Monthly Archives: July 2010

Another libel payout for the Mail

Posted on July 29, 2010 by

Back in April, the Mail published an apology to a Muslim academic they’d smeared as grooming a terrorist: On 15 January a headline on our report said that Reza Pankhurst, a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir who teaches at the LSE, … Continue reading →

Posted in Corrections, Damages, Islam, Mail, Media, Standard | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Sun and Mail lose libel case

Posted on July 29, 2010 by

The Mail and the Sun today lost a libel case and paid a reported total of £80,000 in damages to a Tamil hunger-striker Parameswaran Subramanyam they’d claimed was secretly eating Big Macs. Both newspapers have now published apologies accepting that … Continue reading →

Posted in Churnalism, Corrections, Damages, Mail, Media | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Media myth to government reality

Posted on July 26, 2010 by

You might remember the story last November about police being issued with a 90-page elf ‘n’ safety manual on riding a bike. It was rubbish, as the Association of Chief Police Offers was quick to point out: This work was … Continue reading →

Posted in Churnalism, Elf 'n' safety, Media, Police, Politics | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

MigrationWatch-watch – a summary

Posted on July 26, 2010 by

Over the last few days I’ve been trying to fact-check MigrationWatch’s ‘key facts’ on their homepage. You can see the results here, here, here, and here. Across the seven six facts MigrationWatch switches between the UK and England, all immigration … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, MigrationWatch, Numbers | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

MigrationWatch-watch, part 4

Posted on July 25, 2010 by

Part one is here; part two is here; part three is here. To finish this mini-series off, I’m going to look at the last three facts together. I’ve also just – and only just, embarrassingly – realised that despite the … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, MigrationWatch, Numbers | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

MigrationWatch-watch, part 3

Posted on July 25, 2010 by

Part one is here; part two is here. We must build a new home every six minutes for new migrants. Like the claim about a migrant arriving every minute, the next ‘key fact’ makes me think of an urgent countdown. … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, MigrationWatch, Numbers | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

MigrationWatch-watch, part 2

Posted on July 24, 2010 by

Part 1 can be found here. A migrant still arrives every minute. According to Google there are around 526,000 minutes in a year. So, do 526,000 migrants arrive each year to the UK? As table 2.01a in this zip file … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, MigrationWatch, Numbers | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

MigrationWatch-watch, part 1

Posted on July 23, 2010 by

As anyone with a passing masochistic interest in immigration and newspapers will know, MigrationWatch is often used as a source of stories or of comment on anything about immigration. In fact, it’s probably the second most cited ‘think’ tank behind … Continue reading →

Posted in Immigration, MigrationWatch, Numbers | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

A deficit in cost analysis

Posted on July 22, 2010 by

Right now there’s a story on the Mail’s site headlined ‘£10 MILLION: The cost of seeing if voters understand the referendum question which could change voting system’. Sounds like rather a lot to check some reading comprehension, doesn’t it? In … Continue reading →

Posted in EU, Mail, Media, Numbers | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Credit where it’s due

Posted on July 22, 2010 by

If you’re going to write an article about misattributed jokes… …try not to misattribute a joke in it.

Posted in Media, Mirror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment