THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DAILY MAIL: TWO-THIRDS OF ASSESSED ARTICLES BREAK THE RULES ON PRESS STANDARDS

*NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF DAILY MAIL ARTICLES WERE FOUND TO BREAK IPSO GUIDELINES, ANALYSIS FINDS 

*IN ONE YEAR, 63 PERCENT OF ARTICLES ASSESSED DIDN’T PASS REGULATOR STANDARDS

 

Well, actually, that’s manipulating the data a little bit. What I’m talking about is articles that IPSO received complaints about. Two-thirds of the complaints were upheld.

I’m just using the Daily Mail‘s own sensationalist reporting techniques on the paper itself. On Monday this week, a similar style headline appeared about a report on child refugees (below).

The headline and the sub-headers are focused only on those who were given age assessments because they looked like they might be over 18 and didn’t have any proof of age. It’s not the percentage of overall child refugees. That figure is around 13 percent (or 402 out of the 2952 applications, to be precise).

But the way that the Daily Mail has included the figure of ‘almost 3,000’ next to the words ‘two-thirds’, without making things clear, will probably have a lot of readers thinking that around 2,000 ‘bogus’ child refugees are coming here every year.

So I’ve been similarly manipulative. My headline relates to 55 complaints made about Daily Mail articles between April 2017 and April 2018. Of those articles, 35 were either ruled as breaching IPSO standards or were settled by a resolution statement before a ruling was given. The remaining 20 were passed as ‘clean’ by the regulators.

But I can see that by reading the headline and the sub-headers, people might think that two-thirds of all Daily Mail articles are breaking the rules.

Perhaps they might feel the urge to share the article on social media and generate faux-outrage based on something that is essentially a gross distortion of the truth.

It’s a bit naughty but I think I can live with it. If I get caught out, I’m more than happy to issue a very low-key correction on the whole thing in about 6 months time.

 

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.

 

 

 

 

 

TABLOIDS LAUNCH ATTACK ON SCHOOLS FOR TRYING TO REDUCE POVERTY

Britain’s tabloid press piled into Brighton & Hove council over the holiday weekend for adopting an initiative to tackle poverty in schools.

The Mail on Sunday, The Sun, The Sunday Express and the Daily Star all covered the story using the same angle, accusing the council of ‘political correctness’ and focusing on something that’s not even part of the initiative.

The tabloids were covering a scheme called Poverty Proofing The School Day, a programme set up by a charity called Children North East which works with local authorities across the country to remove barriers to learning caused by poverty.

The programme has been running since 2011 and has been successful in improving both attendance and attainment of children from families living in poverty, as well as increasing access to music tuition and school trips, and helping to reduce school costs.

Brighton & Hove council began piloting the programme last year and it has involved 25 primary schools to date. Areas of focus have included keeping school trips affordable, supporting children and families with homework, and making sure that children have access to affordable uniforms.

Nothing particularly outrageous about any of this, you might think.

However, the tabloids have chosen to kick up a storm about one bullet-point from a list of 22 items in an ’emerging areas for consideration’ section of a council report.

This is just a list of things researchers suggested ‘could be seen to negatively impact on children and young people living in poverty’. Things such as not being able to bring in the latest game on the last day of term, or parents struggling to supply raffle prizes for school events.

One thing highlighted in this list was ‘circle time about weekend activities’. Basically, when kids group together in class on a Monday and talk about what they did at the weekend.

It was simply mentioned in one line of this report that some of the schools had given feedback that poorer kids sometimes felt excluded if other kids had been up to exciting activities over the weekend that they couldn’t afford. Therefore it was marked down as an ‘area for consideration’.

Just something to think about. Nothing that actually features anywhere in the actual plan.

This didn’t stop the tabloids from writing as if this was the central idea to the whole project.

‘DON’T TELL THE CLASS WHAT YOU DID AT THE WEEKEND, CHILDREN… BECAUSE IT MIGHT STIGMATISE POORER PUPILS, SAYS BRITAIN’S MOST POLITICALLY CORRECT COUNCIL’, screamed the Daily Mail‘s headline. The paper added that Brighton and Hove council are ‘set to bar children from asking about each other’s weekend’.

The Sun waded in with ‘MP BLASTS COUNCIL’S PC BAN ON ASKING CHILDREN ABOUT THEIR WEEKENDS’. The paper quoted an outraged Tory MP – there always seems to be at least one on hand to talk to the right-wing papers – and lied that ‘teachers have been banned from asking pupils what they did at the weekend.’

Meanwhile the Daily Star – which has been pumping out fact-free articles for a number of years now – proclaimed ‘CHILDREN BANNED FROM TALKING ABOUT THEIR WEEKENDS’, adding that this was the ‘nanny state taken to new heights’.

The Express put its twist on the story with ‘WELL-OFF PUPILS TOLD: DON’T BRAG AS DISADVANTAGED CLASSMATES MIGHT FEEL ASHAMED’ before going on to stick the boot into the council for being ‘politically correct’.

Unfortunately, these papers got so caught up in huffing and puffing about what’s not happening that they failed to mention any of the actual contents of the programme anywhere in their reports.

Who said Britain’s tabloid press likes to get outraged over nothing, eh?

Don’t like what you’re seeing in the press? If you see an article you’re unhappy with, you can email the press regulators at inquiries@ipso.co.uk to voice your concerns. If enough complaints are received, they will have to look into it.

Tabloid Corrections Facebook page: here.