The way this rag consistenly shows people from ethnic minorites in an unfavourable light is disgusting. If you haven’t already read it, I can recommend the chapter ‘Mail Aggression’ in Nick Davies’ excellent book ‘Flat Earth News’. This gives numerous examples of The Mail’s ill behavious, as well as instances of its bias against blacks.
Mr Mordon has really hit the nail on the head. Just because this woman has demanded GBP1.1M doesn’t mean to say she’ll get it. So no, Daily Mail, it isn’t a tale of two payouts. There’s been one payout, and, judging by this front page, I wonder if the single mother will get more than the soldier who lost his legs.
She wouldn’t have a case at all if the Army hadn’t been such a bunch of utter pillocks in the first place. But then “Army shoots self in foot. Repeatedly” doesn’t blow many dog whistles. Does it?
The point of the article(if you read it) is not that she is black but the comparison between someone who hasn’t the wit to sort her personal life out and soldiers who give their all on the front line being paid paltry sums for serious injuries.
I’ve read the article (thank you) and can see the point that the DM are trying to make. Very very clearly.
What a lot of the comments above are illustrating is that the story (in both senses!) is misleading, and that Ms DeBique’s “opening bid” if you will, is over £1million. Further deception is evident from the sentence “[Ben Parkinson, the man on the front cover] was initially offered £152,000 but was eventually awarded £570,000 compensation”* Perhaps twice as much doesn’t sound as outrageous as “seven times more”, not being a tabloid journalist I wouldn’t know.
Don’t forget that the purpose of this site is to highlight the gross inaccuracies and misleading information in the Daily Mail, and that’s what we’re doing.
If Ms DeBique was white and middle-class, the story might be reported differently. We’ll have to cross that bridge if and when it appears all over the front page of the Mail. Personally, I believe that Ms DeBique’s ethnicity will be of interest to many Mail readers, for whatever reason.
* I removed “but only after the Goverment caved in to public outrage” from my quote as there is no evidence to back it up and it’s on every DM article anyway(!)
Apologies for the double post, but I’ve just noticed this at the bottom of the article:
“The Central London Employment Tribunal panel is due to announce its compensation award tomorrow. ”
It will be interesting to see what the panel decides, and whether the result of the award is granted as much front page space in Saturday’s paper as the “outrage” has in today’s.
Stevie H – I think you will remember that the D.M highlighted the M of D typist who recieved a substantial payout for hurting her thumb (poor soul) and she was white. By the way is there an equivalent Guardian watch? Oh silly me of course not they obviously tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.I think not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Er…who says we all read the Guardian and love it? I don’t particularly care for it. But I do know even with all its faults it talks less bullshit (it could hardly talk more) and spreads less bigotry than the Mail. Or maybe LB is psychic and can read all our minds!
I confess I have never quite worked out why this kind of case is sex discrimination. The case seems to be that a single parent couldn’t get childcare sorted and had to chose between job and child. Would the treatment have been any different had it been a male single parent? If not then it not sex discrimination.
Which isn’t to say that people should be forced to chose between job and children.
Clearly intended to push DM readers’ usual buttons.
And yes, I speak from experience: my parents read the Mail, and my father is one of the most racist people you’ll ever meet (though he will, of course, deny it!)
I read the Guardian, karlo, and the reason why there isn’t a Guardianwatch is because you would struggle to find the kind of misleading headlines that proliferate in the Mail and other tabloids. These headlines are specifically designed for those who scan them and don’t bother to read the articles, and are all part of a rabble-rousing right wing agenda. Execrable as it may be, at least the Sun doesn’t pretend to be a serious newspaper.
Blimey! Lots of comments today already for such an early hour. Has everyone been inspired by last night’s leaders’ debate (which the Mail and Express have strangely excluded from their front pages)?
There’s no Guardian watch because it isn’t so full of complete bullshit that’s eaten up by donks. Not that I read it much, but at least it does feature news. My Mum thinks that the fact I’ve read it at all makes me a communist.
I’d be interested in seeing what other pictures of the woman claiming the cash were available to the picture editor that weren’t her in a pink cap. Lifted of facebook, pressumably. Great paper that you argue for, Karlo. I hope you’re just being devil’s advocate.
Yes they were only £1,082,984 out. And i’m sure that the Mail will be clarifying that for its readers in tomorrows paper. After all they wouldn’t want their readers to not be full of accurate facts now, would they?!
“they wouldn’t want their readers to not be full of accurate facts”?
I though the Mail’s whole raison d’etre was to fill their readers with inaccurate facts
This is a direct qoute from Thursday’s Mail, “she is claiming over £1.14 million because she would have stayed in the Army until 2032″. It looks to me that for once sense has prevailed (almost) and awarded her a lower figure, although I think that is still £17000 too much.
sense usually does prevail, it’s just that the dregs of the press consistantly only report on the first half of these stories (which represent a tiny proprtion of litigation cases to begin with).
erm, that doesn’t really respond to what i said there.
yes, they have this time, but i didn’t say they hadn’t. just that their usual handing of this sort of story is what leads to people believing (wrongly) that massive payout are being made all the time.
either they don’t report the end of the story, or they bury it, and really, burying the latter part is as good as not reporting on it. so it’s no wonder so many people belive things like burglers being rewarded massive compensation for injury and the like, the case gets page 1, the case being thrown out gets page 26.
The intention is clear especially emphasised by considering the Mails consistent approach to headline creating. Ms Burglar either knows that and is playing mailite, or they don’t actually understand how the mail works
um…a question for all you Guardian readers out there.
Did the Guardian use a picture of her in uniform or in that lovely pink cap that JSwindle was so taken with?
(Here’s a clue – think pink?)
um…where was the Mail supposed to find a picture of her in uniform. Have you got one Tony? Have you seen one? Maybe you should e-mail it to the Mail so they can use it. Otherwise, like every other paper, they will use pictures that are freely and publicly available.
Um..as for the single mum angle. Isn’t that kind of crucial to the story? If she hadn’t been a single mum there would have been someone else to look after the child when she was on duty and she could have kept her job.
i don’t read the graun much but it does turn up in my house sometimes, and has most of this week. i don’t remember seeing that picture at all, they may well not have illustrated the artical, you don’t have to actually attach pictures to everything afterall.
The facts of the story are irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Mail has used the story as an excuse for a ’state of the nation’ piece. ‘Look how the powers that be are treating this (undeserving) case, compared to this (deserving) one.’
In their attempt to paint a picture of a desperate, broken society, they quickly skip over subtle nuances (such as the difference between money claimed and money awarded) and play on the prejudices and suppositions of their core readership.
That is treating your readers with contempt. That is the reason I have such an issue with this rag.
I think that comment of “playing on prejudices of their core readership” is quite patronising. You have actually said the point of the discussion “deserving and undeserving”, my money goes on the deserving soldiers not one that shouldn’t have even dreamed of suing on such a blatant money grabbing exercise
How can earth can the facts of the case be irrelevant Andy McDandy. That’s even dafter than suggesting you know what my prejudices and suppositions are.
A tribunal found her claim of unfair dismissal was valid. Those are the facts of the case.
“Mother sacked for looking after her sick child” would be an equally valid headline – and one the Mail could have run with if they’d wanted to.
It was the mail that started bringing up irrelevant comparisons with other soldiers. It’s *completely irrelevant* that person A got awarded money for a totally different reason than person B is claiming it. The only reason for printing a wounded soldier on the page was to cause certain reactions amongst their readership.
Karlo, your prejudices are clear. They’re against this site, right?
And I was quite taken by her cap, sure. Put a picture like that next to very negative text and you create something quite different that what you get in the Guardian’s less spicy piece.
intersting karlo, but… actually no, it’s not, the issue wasn’t so much that she’s in mufty in the photo, but the way the mail used it. placeing her next to a man photographed in his uniform, and doing a “like for like” with a completely different case.
i notice the graun artical is just about the payout, and not a dressed up opinion piece written before that was even made comparing the amount she was asked for (but was never going to get) to the amount a completely different person was offered (but was then given much more than).
…what is it you think was the point of this speculative mail headline again?
Why thank-you lady burglar. The admiration is mutual though not, I suspect, widely shared.
Tony you’re oversimplifiying the case just a wee tad and the headline ‘Mother sacked for looking after her sick child’ would be both inaccurate and misleading – adjectives which, as we all know, could never be applied to the Daily Mail.
If you really want to know the facts then: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2009/0048_09_1210.html gives you the original judgement of the Employment Appeals Tribunal back in October 2009. (I suggest booing and hissing every time Major Sykes name appears)
i think that was tony’s point karlo, they’re both oversimplifications, and the mail could have twisted the story anyway they wanted to. the question is why twist the story at all, and why in the way the did so?
Well it’s not really ‘a tale of two payouts’ as she has asked for over a million pounds, she hasn’t been paid it or anything else yet!
But of course it’s a non-Caucasian single mother so ticks a fair few of the Mail outrage boxes.
Just because shes asked for it dosn’t mean shes going going to get it.
It helps that she is………you know!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mailwatch. mailwatch said: Front Page: Mail: http://bit.ly/aptrOW #media #dailymail [...]
Oh look, she’s black and wearing a chavvy cap! Not even in uniform! BINGO today in your super soaraway Fail…
The way this rag consistenly shows people from ethnic minorites in an unfavourable light is disgusting. If you haven’t already read it, I can recommend the chapter ‘Mail Aggression’ in Nick Davies’ excellent book ‘Flat Earth News’. This gives numerous examples of The Mail’s ill behavious, as well as instances of its bias against blacks.
Mr Mordon has really hit the nail on the head. Just because this woman has demanded GBP1.1M doesn’t mean to say she’ll get it. So no, Daily Mail, it isn’t a tale of two payouts. There’s been one payout, and, judging by this front page, I wonder if the single mother will get more than the soldier who lost his legs.
She wouldn’t have a case at all if the Army hadn’t been such a bunch of utter pillocks in the first place. But then “Army shoots self in foot. Repeatedly” doesn’t blow many dog whistles. Does it?
So its really a case of one “payout” versus a “payout” that is highly unlikely to happen.
What a surprise.
The point of the article(if you read it) is not that she is black but the comparison between someone who hasn’t the wit to sort her personal life out and soldiers who give their all on the front line being paid paltry sums for serious injuries.
Yes LB, we spotted that.
But the other matter about the lady sure pushes Sarah brown’s horrifying birth defects off the front page eh??
Lady Burglar,
I’ve read the article (thank you) and can see the point that the DM are trying to make. Very very clearly.
What a lot of the comments above are illustrating is that the story (in both senses!) is misleading, and that Ms DeBique’s “opening bid” if you will, is over £1million. Further deception is evident from the sentence “[Ben Parkinson, the man on the front cover] was initially offered £152,000 but was eventually awarded £570,000 compensation”* Perhaps twice as much doesn’t sound as outrageous as “seven times more”, not being a tabloid journalist I wouldn’t know.
Don’t forget that the purpose of this site is to highlight the gross inaccuracies and misleading information in the Daily Mail, and that’s what we’re doing.
If Ms DeBique was white and middle-class, the story might be reported differently. We’ll have to cross that bridge if and when it appears all over the front page of the Mail. Personally, I believe that Ms DeBique’s ethnicity will be of interest to many Mail readers, for whatever reason.
* I removed “but only after the Goverment caved in to public outrage” from my quote as there is no evidence to back it up and it’s on every DM article anyway(!)
[...] Mail | Daily Mail Watch [...]
Apologies for the double post, but I’ve just noticed this at the bottom of the article:
“The Central London Employment Tribunal panel is due to announce its compensation award tomorrow. ”
It will be interesting to see what the panel decides, and whether the result of the award is granted as much front page space in Saturday’s paper as the “outrage” has in today’s.
Stevie H – I think you will remember that the D.M highlighted the M of D typist who recieved a substantial payout for hurting her thumb (poor soul) and she was white. By the way is there an equivalent Guardian watch? Oh silly me of course not they obviously tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.I think not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Er…who says we all read the Guardian and love it? I don’t particularly care for it. But I do know even with all its faults it talks less bullshit (it could hardly talk more) and spreads less bigotry than the Mail. Or maybe LB is psychic and can read all our minds!
Lady Burglar,
Yes, I do remember the typist and her (white) thumb. Doesn’t prove (or disprove) anything.
If you want to set up GuardianWatch, be our guest. Otherwise the sarcasm is wasted.
Charlie, well said. The Guardian has very different politics to the Mail, but it doesn’t stoop anywhere as low.
I confess I have never quite worked out why this kind of case is sex discrimination. The case seems to be that a single parent couldn’t get childcare sorted and had to chose between job and child. Would the treatment have been any different had it been a male single parent? If not then it not sex discrimination.
Which isn’t to say that people should be forced to chose between job and children.
There’s no GuardianWatch, lady burglar, because no-one reads the Guardian any more (circulation 285,000 and falling).
Popularity is no indication of anything karlo, just look at …well look at the Daily Mail!
Clearly intended to push DM readers’ usual buttons.
And yes, I speak from experience: my parents read the Mail, and my father is one of the most racist people you’ll ever meet (though he will, of course, deny it!)
I read the Guardian, karlo, and the reason why there isn’t a Guardianwatch is because you would struggle to find the kind of misleading headlines that proliferate in the Mail and other tabloids. These headlines are specifically designed for those who scan them and don’t bother to read the articles, and are all part of a rabble-rousing right wing agenda. Execrable as it may be, at least the Sun doesn’t pretend to be a serious newspaper.
Blimey! Lots of comments today already for such an early hour. Has everyone been inspired by last night’s leaders’ debate (which the Mail and Express have strangely excluded from their front pages)?
Just what doe’s Lady Burglar do with all these Ladies she burgles?
There’s no Guardian watch because it isn’t so full of complete bullshit that’s eaten up by donks. Not that I read it much, but at least it does feature news. My Mum thinks that the fact I’ve read it at all makes me a communist.
I’d be interested in seeing what other pictures of the woman claiming the cash were available to the picture editor that weren’t her in a pink cap. Lifted of facebook, pressumably. Great paper that you argue for, Karlo. I hope you’re just being devil’s advocate.
£17,016 – thats how much she got
Roger – is that really how much our friend from The Mail’s front page got? GBP17,016 is a wee bit different to GBP1.1M.
Bah, I wish my keyboard had a pound sign on it.
Yes they were only £1,082,984 out. And i’m sure that the Mail will be clarifying that for its readers in tomorrows paper. After all they wouldn’t want their readers to not be full of accurate facts now, would they?!
£17,016, not £1.1m as claimed? Phew. Just got that one in on time then. If they’d left it another day they wouldn’t have had a story!
JohnD –
try holding down Alt and typing 0163
“they wouldn’t want their readers to not be full of accurate facts”?
I though the Mail’s whole raison d’etre was to fill their readers with inaccurate facts
You must be kidding, i can’t remember the last time i saw a factually inept story in the Mail . . .
But this story was in all the other papers days ago, well the Times and the Metro (is that still a DM off shoot?).
This is a direct qoute from Thursday’s Mail, “she is claiming over £1.14 million because she would have stayed in the Army until 2032″. It looks to me that for once sense has prevailed (almost) and awarded her a lower figure, although I think that is still £17000 too much.
sense usually does prevail, it’s just that the dregs of the press consistantly only report on the first half of these stories (which represent a tiny proprtion of litigation cases to begin with).
Sorry it seems to me that both sides were reported!
erm, that doesn’t really respond to what i said there.
yes, they have this time, but i didn’t say they hadn’t. just that their usual handing of this sort of story is what leads to people believing (wrongly) that massive payout are being made all the time.
either they don’t report the end of the story, or they bury it, and really, burying the latter part is as good as not reporting on it. so it’s no wonder so many people belive things like burglers being rewarded massive compensation for injury and the like, the case gets page 1, the case being thrown out gets page 26.
They’re not comparing like with like; one is what the claimant is seeking, the other is what the employer paid.
As for GuardianWatch, message boards and blogs already have enough spelling mistakes and typos in, so it would really be a pot and kettle situation.
The intention is clear especially emphasised by considering the Mails consistent approach to headline creating. Ms Burglar either knows that and is playing mailite, or they don’t actually understand how the mail works
They’re both soldiers.. why not picture them both in uniform? The mail push the single mother angle so hard you can miss it.
um…a question for all you Guardian readers out there.
Did the Guardian use a picture of her in uniform or in that lovely pink cap that JSwindle was so taken with?
(Here’s a clue – think pink?)
um…where was the Mail supposed to find a picture of her in uniform. Have you got one Tony? Have you seen one? Maybe you should e-mail it to the Mail so they can use it. Otherwise, like every other paper, they will use pictures that are freely and publicly available.
Um..as for the single mum angle. Isn’t that kind of crucial to the story? If she hadn’t been a single mum there would have been someone else to look after the child when she was on duty and she could have kept her job.
i don’t read the graun much but it does turn up in my house sometimes, and has most of this week. i don’t remember seeing that picture at all, they may well not have illustrated the artical, you don’t have to actually attach pictures to everything afterall.
The facts of the story are irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Mail has used the story as an excuse for a ’state of the nation’ piece. ‘Look how the powers that be are treating this (undeserving) case, compared to this (deserving) one.’
In their attempt to paint a picture of a desperate, broken society, they quickly skip over subtle nuances (such as the difference between money claimed and money awarded) and play on the prejudices and suppositions of their core readership.
That is treating your readers with contempt. That is the reason I have such an issue with this rag.
I think that comment of “playing on prejudices of their core readership” is quite patronising. You have actually said the point of the discussion “deserving and undeserving”, my money goes on the deserving soldiers not one that shouldn’t have even dreamed of suing on such a blatant money grabbing exercise
looks like the mail has done it’s job then.
Elfman-
Thanks, it worked!
£££££££££
I read the Guardian article on the website ms morbo. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/13/female-soldier-wins-employment-tribunal – It could just be me but it looks awfully like a pink cap.
How can earth can the facts of the case be irrelevant Andy McDandy. That’s even dafter than suggesting you know what my prejudices and suppositions are.
A tribunal found her claim of unfair dismissal was valid. Those are the facts of the case.
“Mother sacked for looking after her sick child” would be an equally valid headline – and one the Mail could have run with if they’d wanted to.
It was the mail that started bringing up irrelevant comparisons with other soldiers. It’s *completely irrelevant* that person A got awarded money for a totally different reason than person B is claiming it. The only reason for printing a wounded soldier on the page was to cause certain reactions amongst their readership.
Karlo, your prejudices are clear. They’re against this site, right?
And I was quite taken by her cap, sure. Put a picture like that next to very negative text and you create something quite different that what you get in the Guardian’s less spicy piece.
Karlo you still have the Wow factor
intersting karlo, but… actually no, it’s not, the issue wasn’t so much that she’s in mufty in the photo, but the way the mail used it. placeing her next to a man photographed in his uniform, and doing a “like for like” with a completely different case.
i notice the graun artical is just about the payout, and not a dressed up opinion piece written before that was even made comparing the amount she was asked for (but was never going to get) to the amount a completely different person was offered (but was then given much more than).
…what is it you think was the point of this speculative mail headline again?
she got 17 grand …I wonder if thats in next edition,mind you it kept the fact Call me Dave is up the creek off its front page
Another example of what they are really like, the nasty media arm of the nasty party.
Shower of sh*te the lot of them.
Why thank-you lady burglar. The admiration is mutual though not, I suspect, widely shared.
Tony you’re oversimplifiying the case just a wee tad and the headline ‘Mother sacked for looking after her sick child’ would be both inaccurate and misleading – adjectives which, as we all know, could never be applied to the Daily Mail.
If you really want to know the facts then:
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2009/0048_09_1210.html gives you the original judgement of the Employment Appeals Tribunal back in October 2009. (I suggest booing and hissing every time Major Sykes name appears)
The Mail never over simplifies.
i think that was tony’s point karlo, they’re both oversimplifications, and the mail could have twisted the story anyway they wanted to. the question is why twist the story at all, and why in the way the did so?
Is it because they is racialist agendas?