Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/27/uk-tabloid-daily-mail-fabricat.html
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Without looking can I guess that this was not a white athlete?
Wrong! That’s a surprise because usually the Mail picks on BAME athletes.
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The part I don’t really follow about British journalism is that British libel law is ALSO one of the harshest in the world, preventing all manner of substantive reporting on people in power. But I guess the law is for little people? (edit to clarify: I mean, I guess libel law is typically used to punish those without the legal resources of a Daily Mail etc.)
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There have been several instances lately of athletes in the UK caught breaking social distancing guidelines, I think none of which were broken by the Heil; they obviously just wanted to get a piece of the action.
Honestly, while in some cases (Kyle Walker’s sex party) the abrogation was clearly problematic, it is hard to see how sitting in your parents’ garden 10 feet from them is going to raise the infection rate.
ETA:
No, Cracknell absolutely could sue. Half the libel lawsuits you see are from public figures. (Though the law is especially unfair to Ian Hislop, who is quite small.)
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One reason for the persistence of Britain’s libel laws is that it’s one of few weapons people have against press like this. So the people who benefit most from these laws have much to gain by encouraging both the bad faith of the tabloid press and the good faith of its vengeful targets.
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Not limited to the UK. I see this delight all around Europe, and a desire for it in some circles here in Sweden. What the heck is all that about? Is it “I can manage to stay indoors, so let’s punish those who can’t”?
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Having never seen one single positive opinion about the Daily Mail amongst countless examples of general trashiness, I’m thankful there are no regular BB content contributors who are openly tied to them and to tabloid ‘reporting’ in general. Seems like that kind of thing would be embarrassing to have around.
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Thank you for pointing this hypocrisy out. Here in the US, exposure of the facts is the only defense to this kind of garbage. Sadly, they don’t care - muddying the water is good enough.
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On top of that, British newspapers usually don’t publish stories as blatantly libellous as this. They know how to phrase things to avoid making legally actionable statements, and they get their lawyers to vet stories before publication.
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Piers Morgan is a bellend, no question.
But re that linked story:
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In May 2004, the Daily Mirror, under Morgan’s editorship, published photos that purported to show the abuse of Iraqi detainees by soldiers of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR hereafter).
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The QLR then ran an intensive campaign to prove the photos were fake.
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After about two weeks, the board of the Mirror accepted that the QLR’s evidence proved the photos’ falsity. Morgan, however, refused to apologise, and was forced to resign.
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In July 2005, seven soldiers from the QLR were charged with … abusing an Iraqi detainee, Baha Mousa, resulting in his death in September 2003. Only one of the soldiers was convicted (of inhumane treatment), and was imprisoned for 12 months. The other six were acquitted.
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The judge in the case stated that Mousa sustained his injuries “as a result of numerous assaults over 36 hours by unidentified persons… None of those soldiers has been charged with any offence, simply because there is no evidence against them as a result of a more or less obvious closing of ranks.” (Source.)
I’m not convinced Morgan was in the wrong on this one.
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I’ve followed the Daily Mail’s articles on Scientology, and they are capable of detailed, accurate reporting. The trouble is, as soon as the story involves a celebrity/politician, all that goes out the window.
Some, on Tom Cruise, look like they started with a good article, and then it was given to a makeover squad of semi-literate primates, who trashed it.
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You can still sue for libel in the US, there’s just a higher legal bar for doing so. This kind of wholesale fabrication would probably fit the bill.
Even J. Jonah Jameson reluctantly published a retraction when it was shown one of his paper’s smear jobs on Spider-Man was based on a digitally altered photo.
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Unfortunately, and this appears to be a near-universal phenomenon, the correction never seems to get as much attention as the original libelous content. A small paragraph at the bottom of page B17, for example, stating, essentially, that “mistakes were made”.
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If it helps change your mind at all, faking evidence for a horrible thing that actually happened only serves those who wanted to cover it up. Now all the real evidence gets called into question and they just point at the lies as their argument that no evidence can be trusted.
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One reason for the persistence of this kind of mendacity is the existence of the UK “Press Complaints Commission” - which is nothing more than the newspapers’ own commission, run by the editors themselves, which invariably finds that the newspapers are not at fault. The Leveson Inquiry was supposed to change all that, but the Government (guess which party was in power?) didn’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden lies, so nothing significant happened. I’m not even sure if it’s called the PCC any more, but it’s the same old smoke and mirrors. Some indepedent newspapers tried to create a proper Complaints Commission, but it was shunned by the regular tabloid press.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if retractions were mandated to be posted in the same place and amount of space as the original falsehoods?
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Gotta dream that dream…
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Well, indeed. But Morgan, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t been accused of faking the photos, nor even of believing them to be fake. I’m interested in who did fake them (accepting, arguendo, the Army’s evidence that they were fake), and why.
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Oh glob.
What you did there. I see it.
In all earnest: I did not know. And I am shocked. Not that shocked, because this is this TL. But then, I still am. Since this TL is my TL.
There’s a good chance he will sue, and win, and the fees will be too small to act as a deterrent.
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