Clear evidence that Daily Mail planned to use invented eyewitness accounts
Posted by Tim Ireland
October 3rd, 2011
Amanda Knox has just been found not guilty of murdering her room-mate Meredith Kercher. An Italian court upheld her appeal against a 26-year sentence, and similarly overturned a 25-year sentence imposed on her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
Below is a screen capture from an article published by the Daily Mail soon after the verdict. This article by Nick Pisa was clearly published in error, as it declared that both Knox & Sollecito were found guilty, when nothing like this happened:
But what is more significant is that we know this article was prepared in advance of an event that no-one at the Daily Mail could possibly have witnessed… which means that Nick Pisa and the relevant editing staff at the Daily Mail were prepared to print the following eyewitness accounts as if they were genuine, when everyone involved with preparing this article must have known that they described events that had yet to happen:
“Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction….”
and
“As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.”
and
“A few feet away Meredith’s mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.”
In the same article, the Daily Mail of all papers has the temerity to sniff at the “media circus” around the trial; one caption even labels them ’scum’. But I can only see one ‘news’ paper inventing reactions from the prosecution following an event that never happened:
Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that ‘justice has been done’ although they said on a ‘human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail’.
The Daily Mail even give a full account of events that didn’t follow the event that didn’t happen:
Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.
This is a clear-cut case of entirely invented detail that cannot be explained away as part of any standard verdict-preparedness process. In fact, it goes well beyond the ‘X actually said this to my face’ antics of Johann Hari, but I doubt very much if we will see Nick Pisa admitting to any wrongdoing or offering to attend journalism school anytime soon.
UPDATE (4/10/11 10:28): Tim emails Nick Pisa for a quote.
Categories: News |
I would give the mail the benefit of the doubt and suggest that ’scum’ is a misspelling and they meant to say ’scrum’ – maybe I’m being too generous to them though
I think the “media scum” caption was probably a typo on their part for “scrum”. Agreed on all your other points.
I can easily see that… now it’s been pointed out to me.
) Thanks.
“But its in the Mail so it must be true. Its not like they’d go to the bother of just making something up” How many times have i heard that in my life?
I hate the Daily Mail but I’m fairly sure all newspapers do this.
Let me just play the devil’s advocate here for a second — I for one find it entirely plausible to consider that Rupert Murdoch has access not only to time travel but to parallel dimensions.
I’ve been looking through some forum posts on the murder case and it seems that there have been concerns about Pisa’s reporting for a while. He did a piece for the “Telegraph” on 9 September that has mysteriously disappeared a few days later:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8752822/Amanda-Knox-says-they-finally-believe-me-over-murder-of-Meredith-Kercher.html
[...] Knox staying locked up, they also included in it quotes from one of the prosecutors team that were made up… Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that ‘justice has been done’ [...]
Edmund Schluessel: Murdoch is responsible for many wrongs in media, but he is not directly to blame for the Daily Mail; he is only partly responsible for the climate in which tabloid ’scrum’ engage in such excesses
The cover they actually run is just a offensive. Knoxy is not freed to make a fortune. She’s freed because she’s found not guilty. Why do they have to put a nasty slant on that too…
THANK YOU so much for running this site. The news media and the mail in paticular infuriates me. Im f-ing sick of it. They have slaughtered Amanda knox to the point where even when she is released and found innocent i have still seen her referred to as evil by people in comments sections.
As nicky has said they are still being evocative towards amanda knox even though she has been found innocent. The headline suggests that a murderer has been freed to make millions. Disgrace.
I find the mail as offensive as the next chap but Guy Healy is bang on – ALL OF THE PRESS would have had the guilty or not guilty pages ready to run so to “claim” to be first with the news. Its the same with all news – especially sport – nothing a journo hates more than a flurry of late goals and a contraversial post match press conference.
This sort of faux-shock drags this website down to the Mail’s level and undoes a lot of the good work you do.
Please improve!
Someone will be telling me next that the Queen Mum’s obit was pre written….
I would give the DM a wide latitude on this one, they’re actually expressing what most people feel and know. Knox is only free because of NATO-level US government intervention; both governments wanted to bury this “Knox problem” and freeing her will ensure Italy’s tourism isn’t harmed in the future. The original Massei report expands on numerous circumstantial AND DNA points, like the mixed blood, computer tests on his computer showing he was not at home, phone records, the staged break-in which Guede could not have done alone, her buying bleach the next morning and the fact that her relationship with Meredith was absolutely toxic inside a month – Knox had been stealing money from Meredith’s room. At least she IS guilty of criminal libel, for which she has served 3 years in prison. Ever heard of an “innocent” person guilty of framing an innocent man? Knox is guilty as hell, and looking at that pathetic actress performance she gave yesterday, she can’t believe her luck!!!! Hope she rots in hell.
Roger Myring – It’s Absolutely True Because I Read It In Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail http://bit.ly/97TANj
Good post, thank you.
Freed to make a fortune, eh? There’s no fortune that I would accept in exchange for what she’s gone through.
[...] she was found guilty. A story that is even more profoundly wrong because it actually attributes SCENES and QUOTES to the speculated outcome that NEVER HAPPENED. Epic Daily [...]
The media scum is a typographical error? In a newspaper with that front page headline? Come on, now.
The Daily Mail is very of being in charge of the mass route to hell for those who want on it, and there are, terrifyingly, so very many of those.
In spiritual terms I really was helped very greatly by following minute by minute media reportage on the night of Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito’s blessed acquittal.
As I feared the worst with immense dread, that the pair would not be acquitted of murder, I was greatly, greatly helped by media reports portraying the crowded square outside the court house as seeming festive. It let me remember and hold on tightly to that each life here, in this universe, is always, and only is, of a grand festival. The festival of truth and future in eternity, the point of the final separation for the rest of endlessness. Combined in this festiveal with the day by day possibility of opportunity for redemption for those whom it is relevant to, redemption for within the rest of eternity. But that the verdict for each after this life will be utterly final and involving separation from others very often indeed, only due to to the most extreme necessity ever.
Aside, I just cannot believe the Daily Mail and their headline.
If that is not illegal and The Daily Mail are not given legal sanction(s) for it, I am leaving this country as soon as I can.
The Daily Satan, more like.
I’ve been on the receiving end of the attentions of the Daily Mail and, whilst I’ve been offered a retraction of a story that was simply false, they refused to either apologise or make a contribution to charity
If you’ve ever read the comments section at the Daily Mail for their articles, it’s more lunacy. They definitely understand their market.
could they be quotes and reactions from the “correct” not guilty story that were made up beforehand too.
@Will – there’s a very, VERY big difference between knocking out a few details that would be a given in a certain situation – like Knox being returned to prison after being found guilty – and making up reactions and quotes attributed to real people.
Why couldn’t they leave a few blanks and fill them in with real quotes as they came in? Hell, why couldn’t they just do a twitter-style rolling update article, adding new details as they come in? We’re in the age of digital news, Web 2.0 and Twitter, so there’s absolutely no damn excuse for making shit up like that these days, not when breaking news can be trickled in as and when it happens.
It’s regular practice in court reporting to ask prosecution/defence lawyers what quote they would give depending on the verdict. While making up people’s reactions is clearly nonsense, the quotes will be genuine, in that they were issued by the relevant lawyers, albeit ahead of time.