Daily Mail breached The Editors’ Code

Jon Danzig |

DM Clarification Notice

The ‘correction’ published today by the Daily Mail, but not as prominent as displayed here.    Click to read my verdict on the Press Complaints Commission’s ruling

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld three of my complaints against the Daily Mail.

The commission ruled that the newspaper breached The Editors’ Code of Practice on accuracy with its story about buses and planes from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK being full-up and sold-out.

On New Year’s Eve last year, the Daily Mail published its story headlined, ‘Sold out! Flights and buses full as Romanians and Bulgarians head for the UK’.  Their article claimed that planes and buses from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK were full-up with Romanians and Bulgarians rushing to the UK following the lifting of ‘working restrictions’ on 1 January.

But following my 13 complaints against that Daily Mail feature story, the Press Complaints Commission concluded that, “the newspaper had failed to take care not to publish inaccurate or misleading information.” This, stated the PCC, was in breach of Clause 1 of their Editors’ Code of Practice regarding accuracy.

The ruling is one of the last to be made by the PCC as it is closing down this week to make way for its new press regulation service called IPSO, opening on Monday.

mail-buses-story

How the Daily Mail ran the story on New Year’s Eve. But it wasn’t true. Buses and planes were not sold out.

Last January over 80 people, including myself, complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the Daily Mail story. I published a series of blogs on how the Daily Mail feature story was full of serious inaccuracies and misleading statements.  

My blog for British Influence called, ’13 reasons why I’m taking the Daily Mail to the Press Complaints Commission’ attracted over 80,000 unique readers in a week.

But at that time, the PCC decided that no ruling was necessary as the Daily Mail had published a ‘clarification’ (tucked away on an inside page). I wasn’t satisfied and insisted that the PCC investigate all the full details of my 13 complaints, compiled with the help of Alina Matis, foreign affairs editor of Gandul, one of Romania’s leading daily newspapers. Eventually, the PCC agreed.

During the past seven months, the PCC has acted as go-between with statements and counter statements going back and forth between the Daily Mail’s Group Managing Editor, Alex Bannister, and myself. The investigation could only go ahead, demanded the PCC, if there was no public comment from me during the process. It’s taken all this time for the PCC to reach its decision.

In response to my complaints the PCC ruled that:

• The Daily Mail could not support its claim that Wizz Air had doubled its flights from Romania to the UK to meet “increased demand” when working restrictions in the UK were lifted in the New Year for Romanians and Bulgarians. This, decided the PCC, raised a breach of Clause 1 (i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

• The Daily Mail had misquoted the Mayor of Romania’s Dolj County, Ion Prioteasa, as saying that the numbers of passengers flying from there to the UK, “will double to 70,000 next year”. In fact, Mr Prioteasa had been talking about the total number of air passengers flying to all the airport’s destinations across Europe, and not just the UK. This, concluded the PCC, raised a breach of Clause 1 (i) of the Code.

• The Daily Mail “created a misleading impression” when it reported that a Romanian woman posted on a website forum that she wanted to know what benefits she was entitled to if she had a baby in the UK. The Daily Mail article gave the impression that the woman was in Romania and wanted to come to the UK to have a baby and claim benefits. However, as I discovered, the Romanian woman had already been living and working in the UK as an NHS nurse for over two years.

Stated the PCC, “The article reported on Bulgarians and Romanians coming to the UK in the context of the removal of working restrictions in the New Year; it was clearly pertinent that the woman making the comment had been working here already for two years. The failure to make this clear raised a breach of Clause 1 (i) of the Code.”

As a result of complaints, the Daily Mail had already published two ‘clarifications’ earlier this year to retract their inaccurate report that during the New Year all cheap flights from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK had sold-out and buses were full-up.

Following the PCC’s rulings on my further complaints, the PCC now required the Daily Mail to publish a new clarification ‘promptly and with due prominence’. This appeared in today’s printed and online edition of the Daily Mail:

“An earlier version of this article quoted politician Ion Prioteasa saying that passengers from his region would double this year. Mr Prioteasa has made clear that he was referring to all destinations, not just the UK. While Wizz Air accepts that it has introduced more flights during 2014, it denies that they had doubled in number at the time of the article. We are happy to clarify that a Romanian quoted about child benefits on a website was already working here.”

However, in an apparent contravention of the PCC’s requirement, the Daily Mail’s ‘clarifications’ appeared in tiny print today under the original online article and in an obscure position on page two of the printed newspaper.

I had previously rejected the Daily Mail’s clarifications as being inadequate and not clear or robust enough. My argument was that the Daily Mail’s entire story contained so many inaccuracies that it should never have been published in the first place. Also, the Daily Mail’s corrections, in my view, should be as prominent as the original article, which had been a leading feature story.

TODAY’S DAILY MAIL ‘CORRECTION’:

Daily Mail Correction

Today’s Daily Mail printed ‘correction’: but it was hardly displayed with ‘due prominence’ as required in the ruling by The Press Complaints Commission.

 PREVIOUS DAILY MAIL ‘CORRECTIONS’ FOR THE SAME STORY:

Daily Mail Correction One

An earlier ‘correction’ squeezed out of the Daily Mail following the many complaints against its seriously flawed article about Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK.

Correction 2 Daily Mail

Yet another ‘correction’ the Daily Mail had to publish following the complaints against its untrue story. But the text is so small who could read it? And how many ‘corrections’ can one Daily Mail story be allowed before the entire article becomes completely discredited?

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE?

Version One Daily Mail

Version One:  The original Mail Online story published on 31 December 2013 and as it appeared until recently, claiming that flights had doubled ‘to meet demand’.

Version 2

Version Two:  The Mail Online article as recently amended, with the removal of their sub heading claiming that flights had doubled ‘to meet demand’.  The ‘new’ version claims to have been created on 30 December, a day before the original.  A sneaky attempt by the Daily Mail to ‘hide’ part of its inaccurate story?

In The Guardian today, under an article titled, ‘Daily Mail publishes third correction in breaching the editors’ code’, professor of journalism, Roy Greenslade, asks why didn’t the Daily Mail state in its correction that it had breached the code, and why wasn’t the correction as bold as the original article?  (These are questions I’d like answered too.  I complained to the PCC, but they simply advised me that the Mail’s corrections, “meet the Commission’s requirement for due prominence” and that, “The newspaper is not obliged under the Code to publish the ruling or a link to it.”)

In assessing my complaints, the PCC did not agree with me that the entire Daily Mail article was inaccurate or misleading. For example:

• The Daily Mail story claimed that one-way tickets from Bucharest to London were selling for up to £3,000 each. The Daily Mail’s inference was that flights were so full-up that only expensive tickets were now available, which wasn’t correct. I argued that expensive flights taking obscure indirect routes were always on sale, but completely irrelevant because cheap tickets costing less than £160 were readily available. The PCC, however, concluded that the reference to the £3,000 flight was not misleading. “The article clearly stated that this was the maximum price for a one-way ticket, and made clear that tickets for substantially less were available.”

• The Daily Mail story claimed that buses from Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, to London, were fully booked up, but I was easily able to book seats. The Commission did not agree that this represented inaccurate reporting by the Daily Mail. The PCC stated that the Daily Mail reporter had simply obtained different information to me, even though the information obtained by the Daily Mail turned out to be inaccurate.

•The Daily Mail story claimed on New Year’s Eve that Romanians and Bulgarians were, “preparing to travel to Britain as restrictions on working here are lifted tomorrow.”  I asserted this wasn’t correct, but the Daily Mail claimed their report hadn’t specifically stated that they were travelling “because” the restrictions were being lifted. The PCC stated in its ruling, “The Commission, while acknowledging the statement arguably drew an association between those traveling to the UK and the lifting of work restrictions, noted that the statement did not make an express causal link between those travelling from Romania and Bulgaria and the reason for travel.”

In a follow-up complaint to the PCC, I asserted that the Daily Mail’s inaccurate article had caused, “unjustified alarm and indignation” among its readers, and had promoted xenophobia. I argued that the Daily Mail’s “unfounded inaccurate stories against Romanians and Bulgarians generally could cause unrest in our society, unfair discrimination and dislike of Romanians and Bulgarians, and are not in the public interest”. But the Press Complaints Commission responded that their code on discrimination only allows for complaints against an individual, not against an entire race or nationality.  This I felt was an unjustified and ridiculous limitation to their code covering discrimination.

The PCC commented, “While registering the complainant’s dissatisfaction with the scope of the Editors’ Code of Practice, the Commission did not establish a breach of this clause of the Code [on discrimination]. Any suggestions regarding the drafting of the Editors’ Code of Practice should be directed to the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee.”

The Chairman of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee is Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail.

• The PCC’s 5,300 word ruling on my complaints can be read here on a blog link I’ve had to create.  The PCC has informed me that their decision will not be published online, “as the PCC only publishes a small proportion of its rulings on its website.” 

How journalist Alina Matis, writing in Romania’s Gândul newspaper, covered the ‘Victory’ against the Daily Mail:

“VICTORY! Decision against the Daily Mail and its fake article about an invasion of Romanians 

“After a battle which lasted over seven months, during which time English journalist Jon Danzig and Gândul’s reporter have repeatedly fought against a false article published by the Daily Mail on the Romanian and Bulgarian ‘invasion’, the body which overviews the British press decided that the tabloid had indeed breached the editor’s code on account of accuracy. 

“Even though it is a small victory in the fight against some British tabloids’ propaganda and discrimination when it comes to Romanians in EU, it is, nonetheless, important. Moreover, the decision comes in the last week of the Press Complaints Commission’s existence, before the body will be followed by another institution meant to watch over the British journalist’s conduct. Gândul takes this opportunity to thank the many readers who filed complaints against  the Daily Mail and helped with this pursuit of re-establishing the truth about Romanians abroad.”

New Europeans Headline

“Jon Danzig wins his fight with the Daily Mail with a game, set and match ruling in his favour by the Press Complaints Commission.”  Click to read.

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