Apology for 'Al-Qaeda Corrie threat' lie

On 9 December, the Sun claimed that a live episode of Coronation Street to be broadcast later that day was subject to a threat from Al-Qaeda:

The paper said:

Cops are throwing a ring of steel around tonight's live episode of Coronation Street over fears it has been targeted by AL-QAEDA.

They were tipped off that the ITV1 soap's historic 50th anniversary broadcast from Manchester could be hit by a terror strike.

The article (an 'exclusive') went on to include several suspiciously vague quotes from suspiciously anonymous sources. It just didn't sound right. Nothing in the story convincingly backed up the 'Al-Qaeda threat' claim.

And within hours of the paper hitting the shelves, Supt. Jim Liggett of Greater Manchester Police confirmed the story was complete rubbish:

"I want to clarify that we have categorically not been made aware of any threat from Al-Qaeda or any other proscribed organisation.

"Quite simply, Granada approached GMP to inform us they were employing a private security firm to help ensure tonight's live programme went ahead without outside interference.

"As part of their operation they asked for police assistance and we agreed to deploy a very small number of officers and PCSOs to help patrol the set's perimeter fence.

"This small police operation will be paid for by Granada and will not cost taxpayers a extra penny.

"To reiterate there is no specific intelligence threat to Coronation Street or any such event. However, the UK threat level remains at severe and people are encouraged to be vigilant."

Inevitably, the episode went by without being disrupted by Al-Qaeda or anyone else, as many hours of live television do every day.

So it was unsurprising to see the Sun publish an apology for the story on 28 December:

Further to our article about increased security at Coronation Street's studios for their live 50th anniversary episode (December 9), we would like to make clear that while cast and crew were subject to full body searches, there was no specific threat from Al-Qaeda as we reported. We apologise for the misunderstanding and are happy to set the record straight.

Those two sentences appeared on page two. Given the prominence of the original, surely they should have appeared on the front page?

(The above combines two posts from Tabloid Watch)

Do Sun journalists tell lies?

Does the left hand know what the right hand's doing at the Sun? You have to ask based on today's incredibly familiar editorial attacking the same old "Leftie union dinosaurs" it's been fulminating against for over 20 years:

UNION brothers nibble mince pies at No10 with David Cameron.

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The PM wants to defuse tensions over spending cuts. Asking the TUC round was a friendly, constructive step.

But some union barons are hell bent on trouble. Rabid Leftie Len McCluskey, new boss of Unite, calls for war against the Government.

He orders union members to "prepare for battle" and praises "magnificent" student demonstrators who brought mayhem to London.

The Sun does not believe sensible Unite members want sickening violence and vandalism of the sort we have recently seen.

Will Labour's Red Ed Miliband personally slap down Unite's Red Len McCluskey?

Do turkeys vote for Christmas?

If the leader writer had bothered to read the paper's own article on the meeting, they would have already known the answer:

Labour leader Ed Miliband has already distanced himself from Mr McCluskey's "battle" remarks.

And if that doesn't count as "personally slapping down" McCluskey, then the actual statement from Miliband's spokesman should make clear that was exactly what he intends to do:

Ed warned about using overblown rhetoric about strikes in his conference speech and this is a case in point. The language and tone of Len McCluskey’s comments are wrong and unhelpful and Ed Miliband will be making that clear when he meets him in the near future.

Still, why bother with small things like accurately representing the leader of the Labour party when portraying him as a cartoon character is so much more amusing?

The Sun misleads over BBC, Panorama, and the World Cup.

There's something almost wearingly inevitable about the Sun criticising the BBC for daring to broadcast last night's Panorama on corruption within Fifa, coming as it did only 3 days before the body decides on the host of the 2018 World Cup. After all, this is the same paper that back in March claimed Basil Brush was biased against the Conservatives, in one of its most insane outbursts since the days of the attacks on the "loony left" in the 80s.

As only a paper owned by an Australian-American can be, the Sun is nothing if not cynically patriotic. It doesn't then matter much if our bid never had much of a chance in the first place, the idea that even the possibility of "bringing football home" could be put in jeopardy by an outbreak of investigative journalism is wholly repugnant. At least, this would be the position the paper would take if it could; unfortunately, the Sun's sister the Sunday Times only 6 weeks ago exposed two members of the committee that will decide on which country hosts the tournament as either agreeing to take money in return for a vote or asking for a payment which would influence it.

Not even the Sun could be brazen enough to ignore entirely the actions of their fellow prisoners in Wapping, and so this puts the paper in a rather difficult position. How to criticise the BBC without coming across as completely and utterly hypocritical? Well, it's easy as it happens. Just misrepresent the programme broadcast entirely, as the Sun's article does. Both in the main body of the text and the "explainer" panel it claims that Panorama's accusations were either "re-hashed" or contained "few fresh allegations". While the programme did deal with previously aired claims of corruption within Fifa, Issa Hayatou's name had not been raised before in connection with what is known as the International Sports and Leisure affair. Likewise, while Jack Warner previously donated $1 million to charity after Panorama showed he had sold 2006 World Cup tickets to touts, the claim that he tried to do exactly the same thing again this year, only for the deal to fall through, was new. Both Hayatou and Warner will be among the 23-strong committee voting on the various bids. Worth noting is that through portraying Panorama in such a way, the paper is taking exactly the same line on the programme as Fifa themselves.

The paper's leader doesn't even bother to suggest that Panorama's allegations were a unnecessary dredging up of the past, or even that as the claims don't involve specific accusations of vote buying that they're irrelevant to the bidding process. Instead it just concentrates on the timing (temporary link, leader is quoted in full below):

WELL, that should do our chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup a power of good.

The BBC chose last night of all nights to accuse FIFA members of corruption - as they gathered in Zurich for Thursday's vote.

Don't the Beeb want England to win?

The timing of last night's Panorama TV investigation, targeting the very officials deciding England's fate, seemed calculated to inflict maximum damage on our bid.

Legitimate inquiries earlier by The Sunday Times, a sister paper of The Sun, have already revealed dodgy dealings involving FIFA members, for which two were suspended.

The BBC could have shown its film any time. Why pick the worst possible moment for English football?

Dismayed England bid chiefs fear our prospects could be wrecked.

Is this what we pay our licence fee for?

The reason for the timing is simple, as Tom Giles explains over on the BBC Editors blog. The key information behind the new allegations was only obtained in the last month. As for the argument the Sun appears to be making without actually setting it out, that the BBC should have delayed it until after the vote, if we ignore the risible claim that the corporation has deliberately set out to sabotage the English bid, isn't this exactly the time that such revelations should be made? It might not be exactly earth-shattering to learn that individuals within Fifa may well be corrupt, yet the very fact that those on the body which decides whom to award the tournament to have been alleged to have either taken back-handers or tried to sell tickets on the black market should cast into doubt their ability to make a decision based on the merits of the respective bids. Also of note is how the host country has to enact special legislation for the duration of the tournament, protecting the chosen sponsors, who also have to be given tax exempt status along with Fifa. Then again, seeing as Rupert Murdoch has in the past tried to avoid paying his fair share of tax in this country it's not surprising that his papers make nary a peep about such demands. The public, as the likes of the Sun would normally doubtless protest, have a right to know such details ahead of the decision being made, rather than after it.

In any case, the idea that the Sunday Times investigation, denounced by Fifa's "ethics committee" for sensationalism and twisting the facts has been forgotten because it happened more than 3 days before the bid is made is nonsense. Also worth remembering is the Mail on Sunday's truly unnecessary publication of an indiscreet conversation the then FA chairman had, which involved unprovable claims that the Russians had been bribing referees for the Spanish, who in return would vote for their bid for the 2018 cup. The Mail, strangely, came in for very little actual criticism from its rivals who instead focused on "rescuing" the bid. Dog doesn't always not eat dog in what used to be known as Fleet Street, but what is clear is that the right-wing press always bites the BBC, regardless of how it would never allow such concerns expressed in the Sun's editorial, even patriotic ones, to influence when and what they decide to publish.

Re: The release of Learco Chindamo.

I was, in hindsight, rather setting myself up for this:

All the signs are however that Chindamo is that rare thing - a truly reformed character. Giving a convicted killer the benefit of the doubt is always going to be difficult, even when Frances Lawrence has herself apparently now forgiven him and magnanimously hopes for the best. Chindamo has to live up to what is expected of him, but to do that others have to take him into their confidence as well. The Sun, the rest of the media, and the public should now give him the opportunity and the space to do just that.

Oh. Obviously, we aren't aware of the full facts, it could turn out that it's been a case of mistaken identity, a malicious complaint or otherwise and so we should reserve proper judgement. Nonetheless, if he is subsequently convicted of an offence, the people he has let down most are not that those that saw the best in him and believed in his sincerity, but those who find themselves in a similar position, having committed a heinous crime and now desperately trying to convince the authorities that they are safe to be released back into the community. It's they that may well feel the chilling effects the return of such a notorious criminal to prison will almost certainly have on parole boards.

"Lying Labour rat Phil Woolas".

Today's Sun editorial couldn't be much clearer in its views on the now ex-MP Phil Woolas (temporary link):

SO voters in Oldham East and Saddleworth must wait to find a decent MP to replace lying Labour rat Phil Woolas.

Speaker John Bercow rules a by-election must be delayed to let Woolas have a judicial hearing.

At least Mr Bercow's Labour-supporting wife Sally will be pleased. That was what she asked him to do.

It's good that judges have seen off Woolas.

Could the paper possibly be covering for something? Like being quoted approvingly by Woolas in his now notorious 8 page newspaper-esque missive? Surely not. Here in full is just how impressed the paper was by "lying Labour rat Phil Woolas" less than two short years ago:

IN one interview, Phil Woolas speaks more sense on immigration than every minister combined in 11 years of this Government.

Such good common sense, in fact, that he'll need to watch his back.

Not just because it'll rile so many left-wingers. But because it so harshly exposes the abysmal failure of previous Labour immigration policies.

Woolas leaves no stone unturned.

He'll wipe away the scandal of immigrants handed a golden life of benefits and council homes.

He'll make them spend five years earning a passport and up to five more earning the right to welfare.

He'll ensure they don't take vacant jobs from Brits in the recession.

He'll prevent our population from topping 70 million - and attacks his own Government for failing to check numbers in and out and making it too easy for illegals to stay.

He even savages Labour's beloved multiculturalism that allowed insular immigrant communities to fester dangerously on our soil.

We can only hope the Woolas revolution, in a Bill next month, gives us the fairer society he wants.

Meanwhile we can applaud both his vision and his bottle.

Silenced already once by the Home Secretary, he knows he is walking a tightrope, but it doesn't faze him: "If I lose my job, I lose my job."

Let's hope not.

Maybe we should give the Sun the benefit of the doubt: it might just be subtly hinting he should have kept to his previous promise.

How to take advantage of a parliamentary misunderstanding.

We all know how dearly the Sun loves "Our Boys", even if the feeling is not necessarily mutual. It's therefore hardly surprising that it's instantly leapt to their defence, having apparently been accused by Labour MP Paul Flynn of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". The problem is that almost every single thing about the report by Tom Newton Dunn in which the claim is made, and the leader comment which accompanies it, is wrong.

WIKILEAKS and a Labour MP were accused of giving the Taliban "a propaganda gift" yesterday by spreading wild smears about Our Boys.

Foreign Secretary William Hague mounted a passionate defence of troops in southern Afghanistan after reports were leaked to the website saying British soldiers had shot at civilians 21 times in four years.

Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, after a Guardian Freedom of Information request based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable than the second hand one which the US recorded?

The MoD said on each occasion the troops were under grave threat of suicide attack or vehicles being driven at them had failed to stop.

Despite this, anti-war Labour MP Paul Flynn jumped on the statistic to brand the incidents "atrocities".

Mr Hague hit back: "I condemn the unauthorised release of information which can endanger our forces and give one-sided propaganda - a propaganda gift, for insurgents."

He also hailed British troops, saying: "They are the finest any nation could hope to have."

Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:

The Labour MP Paul Flynn called for an inquiry into the conduct of the units in what he said could be "atrocities in the name of the British people". "Truth has a cleansing function," he added.

Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.

It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:

What is the Foreign Secretary's assessment of last weekend's WikiLeaks reports, which made reference to 21 incidents in Afghanistan involving British troops?

Hague's answer was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes comes from the statement, and so has been taken entirely out of context.

Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.

Here's the paper's leader:

AS if facing death from the Taliban wasn't enough, our Forces have to face snipers back home.

Labour MP Paul Flynn accuses Our Boys of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people".

His basis for this slur? Irresponsible and unsubstantiated internet leaks claiming British troops fired on Afghan civilians.

The Defence Ministry insists this would only ever have happened in self-defence when our soldiers came under threat of suicide attack.

Our troops have spent nine years doing their best for Afghan civilians, laying down their lives for them.

As Foreign Secretary William Hague says, these smears are a Taliban propaganda gift.

Ed Miliband should order Flynn to apologise.

The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.

P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth Abu Izzadeen's remarks on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:

His every word was cheered by a flock including sidekick Anjem Choudary and jailed hate cleric Abu Hamza.

Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release, unsurprisingly.

Whoops! Our bad!

Today's Sun has the following apology:

An article on 15 September reported RMT General Secretary Bob Crow had a union-subsidised home and luxury car.

In fact, Mr Crow's home has never been subsidised by the union and he does not own a car, union or otherwise, and champions public transport.

We are happy to set the record straight and apologise to Mr Crow.

The article in question no longer seems to be on the Sun's website.  However, there still is an article of the same date referring to Crow, but it makes no mention of what the Sun originally claimed.