuits, clothed bodies, faces, and control stimuli (cars). We found that the N170 amplitude was larger to opposite and same-sex nude vs. clothed bodies...

We conclude that the early visual processing of human bodies is sensitive to the visibility of the sex-related features of human bodies and that the visual processing of other people's nude bodies is enhanced in the brain.

This blog emailed one of the researchers, Jari Hietanen from the University of Tampere, to ask for his response to the Sun's article (he said: "thanks for your e-mail. Nice to see that there are people who read what we really reported").

The paper wrote:

"And their results showed that it takes less than 0.2 seconds to process the image of a naked body — much less than when models are fully clothed or wearing swimsuits."

Jari says:

No, we didn't say this. All these stimulus categories produced a certain brain response roughly at the same latency...The important finding was that this brain response was larger for nude vs. swimsuit vs. clothed bodies.

So what about the Sun's claim that:

"The team's findings are good news for advertisers who use scantily-clad stunners to boost sales."

Jari replies:

I find it difficult to make this conclusion. If we had shown that nude bodies attract visual attention more efficiently than clothed bodies, then perhaps this sort of interpretation would have been justified. By the way, there are studies by other research groups which have shown this.

And how does Jari respond to the overall thrust of the Sun's piece - that his study suggests looking at Page 3 makes you 'brainy' and 'can speed up your mental reactions'?

This is the worst...There is absolutely nothing in our study to support these kinds of conclusions. We recorded brain responses (not mental reactions) which reflect how the visual system of the brain works.

These results showed that, at certain pretty early levels of processing (the visual processing is considered to form a "hierarchy" of different processing levels) nude bodies are processed more efficiently than clothed bodies.  

(Many thanks to Jari for his reply.)

'Dismissing on-pitch racism'

The back page of Thursday's Daily Mail ran the headline 'Blatter's blunder as Suarez charged' above a report about comments made by FIFA President Sepp Blatter on racism in football:

Asked directly by a CNN reporter if racism exists on the pitch, Blatter denied it and said such incidents should simply be settled by a handshake at the end of the match.

The Mail called this a 'blunder' and said Blatter was:

dismissing on-pitch racism with an astonishing response.

But the Mail seemed less concerned about 'dismissing on-pitch racism' last month, when Steve Doughty, the Mail's 'Social Affairs Correspondent', wrote:

Things may not be perfect but, at the end of the day, Gary, there are worse things to complain about.

So, Mr Evra and Mr Ferdinand, I know you feel insulted. But perhaps in this case you could just put up with it and get on with the game.

Sorry we said you had criminal record

Today's Daily Star published the following apology to Garry (brother of Cheryl) Tweedy:

In Court yesterday the Daily Star apologised to Garry Tweedy for an article published on 13 April in which we incorrectly reported that Mr Tweedy had admitted on his Facebook profile that he had been to prison a few times.

We accepted that Mr Tweedy did not post this comment nor has he ever been charged or convicted of a criminal offence nor been sent to prison. We apologised to Mr Tweedy for this error.

Not only has the Star apologised, but they have agreed to pay damages and legal costs to Mr Tweedy. It adds to a long line of recent libel payouts by Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers.

Heat magazine will also pay damages and apologise, after they first published the false claims. The Guardian explains:

Heat's front page article on 12 April, headlined "Cheryl's family from hell", featured a photograph of Tweedy with the caption "[Garry Tweedy] reveals prison past on Facebook".

An article inside that edition of the weekly was headed "US dream in peril thanks to Cheryl's family misfortunes" and made a number of false statements about Tweedy, his solicitor Steven Tregear said in a statement read out at the high court on Tuesday.

The Daily Star falsely claimed in an article published on 13 April, headlined "Cheryl in peril", that Tweedy had admitted on Facebook that he had been in prison a few times. "The Facebook profile [the Daily Star] relied upon was a fake," Tregear said. "[Tweedy] did not post the comment and he has never been charged or convicted of any criminal offence or sent to prison."

The Express and the weather

Daily Express, 8 October 2011:

By Nathan Rao:

Britain is braced for an Arctic blast which will bring record low temperatures within weeks, forecasters said last night...

Britain is likely to be hit by temperatures as low as minus 20C – perhaps even lower – and widespread heavy snow as early as the start of next month.

Daily Express, 2 November 2011:

By Nathan Rao:

Britain faces a sudden shivering end to the exceptionally warm late autumn with temperatures plunging towards Siberian levels.

Winter weather will arrive with a vengeance with temperatures well below zero within the next fortnight.

Daily Express, 14 November 2011:

'NOT Matt Willis from Busted'

Yesterday's Sunday Mirror reported that ex-Busted singer Matt Willis was suing 'trip-hop star' Tricky over unpaid management fees:

The Guardian and NME soon repeated the story but they have now deleted their articles. Why? Because the Matt Willis involved in the case is not the one who used to be in Busted.

Willis tweeted:

And this was posted on Tricky's Facebook Wall:

(Hat-tip to James McLaren)

UPDATE: James has now covered the story for BBC Wales Music.

Mail on Sunday clarifies 'green tax' claim

In the 'Clarifications and corrections' column in today's Mail on Sunday, the paper admits:

Last week we incorrectly referred to The Queen as the Duchess of Cambridge’s mother-in-law. Her Majesty is, of course, the Duchess’s grandmother-in-law.

Oops. They have also published this:

On September 18 and on October 29 we said the Government’s 'green stealth taxes’ are costing families an average of £200 a year – an increase of 15 – 20 per cent on typical domestic power bills. In fact Ofgem estimates that environmental costs account for 7 per cent, or £100, of the average domestic power bill.

The dates of the original articles is noteworthy because the Daily Mail had corrected the same figures - which it had repeated several times - on 7 September.

The Sun's 'exclusive' on a new Rooney baby

Following on from speculation about whether Princess Kate is pregnant or not, the Sun published this story on page three last Tuesday:

The 'exclusive' by Jen Blackburn stated:

Glowing Coleen Rooney has sparked rumours that she and hubby Wayne are expecting their second child.

The TV star and designer, 25, has stopped drinking alcohol and pals believe she will have a sister or brother for son Kai around May next year.

A source close to Coleen told The Sun: "Coleen has always wanted more children and she is absolutely glowing at the moment.

"No one has seen her touch a drop of booze for weeks and she is really looking after herself."

There doesn't appear to have been much effort to contact Coleen, who took to Twitter to say:

But what of the source - who the Sun described as 'close to Coleen' - and the claim she hasn't been seen drinking for weeks?

Today's corrections

The Sun has published the following correction on page two of today's paper:

We reported on October 18 that 'more than 40 per cent' of all knife crime involves juveniles. In fact, this was an estimate by local police for the London borough of Enfield. The most recent Ministry of Justice figures show the proportion is just under 20 per cent in England and Wales.

This comes after Full Fact looked into the original article and complained to the PCC that the figures were inaccurate. They say:

The correction - within a month of the original article - is welcome, even if it does come after the claim was used by elected representatives when pressing particular policies from the Government.

It highlights how important it is for newspapers to take as much care as possible not to publish inaccurate figures, particularly on crucial matters of policy.

The Mirror has also published a correction today thanks to an investigation by Full Fact:

In our article “Cheating up 30% in 3yrs” we stated the figure for benefit fraud had reached £22billion a year. In fact this figure is an estimate for the total of all fraud and error, and includes mistakes made by the Government and claimants, and fraud which is unrelated to benefits.

Today's Mail corrections are:

Two commentary articles about psychic Sally Morgan in September stated that it is 'illegal in this country to claim to be a medium'. It has been pointed out to us that mediums are in fact legal in this country, although like other businesses they are subject to  consumer protection legislation.

*

In our coverage of Joe Frazier's death on Wednesday, we said that Muhammad Ali had had only one  comeback fight before facing Frazier in 1971. He had in fact fought twice before that bout, facing both Jerry Quarry, as we stated, and Oscar Bonavena.

Earlier this week, the the Mirror published this apology and correction:

On August 3 this year the Daily Mirror published an article regarding the death of Miss Catherine Zaks, aged 21, in Krakow, Poland.

The article contained claims that Miss Zaks, from Robertsbridge, East Sussex, abused drugs and had engaged in casual sex following the break-up of a long-term relationship.

Miss Zaks’ parents have pointed out that these claims are entirely false and that their daughter was much loved, and of good character.

We are happy to set the record straight and apologise for any distress caused.