By Andrew Young-
Senior staff at the Uk’s Daily Mail newspaper have been heavily criticised for making an error of fact in a publication by the paper.Senior staff were today warned that making another error similar to that which forced the paper to today signpost a correction on its front page in sub-headline size would put their careers “at risk”.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation(IPSO) that regulate the press told the paper edited by Paul Dacre to run the front page reference to the correction, published in full on page four, after upholding an accuracy complaint against it. All media outlets are expected to publish accurate information about their subjects in order to reflect truthful accounts of stories and not compromise the standards expected of the press.
The complaint that led to the criticism revolved around a previous Mail story about compensation paid to an Iraqi man, Abd Al-Waheed, who was unlawfully imprisoned and ill-treated by British soldiers during the Iraq War.The newspaper published the story on 15 December last year under the headline: “Another human rights fiasco!” and sub-headline “Iraqi ‘caught red-handed with bomb’ wins £33,000 – because our soldiers kept him in custody for too long’”.
Complaints submitted over the article led to an internal investigation at the Daily Mail resulting in seven senior members of staff being given “strongly worded disciplinary notes” making clear “if errors of the same nature were to happen again, their careers would be at risk. The identities of the staff concerned have not been disclosed, neither is it necessary to do so since the Daily Mail editorial has taken full responsibility for the inaccuracies.
Human rights lawyer Shoaib Khan complained to the IPSO, saying the claim Al-Waheed had been caught “red-handed” with a bomb, or that he was an “insurgent”, was false as it had been found by the court to be untrue.
Khan said the sub-headline was also inaccurate because Al-Waheed had been awarded £30,000 for ill treatment and only £3,300 for unlawful detention. Daily Mail had failed to highlight these facts, making the article highly inaccurate.
IPSO upheld both of these complaints under Clause 1 (accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, saying inaccurate statements in the sub-headline and first two sentences of the story were central to the headline’s criticism of the case as a “fiasco”.
The ruling said: “Neither on the front page, nor in the main body of the article, was it explained that the claim that Mr Al-Waheed had been caught with a bomb had been discredited shortly after his detention or that the judgment recorded the judge’s finding that the claim he had been caught with a bomb was ‘pure fiction”’
“At the time of publication, these were no longer live allegations against Mr Al-Waheed. The judge had also found no evidence that Mr Al-Waheed had engaged in insurgent activity.”
The committee rejected the newspaper’s argument that reporting the fact Al-Waheed had been successful in his claim for unlawful detention, because it could not be proven he was a threat to security, had the effect of making this clear.
The committee said: “This did not make clear that the judge found that the claim Mr Al-Waheed had been found with a bomb had been established to be untrue.
“In these circumstances, the reference to these serious allegations against Mr Al-Waheed, without making clear they had been disproven, seriously misrepresented the basis of the judgment reported.”
The Daily Mail said it had relied on a three-page press summary of the case, which did not include the finding that the British soldiers’ claim they had caught Al-Waheed with an IED was untrue. If this be the case, the authour of the press summary should be held to account in this regard.
According to the IPSO ruling, the Daily Mail newspaper said that “while the complainant may well object to the way in which the article was presented, subjecting the decisions of the courts to scrutiny is an important function of the press”. It added that “providing robust and critical analysis of such decisions is essential to contributing to the system of open justice, and is a valuable public service”.
The Daily Mail also said the sub-headline’s reference to £33,000 of damages “because our soldiers kept him in custody for too long” must be read in the context of the article as a whole, which accurately broke down the total.
The Daily Mail said it did not believe the article was significantly misleading, but no disagree of misleading information is acceptable in the media industry. The Daily Mail later published two clarifications on page two, the first on 20 December to make clear that the soldiers’ claim against Al-Waheed was a false embellishment and break down the correct compensation.The second was published on 18 January in response to a separate complaint raised by Leigh Day, the law firm that had represented Al-Waheed, although it was not representing him in its complaint.
The paper did the right thing to make the necessary correction, and will learn from the error given the expected standard to publish accurate information at all times.