Watching the Daily Mail
Posted by Merk
October 1st, 2012
Site has moved.
Some quirks remain, but we’re not really using this part of the site much these days so I’m not going to spend too much time fixing.
Update: to clarify, site moved to a different server only. Still in the same place as usual.
Categories: Housekeeping | 3 Comments
Posted by dnotice
October 31st, 2011
You may or not know that the Daily Mail has recently started a “Corrections and Clarifications” column.
It appears to be an attempt to defend the current status of media self-regulation, which is currently being investigated by the Leveson inquiry.
By way of keeping track of what is published Dave Cross has started up a site which feeds the Mail’s corrections into one place: Corrections and Clarifications.
As Dave points out:
It’s a pretty half-arsed affair for many reasons. The only way to find it is by searching for it by title. There’s no link for it anywhere on the site and it doesn’t seem to have been given its own section. Most bizarrely, the corrections don’t appear in the main web feed for the paper.
None of the corrections link back to the original story and in many cases you only get a vague description to help you work out which story they are talking about. And even if you work out which story they’re talking about, it’s often impossible to find the story on the web site as it has been removed.
Any suggestions can be emailed to corrections@mailonsunday.co.uk or sent via post.
Categories: Housekeeping | 1 Comment
Posted by sim-o
October 10th, 2011
Do you fancy a pint?
The gang behind The-Sun-Lies, Mailwatch, Expresswatch and numerous other media watching blogs are having Their second annual Media Watch Meetup. The first one, held in August just gone was such a success they couldn’t wait another twelve months so it’s being held in a couple of weeks.
Do come along for a drink or two and a chat about the papers, blogging or just to say hello. Best of all it’s free (apart from the beer which you’ll have to pay for yourself. We’re not *that* nice). There’s no entrance fee and you won’t need to buy anyone a beer to gain access to any of our top bloggers and you can stay as long as you want or until the pub kicks us all out. You can just turn up or or go to the Facebook event page and let us know to expect you.
So, are you coming then?
The Monarch pub, Chalk Farm Road, Camden (map).
Saturday 29thAugustOctober
3pm on
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: meet-up | 2 Comments
Posted by Tim Ireland
September 6th, 2010
Greetings! The post you are reading at this moment is appearing simultaneously on four websites:
Bloggerheads (post permalink) – my personal site
The Sun: Tabloid Lies (post permalink) – a media watch site targeting The Sun
Daily Mail Watch (post permalink) – a media watch site targeting the Daily Mail
Express Watch (post permalink) – a brand new media watch site targeting Express newspapers
I’m not the gaffer for all of these sites, but I have had a word with the relevant writers and webmasters about what I’m about to share with you, the reader, so you know what to expect from these media watch sites targeting The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express:
All three sites will now operate as open clubhouses for the following writers and bloggers, all of whom have a solid track record* and ongoing interest in blogging and media watchery:
– 5cc :: @
– bigdaddymerk :: @
– Adam Bienkov :: @
– Chris Coltrane :: @
– D-Notice :: @
– Daily Quail :: @
– Dave Cross :: @
– Kate Griffin :: @
– Daniel Hoffmann-Gill :: @
– Tim Ireland :: @
– MacGuffin :: @
– Hannah Mudge :: @
– Carl P :: @
– Nadia Saint :: @
– septicisle ::
– Sim-O :: @
– Uponnothing :: @
– Anton Vowl :: @
(*I could be more effusive if I weren’t in the list myself. Damn my modesty.)
From today, these writers will be free to submit original content and/or reference or mirror articles from their own sites about The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express newspapers.
Don’t expect everyone to come rushing in at once; the whole idea is that we can all drop in as and when we please; i.e. whenever we have time to report/share clear examples/evidence of these newspapers deceiving their readers.
(I’ve started by popping a couple of backdated mirrors about the Dunblane incident and a recent dash of homophobia and hypocrisy in Express Watch, BTW, and you will probably see more like these appearing over the coming days/weeks as we go about the process of populating the newer site with a little historical data on a writer-by-writer basis.)
There are bound to be varying degrees of tolerance between writers and over time, but we will continue to avoid ‘hating’ on tabloid readers generally (this being existing policy on the two older media watch sites), as we recognise that even the worst elements are victims to a degree if they base their fears/prejudices on misleading information fed to them by these newspapers – and we are ultimately out to bring some of them on board with the whole ‘honesty in media’ policy (at least to the extent that they cease reading, funding and otherwise enabling these media outlets that play so wilfully on the fears of others).
To put it bluntly, we as a group (a) seek to remind the readers of these tabloids that they are being lied to on a regular basis, (b) will attempt to call their owners and editors to account where possible/appropriate, and (c) aim to chip away at their circulation in the process by the devilish means of repeatedly exposing their fraud… when we each have a few minutes.
This ‘clubhouse’ approach should be enough, one hopes, to keep all three media watch interests ticking over a steady rate, and keep the documentation of the worst of these tabloids’ deceits relatively central and readily accessible.
With that newly-centralised relevance in mind, from an SEO (search engine optimisation) perspective, I also have designs on all three sites eventually earning very high placement for the name of each newspaper title; Daily Mail Watch is at present 7th for ‘daily mail’ in Google UK and prone to go higher, and The Sun: Tabloid Lies has just recently entered the top ten for ‘the sun’ (i.e. it is now 9th in Google UK).
Keep an eye out for our clubhouse members as they begin to appear over the coming week. Oh, and do add the following to your sidebars, readers and bookmarks, because these sites are about to become your first stop for any news involving any of the following tabloid newspapers:
The Sun: Tabloid Lies
Daily Mail Watch
Express Watch
Cheers all.
Categories: Housekeeping | 3 Comments
Posted by Tim Ireland
March 5th, 2009
Hey, boys and girls! Reading the Daily Mail every day can lead to needless headaches and back pain, so what we’d like to do is get some young, fit lads and ladettes to go out there and do some of the hard work for us… in return for nothing but a namecheck! How great is that?!
OK, so we may give one of you a prize based on who brings in the most/bestest tips via our forums. In fact, here’s what we’ve got for you this month:
SPOTTER OF THE MONTH CLUB – SEND US YOUR TIPS!
Spot obvious lies in the Daily Mail and win fab prizes.
All the kids are doing it!MARCH 2009 PRIZE:
The Knife Crime Awareness Gift Pack
Contains:
- Genuine ‘rat boy’ hat (accidentally purchased at a jumble sale, hidden in a pile of ladies knickers.)
– The Sheffield Knife Book: A History and Collector’s Guide [Hardcover] by Geoffrey Tweedale (a used copy of this book is currently on sale at Amazon for £187.76 (+ £2.75 shipping)… this one can be yours for free).
-|-
To enter, simply register for the forums, join us in the ‘tips’ section and try to be the first/best at spotting obvious cases of deception in the Daily Mail for our editors to get their teeth into. The winner could be chosen on the basis of speed, frequency, quality*, reliability, or just plain old chance if we get a really, really great lie in the first month and you were the lucky pup to spot it first.
(*Example of a high-quality tip: a significant lie that is easy to prove/understand as a lie and the evidence to back it up. Funny FTW.)
[Psst! Picture the 'tips' forum as a filter for alerts, so our editors who are being so generous with their time don't have to read dozens of emails to get the single alert they need. If the item does not make it to the front page - important bit coming up - there will still be a record of it in the forums, should anyone have cause to look into it at a later date. If you don't have a blog and/or don't care to start one, it's as good a place as any to keep time-coded notes and observations on your favourite topics or writers.]
So, in summary, read the Daily Mail (in manageable doses), post examples of outright lies that you spot to the forum, and this month you could win a really neat prize seemingly worth nearly £200! If that were real money, you could eat like a king for a week on that! Even longer if you shop in ALDI.
Next month, we may have a really ordinary prize (or nothing at all), so get going while the going’s good.
Good luck, gang! Oh, and remember; they’d probably get away with it if it weren’t for us meddling kids.
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: tips | 4 Comments
Posted by Esqui
March 5th, 2009
Who are you?
I’m Chris Hancock, aka Esqui. I’m 21, from Bournemouth, and I work as a general dogsbody for a retailer of fine electricals. I’ve been admin on the Mailwatch forum for a couple of years now, and also ran a blog some time ago, Daily Mail Letters, http://dmletters.blog.co.uk focusing on the people that write into the Mail. Sadly, living with a Mail reader gives me unfettered access to its pages. Which is useful for doing this!
What will you be writing about?.
I shall be picking up from where my blog left off. Only with more maturity and actually backing up my arguments a bit more! Obviously, there is no point in me just replying “No, you’re an idiot”, so expect to see a bit of detailed analysis
Why are you doing this?
Because no-one else will! I want to help make the site even better than it already is, and hopefully get people to learn a bit more about the mindset of Mail readers.
Why have you chosen your specific beat and/or what skills and expertise can you bring to it?
Obviously, I’ve got the experience in picking apart readers’ letters, and I do miss my blog at times. I hope to be able to bring a balanced view here, pointing out when they’re right as well as when they’re wrong. I think it will also link in nicely with the other contributors’ articles, especially when there are big issues which get a lot of letters.
OK, that’s me!
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: editors | 7 Comments
Posted by antonvowl
March 5th, 2009
Who are you?
I’m originally from London but I live in Bristol now. I have an oppressive mortgage which means I have to do an exceedingly dull job. I’ve been blogging since November 2007 at my site, which is called The Enemies of Reason. I started writing it through sheer exasperation with what I was reading in the press – not just the tabloids, but the ‘quality’ titles and broadcasters too, who often seem to be more interested with scaring their readers with a good ghost story than actually looking at the evidence and seeing it if stacks up.
What are you writing about?
I’ll be looking at political stuff in the Mail, as well as agenda-driven stories, often where the Mail tries to concoct outrage where there’s no reason for it. I’ll be asking why the Mail decides to follow its various agendas and what it’s hoping to achieve.
Why are you doing this?
Why pick on the Mail? They’re the newspaper equivalent of a professional foul. They know exactly what they’re doing; I’m pretty sure their writers and production staff often know they’re being deliberately misleading but choose to leave out balancing information in order to provide readers with what they think they want to hear.
Are they any better or worse than other newspapers? Increasingly not, as the Telegraph slides downmarket, but that’s beside the point: they’re one of the biggest-selling papers in the country and their readers deserve better. I don’t have a problem with the Daily Mail itself, just with a Daily Mail that frequently exhibits miserably bad journalism and could do better. It’s an office packed with what I imagine to be very talented people, whose skills are often being used to concoct a pack of old nonsense. I think that’s a pretty tragic waste, and it drags down the reputation of all media if one of the biggest players in the industry behaves like this.
Why have you chosen your specialism?
I do a lot of stuff like this on my own blog but this will be a bit of a departure and I’m looking forward to it. I want to really examine why these decisions are being made and for whose benefit they are being made. It’s not as simple as ‘X is a good story’; it’s more like ‘X would be a good story but let’s make it sound like X is actually Y’.
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: editors | 3 Comments
Posted by Merk
March 5th, 2009
I’m Merk, I’m the site owner & co-creator of Mailwatch.
Years ago myself and a fellow drunk Jon were sat in a pub having a beer, and someone had left a copy of the Daily Mail on the table. We leafed through it and managed to get ourselves annoyed at the content; so annoyed in fact we had to drink more to forget what we’d read.
At some point between lager and wine we decided we should start a website to analyse the Mail and it’s exploits, discuss its mistruths and misdirection. We’d laugh at the absurdity of its headlines. That was it, we’d start tomorrow – we never really did get going as planned.
We launched the site with good intentions but time and effort mainly meant I just posted the front pages and allowed people to comment. Jon moved to Paris and we never really wrote any of the biting stuff. Still, the site has been going for over 4 years – we have published nearly 2000 posts and 35,000 comments, as well as a lively discussion area by way of the Mailwatch forum, we have been featured in the Guardian and Independent as well a turning down an invitation to talk to Newsnight (it was a bad week).
Now things are going to change. With much help from Tim, we are to change Mailwatch for the better, we will of course still be posting front pages for you to laugh, cry and pour scorn over but we will also be looking more in-depth at the stories, lies and misdirection that may come our way – I of course say we, but what I really mean is Tim and a band of trusty editors, backed up by Dave who will be helping with any of the Technical gubbins that goes on behind the scenes.
Why am I doing this?
I set this place up because I hated how the Mail passed off opinion as fact. I think it was an article about single parent families being the sum of all evil. I read this on my way to a new well paid job after gaining a place at one of the best state schools in the land, going to College and University – non of which would have been possible without my hard working single Mother who bought us up on a council estate. I’ve not once set fire to a car or robbed an old lady of her pension.
Why change the site?
I have accepted Tim’s offer of help because it’s what this site needs, it’s what it’s always needed.
Will I still be around?
I will be still posting the front pages and hopefully the occasional blog post if time will allow but I’ll always be watching, especially you at the back….yes you.
p.s we hope to show the latest front page on the side bar with a link to it’s discussion page very soon, until then you can find the front pages via the link on the sidebar.
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: editors | 20 Comments
Posted by 5cc
March 4th, 2009
I’m 5cc. Well, that’s not my real name, but I blog over at Five Chinese Crackers, and that’s the name I blog under.
I started Five Chinese Crackers to examine some of the really poor thinking that seemed to be behind a lot of media comment. I waded in expecting to be dealing with stuff that was badly argued or badly thought out, but what I ended up knee deep in wasn’t so much ridiculously spun as, well, made up.
I expected to encounter bad hatchet jobs where newspapers trashed reports they didn’t like, but found that they just pretended the reports said something else instead. I expected to find bad analysis of statistics, but found ones that had been dishonestly added together and played about with. I expected to find events reported in a biased way, but found them being made up. I expected to find spin, but I actually found lies.
So the blog morphed into a place to look at tabloid excesses. The Mail gets pretty heavily featured, which is why I’ve pitched up here.
Hello.
Here’s an example – when Romania and Bulgaria entered the EU, the Mail trailed the release of official figures for how many would be coming to the UK with stories that told us that either 60,000 or 150,000 had arrived in the first couple of months. When the real stats were published, a headline shouted that 120 people per day had come from the two countries to be circus stars in three months. That’s over 10,000 circus stars.
The real figures? 120 a day was a slight exaggeration of the total number of people from both countries that had applied to come to the UK, from all professions combined. Even people who had their applications turned down. The total number of people who had actually been given a work permit was around 8,000. That’s a bit less than the 150,000 the paper mentioned earlier.
The total number of people who had applied to come as circus artises? 55. Not 55 per day, 55 in total. The paper exaggerated the number by nearly two thousand times.
Immigration and race are pretty closely intertwined, especially in the Mail. Sometimes the paper can let things slip, like recently stating that ’second and third generation immigrants’ shouldn’t be counted as British nationals in immigration figures. This is a little uncomfortable.
Away from immmigration stories, the paper’s other coverage of race issues can be just as lacking in comfort. Recently, the BBC broadcast one of the many episodes of Eastenders that featured only a small group of the cast, like they often used to with those episodes that featured Dot and Ethel, or the Fowlers. This time, the family was black, which meant that the first episode of Eastenders featuring an all black cast was screened. The Mail didn’t approve.
The paper often trumpets its coverage of the Stephen Lawrence case as evidence of its anti-racism, but most of its reporting of race issues falls far short of the standard it set more than a decade ago. This coverage deserves looking at.
For a democracy to work properly, people need to have an accurate picture of what is happening in the world around them. If everybody thinks that an invasion of horrible green men from Mars with veiny heads is imminent, people will vote for parties that have the best policy for fighting horrible green veiny-headed men from Mars. But what if they’re wrong, and there is no invasion coming?
The Mail routinely exaggerates and misrepresents the news in a way that can lead people to have an incredibly inaccurate and distorted view of the world, which effects the way people vote, not to mention the way people treat each other.
Why have I chosen my specific beat and/or what skills and expertise can I bring to it?
Immigration and race can be incredibly divisive issues, and pushing people too far in one direction can have incredibly nasty results, whether that means a rise in racial tension and violence or a rise in the number of people voting for extremist parties. The BNP has seen a steady rise in support in recent years as each of the main parties try to paint themselves as having the hardest line on immigration to try to capture the votes of people who see it as the most important issue there is. The Daily Mail plays a part in this, with its distortions and half truths. It’s important to show exactly how the paper misrepresents the world.
Plus, of course, these were the areas that seemed to crop up most while I was trawling for material for Five Chinese Crackers. You can set your watch by some of them.
Categories: Housekeeping | Tags: editors | 5 Comments
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