“I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.”
– Hitch-22, 2010

To find it, you must visit dailymail.co.uk and scroll down…

Past the news that Britney Spears has become engaged with someone. Past the news that someone called Kylie Jenner, who is 14, wore a “sleek bandage dress” to something. Past the news that Sid Owen looked at his fiancée while they were on a boat together. Past the news that an X Factor contestant has named her baby something. Past the news that some people from a programme called TOWIE went out with their cleavage on display. Past the news that someone called Katie Piper wore a dress of some kind to an event of some kind.

Past the news – yes, there’s more – that Holly Willoughby and Phillip Scholfield wore Christmas jumpers. Past the news that Suri Cruise threw a tantrum in a shop. Past the news that Helen Flanagan, who played Rosie Webster in Coronation Street, wore a hat. Past the news that someone called Jennifer Nicole Lee has muscles. Past the news that Coleen and Wayne Rooney had their security guard carry some shopping for them. Past the news that Zac Efron has a tattoo. Past the news that someone called Kim Kardashian said/did something somewhere at some point.

And, then, just to the left of the news that someone called Devon Aoki took her baby somewhere and Sir Philip Green gave Gwyneth Paltrow a bag of clothes from Topshop, you’ll eventually find the thing I was telling you about:

Really? Gosh. How terrible. Well, isn’t it nice to know that the Daily Mail is doing everything it possibly can to fight against it…?

(This post was inspired by this tweet from Roisin Gadelrab.)

We stated in an article on 26 September that Christmas has been renamed in many places Winterval.

Winterval was the collective name for a season of public events, both religious and secular, which took place in Birmingham in 1997 and 1998.

We are happy to make clear that Winterval did not rename or replace Christmas.

This will also appear on page two of today’s print copy of the Daily Mail. The correction has also been added to the bottom of the Melanie Phillips column which included the original claim.

It’s jolly nice of them to finally admit what many have been saying for a long, long time now (see here, here and here..

However, one wonders if this admission truly marks an end to the seemingly invincible Winterval myth, or serves merely as an embarrassing admission that can be quickly and conveniently forgotten the next time a boilerplate “Christianity is under attack” story is called for.

I suppose only time will tell…

(Go again and read Kevin Arscott’s comprenhensive essay on the Winterval myth. See also Sim-O and Dave Cross.)

An article on 27 June reported that Miss Rachel Cowles, who believes she had nearly been abducted by Milly Dowler killer Levi Bellfield, had accused police of robbing her of justice.

In fact Miss Cowles has publicly thanked Surrey Police for their hard work on the case. Neither she nor her family hold police responsible for the outcome.

We are happy to clarify Miss Cowles’ position.

The first two paragraphs from Jo Willey’s article sound just as hopeful as the headline:

THE secret of what causes high blood pressure has been unlocked in a dramatic breakthrough that could save millions of lives every year.

The discovery means treatment could be transformed with targeted drugs. This could slash the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

However, the hope conveyed by the headline and the first half of the article is stamped-out once and for all in the 19th paragraph, which includes a quote from Professor Jeremy Pearson, who is associate medical director for the British Heart Foundation:

“However, scientists are still a way off developing drugs that could help lower blood pressure by targeting someone’s genetic material.”

As most of you probably already know, the Express has quite an affinity for splashing news of so-called “cures” on it’s front pages. In fact, they do it so often, I’ve wondered whether they truly aspire to be a medical journal rather than a downmarket Daily Mail rip-off.

The problem is not the fact that the Express covers these stories; it’s the way it does so. Often, the stories splashed on their front pages are based on minor advancements or discoveries that could – emphasis on could – lead to genuinely groundbreaking treatments.

But they’re almost always presented in a way that is overly simplistic and overly hopeful – preferring sensational, attention-grabbing headlines to honest and accurate reporting.

* The title of this post is taken from an article written by Ben Goldacre in which he describes the habit newspapers have of leaving the truth about a medical “cure” until the 19th paragraph.

“Consumer Affairs Editor” Dana Gloger writes:

CASH-STRAPPED parents were thrown a lifeline yesterday as supermarket Sainsbury’s slashed the price of all toys by half.

The offer which applies to every toy in more than 400 stores – all those stores that sell toys – starts today and will run until next Wednesday, November 2.

And:

The biggest saving will be on the Hornby West Coast Highlander Train Set which retails at £129.98 and will be on offer for £64.99. Other huge savings can be snapped up on the Wooden Doll House and Furniture Pack, which will cost £49.99, rather than its usual £99.99.

And Scalextric fans will be in for a treat with prices slashed from £79.98 to £39.99.

And so on…

You’d be forgiven for thinking Gloger’s article reads uncannily like a Sainsbury’s press release because, well, that’s precisely where it came from.

According to the excellent Churnalism.com, Gloger’s article is 41% cut and 32% pasted from Sainsbury’s original press release.

Here’s what Peter Hill, the Daily Express’s former editor and current columnist, had to say to the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee back in 2009:

He also attacked press commentators’ use of the word “churnalism” to denote the rewriting of press releases and falling standards in journalism.

“It’s a rubbish word. It’s a gimmicky word. The standards of journalism have massively increased over the years,” Hill said.

Right, of course…

And speaking of gimmicks, what’s this on the front page of today’s Express…?

“World’s Greatest Newspaper”, indeed…

The article, which is attributed to the “Daily Mail Reporter”, includes no fewer than 14 photographs of the crash, taken from multiple angles.

The “Scroll down for video” line is a particularly tasteful addition.

Earlier this year, the Mail were criticising the BBC for showing a man’s death, claiming they were doing so merely “for ratings”.

Yet on the very same day, they rearranged their homepage again to show “moment a human canonball plunged to his death”.

Why did they do this? “For ratings”.

And it was only last month that the Mail again rearranged their homepage to show the image of Michael Jackson’s dead body.

The reason? “For ratings”.

And a few weeks before that, the Mail had published horrific photographs of two Mexicans who’d been disembowled and left hanging from a bridge.

Why? “For ratings”.

The Mail Online’s publisher Martin Clarke once said:

News is far more important to us than showbiz. News is what drives our site.

Surely he meant to say that “celebrity drivel and rubbernecking are what drive our site”…

If you’re a casual observer of the mainstream news agenda, you’ll likely know two things about Iran. Firstly, that they wish to acquire (or may have already acquired) nuclear weapons and secondly, they are predisposed to launching a war with Israel and other nations with close ties to the west. Furthermore, we are told that Iran is run by a cabal of psychotic “mad mullahs”, representing an immediate threat to both the Middle-East and to the west as a whole.

Source: Daniella Zalcman

The problem with this specific view of Iran is that it simply isn’t grounded in reality. This pattern of demonisation follows closely the now textbook example unleashed by the west against Iraq during the build up to war in 2003, only in the case of Iran, this is taking place somewhat in slow motion.

This week saw the unveiling by the US of an Iranian-backed “terror plot” to kill a Saudi ambassador on American soil, in what Hilary Clinton called “a dangerous escalation of the Iranian Government’s longstanding use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism”.

Putting aside the hilarious hypocrisy of the United States then chastising another nation for a “flagrant violation” of international law, something they themselves engage in on a regular basis, what truth is there to these accusations?

Whilst this plot itself may in fact have be real, it’s difficult to accept claims that Iranian government were directly involved, as Glenn Greenwald notes:

The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it.

Glenn Greenwald – The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot

Other experienced voices have also commented on the sheer absurdity of the allegations:

It is difficult to believe that [Iran] would rely on a non-Islamic criminal gang to carry out this most sensitive of all possible missions. In this instance, they allegedly relied on at least one amateur and a Mexican criminal drug gang that is known to be riddled with both Mexican and U.S. intelligence agents. … Whatever else may be Iran’s failings, they are not noted for utter disregard of the most basic intelligence tradecraft.

Gary Sick (Iran expert and former National Security Council official)

In a somewhat rare departure for the western mainstream media, these claims prompted a fairly sizeable amount of skepticism, proof perhaps that the US has been beating the drums of war a little too enthusiastically on this particular occasion.

In the Independent, Patrick Cockburn stated that the “bizarre plot goes against all that is known of Iran’s intelligence service”, whilst Channel 4 News quoted heavily from a deeply skeptical Richard Dalton, associate fellow at the Chatham House. In his discussion, Dalton even went as far as to say say that he couldn’t rule out the possibility that “the whole thing has been made up to demonise Iran”.

Reaction was much the same in Australia, where ABC News interviewed ex-CIA intelligence analyst Robert Baer, who warned the Obama administration that they were “dangerously wrong” in blaming the Iranian regime for the plot.

As I mentioned earlier, these allegations are the latest in a long line of tall tales emerging from the west, particularly from the US. In my review of the film Countdown to Zero – written in July – I discussed the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme. I dismissed much of this as fiction and quoted Seymour Hersh’s analysis:

The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003. Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground. International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of cooperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program.

A previous assessment, issued in 2007, created consternation and anger inside the Bush Administration and in Congress by concluding, “with high confidence,” that Iran had halted its nascent nuclear-weapons program in 2003.

Iran and the Bomb – Seymour M. Hersh (6th June 2011)

I also compared the mainstream coverage of Iran with that of Israel, whose sizeable and secretive nuclear weapons programme, which actually does exist, prompts almost no discussion – and certainly no condemnation – from world leaders.

Even though this article does not focus specifically on life within Iran itself, I think it’s important at this point, to avoid any accusations of defending the Iranian regime, to briefly discuss life in Iran and why the media coverage matters.

Amnesty International’s latest report on Iran, released earlier this year, documents a horrific set of human rights abuses taking place, including arbitrary arrests, torture and executions, along with various forms of discrimination against women and ethnic minorities.

These abuses must be strongly condemned at every possible opportunity, and pressure should be applied on the regime to reform and to allow full democracy with true freedom and human rights for all citizens.

However – returning to my initial comparisons – much of this could also have been said about the pre-2003 Saddam regime, yet I think we can all agree that the similar demonisation of Iraq (which many forget began way before 2003 with the sanctions regime of the 1990s) along with the subsequent attack on the country by a western coalition was a colossal mistake, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure, leaving the country arguably no safer than it was under Saddam.

As I say, human rights concerns in Iran are doubtless very serious and should be tackled, though here again we can notice a double standard emerge, Saudi Arabian citizens experience human rights abuses on a scale certainly equalling that of Iran, yet obviously no one would dare suggest sanctions or foreign intervention against the Saudi Royal family based on these.

Source: Thomas Huston

These latest allegations are quickly being utilised as an excuse for further diplomatic action against Iran. Earlier this week, Democracy Now reported on how the US was planning to push for new sanctions in the aftermath of the thwarted terror plot.

The Obama administration is calling for intensified international sanctions on Iran in the wake of its allegations the Iranian government plotted to carry out an attack inside the United States. At the White House, Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to rule out the use of military force on Iran, but said the United States will press for sanctions.

Democracy Now – 13th October 2011

Additionally, in a rather bizarre development to the recent Liam Fox scandal, the Sunday papers reported yesterday that Adam Werritty (as part of his “unofficial advisor” role) had become involved in an ‘audacious plot to topple Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’. This apparently included high-level meetings with Israeli officials who, the Independent claims, believed Werritty to be Fox’s chief of staff. Further evidence of the increasingly secretive, hawkish and neo-conservative foreign policy developing in the west with regard to Iran.

It is still not clear if and when an attack on Iran could take place – and indeed who would carry it out – but so long as the pressure is kept up, this could theoretically happen at any point, under any government.

We must not allow ourselves to be psychologically conditioned for yet another Middle-East war for oil. It’s often said that if you throw enough shit, some sticks. In the case of Iran, we must not allow it to.

You can read more from Jonathan at his blog, Passing Nightmare.

They said:

It will be the iconic image of the 2012 London Olympics: the Union Jack soaring as British athletes stand on the winners’ podium.

But the stirring moment is set to be disturbed by a deeply unpatriotic fact – the Union Jacks rising above the nation’s heroes will be made by the French.

And the French firm, Doublet, seems to know so little about Britain’s flag, it shows it the wrong way round in a website illustration.

Fancy that!

Now let’s turn to the Mail on Sunday’s first “Corrections and clarifications” column, as promised by Paul Dacre at the Leveson inquiry on Wednesday:

Last week we printed the Union Flag incorrectly in a tea towel promotion. The thick white lines of the St Andrew’s Cross should have been above the red St Patrick’s Cross on one side of the flag and below it on the other.

See? It happens to the best of us…

(More on the Mail on Sunday’s corrections column at Tabloid Watch.)

According to the Sun:

Up to 275,000 Swiss people — out of a population of 8million — have sex with animals, a survey claimed last year.

A similar claim was also made by the Daily Mail (although their article is now suddenly unavailable):

275,000 Swiss people have sexual relationships with animals, a survey revealed

I read these stories today and was startled by this claim, casually thrown out by both papers. It’s a pretty extraordinary one which I thought may have received a fair amount of coverage at the time the survey was released.

So I did a little research and found this article in a Swiss paper which appears to be about the same story that the Sun and Mail have covered. I’m not sure if it’s the source of the UK articles, but it does state:

Despite it being against the law, last June Tages Anzeiger reported that an estimated 275,000 people practised zoophilia in Switzerland. The Zurich paper said that 5 percent of Swiss males and 2 percent of Swiss women had sexual relationships with animals.

There’s a link to the relevant article for sourcing this claim, which can be found here.

Now, I never did German at school, but the Google Translate version of the article seems to lay out pretty clearly where this “survey’s” figure of 275,000 comes from:

When Albert Kinsey wrote in the fifties, his report, for which he examined 20,000 interviews with the sexual behavior of Americans, gave at 8 percent of men and 3.5 percent of the women, at least once to have had sexual contact with animals. Because at that time such acts were punished, it was assumed, reasonably certain that the information provided. Mid-seventies, the figures were then due to recent – albeit less – Investigations corrected downwards: It is now estimated that 5 percent of men and 2 percent of the female population at some time sexual intercourse with an animal, usually in the form of orally- genital contact or masturbation of the animal.

Extrapolated to Switzerland means: There are approximately 275,000 zoophiles. Where it is not at all a rural phenomenon – in the face of hundreds of thousands of pets in the cities, the availability is also ensured since. And zoophiles are by no means marginalized or retarded, but how to become white, formed on the large part.

So an authoritative “survey” which the Sun and Mail quotes as being from last year as a source is actually nothing of the sort!

It’s a vague extrapolation of a number based on Kinsey’s 60-year-old research, stated for discussion in a conference speech. Nothing more, nothing less.

Gotta love the British press…