More scroungers scrounging

Back in October I looked at coverage of the latest statistics about Employment Support Allowance assessments. The coverage variously claimed that 75%, 78%, or 4 in 5 people on the benefit were fit to work.

This wasn’t true. It assumed that everyone initially found fit to work was indeed fit to work, and that everyone – every single person – who stopped claiming before the assessment was complete was faking it.

I and several others pointed these flaws out. So imagine my despair when I saw this:

It’s the latest quarterly statistics (PDF), which are actually remarkably similar to October’s. To get the 75%, the Express has:

1) Taken the 39% of people initially found fit to work

2) Ignored the fact that around 40% of appeals against that decision are successful (page 8 )

3) Assumed everyone who dropped out of assessment (39%) was faking it, when the document (page 4) says

A large proportion of people claiming ESA cease their claim before assessment is complete (for example, if they have a short term health condition)

Not to be outdone, the Mail has decided the figure is actually 94%. It does this by using the same method as the Express, then adding in the 16% in the ‘Work Related Activity Group’, which is

For those who cannot work now but with the right help could work in the foreseeable future

It seems rather unfair to label these people as ‘able to work’, although the article does clarify this.

Now it’s not only the newspapers to blame here. The DWP’s press release is titled ‘Majority of people found fit to work as Government presses ahead with reforms’. But Actually only 39% were found fit to work, and a decent proportion of appeals against that succeeded.

To get ‘over half’, they’ve presumably added in the people who could be fit to work with some support. That’s very different from ‘found fit to work’.

Unfortunately the Express is no longer under the PCC’s iron rule, but I will be submitting a complaint regarding the Mail’s misrepresentation of the statistics. I’ll also be writing to the Express. Wonder if I’ll get a response?

Desmond walks out of the PCC

Richard Desmond’s newspapers (the Express, Scottish Express, and the Star) are no longer under the scrutiny of the Press Complaints’ Commission. This, I think, shows the basic flaw in a system of voluntary self-regulation, however well-run – you can opt out!

If any of these four six national newspapers or Desmond’s magazines OK!, New, or Star print something inaccurate, intrusive, or hurtful, your only recourse now is through the courts.

When I interviewed Will Gore, the Public Affairs Director of the Press Complaints Commission, he had this to say on the opt-in system (wasn’t in the published piece):

I do think that newspapers recognise the importance of this system retaining credibility and being seen to be effective.

Ultimately if major newspapers say “There’s no point in this system anymore, we’re not going to bother with it” eventually it will start to fall apart and in that scenario there will have to be something else. Essentially we’ll be back to late ’80s when the Press Council was widely seen to have lost credibility and the government came along and said ‘Sort this out or we’ll regulate for you’.

If the system falls apart then there will be something else. It doesn’t really matter what that something else is – the view of the newspaper industry is that however much they don’t like the PCC, and to be honest a lot of the time they don’t, but it’s better the devil you know that the devil you don’t.

Does this mean the Express and Star will start printing lies, distortions, or intrusive articles at will?

The Daily Star sinks to a new low

Today’s Daily Star front page is a disgrace.

I can’t imagine how this must make Joanna Yeates’ family feel. To have a national newspaper exploiting her death by printing pathetic, desperate, unfounded claims from a publicity-seeking fraud (or ‘psychic’) under a headline promising some sort of hope.

The Daily Star. Because sometimes losing your daughter just doesn’t hurt enough.

Interview with Will Gore from the PCC

Last Thursday I interviewed Will Gore from the PCC about press regulation in the UK for journalism.co.uk.

If only people knew more about the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), says its public affairs director Will Gore, they could learn to love it.

The body was set up in 1991 from the ruins of the Press Council, but Gore says that despite having existed for nearly 20 years, there are still “massive issues of perception” around it.

You can read the rest here. Tabloid Watch has also picked up on a couple of things Gore said.

What’s in a headline?

Every now and again, one of those rare stories comes up. You know the ones – the ‘PC gone mad’ ones that actually do seem to be fairly silly decisions from someone a bit too desperate not to offend.As far as I can tell, this story fits the bill:

Here’s what happened:

BARMY shop bosses axed a tiny pig from a kids’ toy farm set – in case it upset Muslim and Jewish parents.

…

But after writing to the ELC’s customer services she got an email reply admitting the pig had been removed in case it upset Muslim or Jewish parents. Both religions ban the eating of pork because they consider the pig an unclean animal.

Just look at that line:

the pig had been removed in case it upset Muslim or Jewish parents.

Muslim or Jewish parents.

Everybody wants to be a ‘crat

Are you angry? You should be angry. I’m definitely angry*.

Those shameless Eurocrats. Look at them “snatch even more money from hard-pressed British taxpayers” after making a “shameless U-turn”. I just can’t believe that “they have now decided instead on a pay rise” in what can only be described as a “secret turnaround”.

In fact, why are they even allowed to decide their own pay? Let’s see what the EU has to say on this one.

The Staff Regulations lay down clear rules on the annual adjustment of remuneration and pensions for EU civil servants of all institutions and agencies, linking them to the evolution of purchasing power for civil servants in eight Member States representing 76% of EU GDP. EU civil servants’ salaries thus move in line with those of national civil servants in the eight countries concerned (DE, FR, UK, IT, ES, NL, BE, LU). These rules do not give any discretion to the Commission or the Council to apply other criteria.

Oh. So civil servants haven’t awarded themselves anything – their salaries are increasing by because of the rules set down that take into account changes in purchasing power for other civil servants. And there’s no room for discretion.

But what about this U-turn? Well, in October the EU thought there was going to be a 0.4% decrease in those civil servants’ pay. That didn’t get any coverage in the Express, in case you were wondering.

Then on November 10th – finger on the pulse as always, Daily Express Reporter – the EU revealed in a publicly accessible document its “secret turnaround”. The relevant members states had provided new data, meaning there would in fact be an increase in pay of 0.4%.

That’s only an increase in gross pay, however. In real terms, these civil servants will have 2% less to spend. Not a ‘pay hike’ in any real sense of the word, then.

Surely, though, the EU could find a way to have *some* discretion over this? Er, not really. Last year it tried to limit the increase in salaries for its civil servants – and was promptly taken to court. That story doesn’t seem to have made it to the Express either.

Still, never let the ‘crats get in the way of a good story, eh readers?

*I’m also quite scared. That is a scary, scary picture.

The PCC chair and the funny figures

Baroness Buscombe, the chair of the Press Complaints Commission, is in the Southern Daily Echo today talking about the organisation’s work.

One sentence in particular jumped out at me:

She said polling found that 85 per cent of the public would rather have an apology published than a fine.

I don’t know what polling that refers to. But it isn’t the PCC’s own annual survey (pdf) – conducted by a non-member of the British Polling Council – which found that 77% would rather have an apology than a fine.

However, as Tabloid Watch and Martin Moore pointed out at the time, the question they asked was

Fining newspapers or magazines when they break the rules of the Code is likely to involve a lengthy legal process, whereas an agreement to publish an apology can be arrived at very quickly.If a newspaper or magazine had broken the rules in an article mentioning you, which would be most important to you?

• Publication of prompt apology – no fine – 77%
• Fine after lengthy legal process – 23%

As Martin says:

Of course they do! Wouldn’t anybody? The problem is, they rarely get a quick apology. Many rarely get an apology or correction at all.

For someone dedicated to overseeing a process designed to ensure that, among other things, the press remains accurate, it seems a remarkably lax statement. Especially when the figures she appears to be overstating are so dodgy in the first place.

What’s the blogging story?

I’ve just realised that in all the excitement of kickstarting my blogging again (and pouring a bottle of Buxton all over my laptop) I forgot to plug the piece I wrote about last week’s blogging and the media event:

The national newspaper editor turned blogger. The vice-president of the NUJ. The once-anonymous former call girl. These aren’t characters in a bad sitcom, but some of the panellists for last Friday’s “What’s the blogging story?”, a debate on the relationship between blogging and the media at Bristol’s Watershed Centre.

With Will Gore from the UK Press Complaints Commission (PCC) on the secondary panel, much of the discussion revolved around accountability for newspapers and blogs. Roy Greenslade, who edited the Daily Mirror in the early 1990s and now blogs on the media for the Guardian, said that the media criticism enabled by the internet was “wonderful”.

“What we most need is a plural media in which the truth or some semblance of the truth comes out because we police each other. What we’ve done with the net is increase the number of media policemen. That is important because it means that every single story is open to analysis.”

You can read the rest of the article at the European Journalism Centre.

And the Christmas bans begin

Ban tr.v. banned, ban·ning, bans

1. To prohibit, especially by official decree: The city council banned billboards on most streets. See Synonyms at forbid
2. South African Under the former system of apartheid, to deprive (a person suspected of illegal activity) of the right of free movement and association with others.
3. Archaic To curse.

n.

1. An excommunication or condemnation by church officials.
2. A prohibition imposed by law or official decree: a ban on cigarette smoking on airplanes.
3. Censure, condemnation, or disapproval expressed especially by public opinion.
4. A curse; an imprecation.
5. A summons to arms in feudal times.

Make available some rather cute winter-themed stamps while also making available religious-themed ones

1. Not a ban.
2. At all.
3. Seriously, do you think we’re that stupid?
4. Oh.
5. Minority Thought has more.

The danger of tabloid mythology

A few days ago the Times (paywalling your asses) carried an interview with Stephen Lennon, aka the EDL’s Tommy Robinson.

As well as revealing Lennon’s conviction and jail sentence for ABH, the article says:

He said that “reluctantly” he uses the threat of a demonstration as “blackmail” to ensure that councils do not pander to Islamic pressure groups to change British traditions. “We are now sending letters to every council saying that if you change the name of Christmas we are coming in our thousands and shutting your town down.”

Now, as most people who’ve ever bothered to look into the issue know, councils do not, have not, and never actually will change the name of Christmas. They might have a longer period covering all the events, religious or not, that fall around that time of year, but the individual festivals are still called by their original names.

You might as well complain they’ve banned Eid*.

Anyone who believes that Christmas has been banned because of politically-correct Muslims is a bit of an idiot in my eyes. And clearly Lennon at least believes it’s a realistic proposition, probably because he believes it’s happened before.

But although it fits in neatly with the EDL’s wider agenda, I’m not sure how much I blame Lennon himself here. He – as does anyone who swallows the Winterval myth – only believes it because he’s been told it. And he’s been told it time and time again by newspapers, either as the subject of a story or as a footnote to some other probably invented PC-gone-mad story.

He’s even been told it by senior politicians, who go unchallenged in respectable broadsheets. Even in the Times interview the reporter apparently didn’t attack the premise that there was a risk of Christmas being renamed – although how much good it would have done is unclear.

Maybe the reporter – Steve Bird, and the interview is otherwise very good – doesn’t know it’s rubbish either. But if he doesn’t, why doesn’t he? Again, it comes back to the newspapers that repeat this particular lie, deliberately or not.

By repeating the nonsense the idea gains more and more credence. People who have no issue with Islam (because it’s always claimed it’s to avoid offending minorities) start to wonder about it, and people who are already predisposed towards theories that Islam is taking over the UK believe it, solidifying their beliefs to the point where they send threatening letters to local councils.

Repeating these stories creates hostility, fear, and anger for no good reason at all. And when at least five links on the first page of Google results for Winterval debunk the myth, there’s no excuse for it.

*Yes, only on those years it falls around Christmas. Smartarse.