The slumbering watchdog
When studying the Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice, in truth one is spoiled for choice when considering the Scottish Daily Mail’s ongoing hate campaign against so-called “cybernats”.
It seems fair to say that the paper has blithely ignored Article 2, “A fair opportunity for reply to inaccuracies must be given when reasonably called for”, for example.
Articles 3 (i) (“Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications”) and 3 (iii) (“It is unacceptable to photograph individuals in private places without their consent”) also seem to have been somewhat cavalierly treated.
So we pretty much just stuck a pin in at random.
We sent this this morning through the PCC’s complaints form:
————————————————————————————————–
Please explain how you believe the Code of Practice has been breached.
Article 1 (i) of the Code of Practice is “The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.”
In an editorial leader, the Daily Mail asserts that:
“It is an inescapable fact that while there are trolls on both sides, the so-called cybernats are more numerous, more vocal, more vituperative and act in consort.”
“Cybernats” is a reference to online supporters of Scottish independence, against whom the Mail has been conducting a concerted campaign of vilification for most of January.
Article 1 (iii) states “The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.”
There is no evidence whatsoever offered to back up any statement that online independence supporters are “more vituperative” than people opposed to independence, nor that they “act in consort”. The Mail may be of the OPINION that they are, but it is plainly inaccurate to state that it is an “inescapable fact” – it is comment and conjecture.
The Mail has published at least 19 articles in January highlighting supposed “cybernat” abuse, including several front-page leads, and not a single word of abuse from the other side, of which there is plentiful evidence.
Given such an extraordinary weight of entirely one-sided coverage, it is clearly seriously inaccurate, misleading and distorted for the Mail to make statements such as the one in their editorial without any proof. The paper must therefore surely be in multiple breach of the Code of Practice.
————————————————————————————————–
We expect to be fobbed off. The PCC is a notoriously useless organisation, run by the newspapers it ostensibly monitors, and is in its dying days, kept alive only by arguments over exactly what should replace it. Nevertheless, let nobody accuse us of not at least trying to go through the proper channels. We’ll keep you posted.
Is Paul Dacre not the one actually responsible for (overseeing) the code on which these rules are based? That gives you an idea of the credibility of the PCC.
I hope you’re aware of who is chairman of the PCC’s Code of Conduct Committee.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/about/whoswho/committee.html
Good luck getting them to adjucicate against the Daily Mail.
check this site http://raymcrobbie.com/2012/10/15/alex-salmond-fan-club/ and theres more, much more threats of murder and violence to Oor Eckness
Oops… adjudicate.
Can’t we edit posts any more?
“of which there is plentiful evidence”
I hope you supplied them with links to your evidence, Rev.
Well done Stu.Its important that the proper channels are tried,even if you know them to be entirely useless.I also think its important to make the readership of media outlets abroad aware of how biased UK news outlets are with regard to the referendum.
Oh come on – what would you expect from a rag with a shadowy editor ( Dacre ) who’s just picked up £650k in grants from his Scottish estate !
By the way, anyone seen the “Scottish” landowners’ mega response to the Land Reform Group. It’s a sophisticated two fingers to any change.
Good on you but, if my recent experience of the PCC is anything to go by, don’t hold your breath. I was informed that a member on the panel considering my case, would be someone from the organisation I was complaining about.
Needless to say my complaint was not upheld.
I’ve also sought Electoral Commission opinion on whether the BBC and businesses like the Guardian, Daily Mail and daily Telegraph can be considered to be ‘non-party campaigners’ in light of the amount of investment they are putting in to influence the debate on behalf of the No campaign.
Well done Stu but you’ll excuse me if I do not hold my breath waiting for a response from them indicating that any action will be taken won’t you?
Asking the PCC to investigate the press is akin to asking a thief to investigate his accomplice.
Look for the silver lining – this Daily Mail campaign has upped Wings viewing figures. And upon reading articles here and other sites referenced by Wings perhaps has moved some people from No to DK.
Its like asking my greyhound, “Who stole the sausages off the worktop?”.
Basically, a waste of time.
For such a serious issue it is utterly shameful that this almost definately wll be ignored by the PCC.
The only way for a complaint like this to be heard is to have it broadcast by a non-unionist outlet such as RT. The programme “Going Underground” is dedicated to UK affairs and has covered the Indy Ref before and criticised much of the BBC’s coverage, such as misreporting of the Sept rally numbers.
Why not approach them on the subject?:
http://rt.com/shows/going-underground/
https://twitter.com/Underground_RT
The Mail, Labour MPs and assorted Unionist journalists are absolutely desperate to shut down the independence dominance on the internet. The are on to plums. There are too many of us and the overwhelming majority of us are reasonable and act well within the law. They are going to achieve the square root of zero. In fact they are beginning to sound foolish and not a little deranged. a bit like Jackson and you can’t have an eagle as a symbol people might think Nazis here have a wee robin instead. The limit of Jackson’s ambitions?
I would imagine that Leveson would respond differently than the PCC.
As the fourth estate, newspapers are part of the British Establishment and can get away with just about anything as the Establishment always closes ranks when attacked.Change can only happen when Scotland is independent.It will be interesting to see what happens in the trial of Brookes,Coulson et al.
I recently watched a well-known Scottish female singer, who has came out in support of independence, getting abused and harassed on twitter by a Scottish journalist. When she tweeted her complaints a well known member of the newspaper’s editorial staff invited her to send in a complaint to him for him to consider. I think the abuse and the invitation came from the same person.
In the world of our sick mainstream news media, the complaints system is just another method of sado-voyeuristic abuse used against their victims.
And what about the Spectator?
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/edwina-currie/2014/01/food-banks-arent-solving-problems-they-can-make-things-worse-too/
The Trussell Trust reports an 170 per cent increase in people using food banks in the last 12 months. Of course; that’s because there are more food banks. As anyone with their wits about them can grasp, if you increase the free supply of something worth having, you’ll have takers queuing at the door.
Since, for obvious reasons, you will get no satisfactory recourse from the PCC it may be worth considering doing your own series of exposes into Dacre and Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Viscount Rothermere would not be best pleased if your large readership were to be fully appraised of all the details of his forebears historic friendship and close links to the Nazi party. Of which there is a great deal of evidence and all of it pretty shocking. Likewise a detailed expose of the activities of the private investigator Steve Whittamore would be the last thing Dacre would like to see get far more attention right now.
You will never get satisfaction from them when they write the rules. Better to beat them at their own game and use the facts they most fear against their hate and smears.
There is fat chance of a reply from these people,when you see the board members it is obviously a case that the press are unable to monitor their members, by way of not wanting to.
First I suggest that someone or lots of us make a police complaint, in respects to abuse of Eck and the death threats some of them make.These should be investigated and these low lives charged.
Also, we should make as many different complaints to both this board and the BBC. They take time and yes I know, little effort to reply, however doing this will still eat up some resources which if there is a huge volume, will pose them some problems, drain them a little and they will not like it. Especially if complaints are very varied.
O/T Good article by Hassan on SR on the subject of the Scotophobia rife in London. Courtesy of gus1940 on NNS.
http://www.scottishreview.net/GerryHassan142.shtml
“Article 1 (iii) states “The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.”
If the PCC held up its own code of conduct, they’d have to close down Daily Mail altogether. The whole rag is opinion and conjecture disguised as fact.
Ah wee Stevie:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Steve+Whittamore&oq=Steve+Whittamore&aqs=chrome..69i57.2008j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
That was just the first page
The PCC is run by the very people you complain against. If it had any teeth or the balls to challenge on behalf of the public then Leveson wouldn’t have happened. The PCC only existed to prove to the government that there was a self-regulating newspaper industry. In other words ‘we take care of our own’. Obviously in those terms it has been a spectacular failure and ultimately a joke.
Of course Dacre supports the fine (non)work of the PCC …
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/jul/30/pauldacre-pcc
@Handandshrimp.
You made the mail’s infamous hall of shame yesterday in their printed edition, with one of your comments on wings.
Looks like the daily heil is watching things here.
The MSM &.HMG PROPAGANDA MACHINE BBC/ITV have NO positive case for the union to survive except self interest and greed. And personal nasty attacks on Alex Salmond and the people of Scotland.
Having spoken to some very proud Scots who are definite NO voters, every one of them when asked what made NO so attractive came up with the same positive answer “I DONT LIKE THAT ALEX SALMOND” when asked why or what he has done wrong, SILENCE!.
When I explained we ar’nt voting for a person we were choosing a political system the head goes down and that’s the end of that inspiring conversation. (IMO they are all pseudo middle class proud Scots) wi nae money just a big mortgage.
Unfortunately this situation I describe has been 7 female and 1 male friends and relatives, just facts I don’t mean anything by the gender thing.
Re; Hassan’s piece. Worth a read. I sometimes get the impression he is sympathetic towards Independence (such as here) then he comes out with something completely ‘other’. Maybe he’s still on the fence?
Hassan’s article is, as usual, two-faced. He reports the alleged nastiness aimed at Susan Calman as if it were factual, without any acknowledgement that the abuse was entirely invented.
He describes the “cybernats” as lonely people typing away into the night in their bedsits. Well the rest of it is debatable, but Gerry, I have a large and comfortable house in which to carry out my nocturnal scribing activities.
The overall implication is that the cybernat nastiness (which he doesn’t seem to dispute) should be judged in the context of the nastiness coming from UK and unionist politicians against Scotland and the Scots. It’s a point, but surely a more balanced point would be that the vast majority of “cybernat” comment is polite, well-informed and informative, and the Daily Mail is having trouble finding anything particularly abusive to highlight, while the online unionist debate seems to consist of little but foul-mouthed denigration of Alex Salmond and independence supporters.
Too keen to be taken seriously by the establishment is our Gerry.
@alexicon. Not only will the Daily Heil be watching but you can be sure that GCHQ will have the details of every one of us.
Alexicon
LOL What did I say? None of this seems to be on-line apart the one piece with the door step pictures, which I see only allowed 24 comments most of which said they were talking nonsense and the arrows agree with the comments.
@jimsie
2 black marks against you on the nasty cybernat scale, one for telling the truth, the other for not waving and saying ‘Hi’ when you mention GCHQ.
/* Waves and says ‘Hi’ */
Cairny’s currency speech live from Edinburgh going live next on SKY NEWS 1.15 pm
The really sad thing is that the voice of middle England newsmedia is desperately trying to harm both YES voters and Scotland as much as they possibly can. Everyone who’s interested knows that Dacre and his journalists are really sleazy but they are not alone. Even the whole of Scandinavia got monstered a few days ago by Wapping. End of empire!
O/T Apologies.
Just spoke with Brian Wilson, ex-Labour MP.
He reckons it’ll be a NO win in the ScotRef but that it will be very close. He also reckons if there’s a Euro vote in 2017, the UK will vote to remain in the EU. (Still doesn’t remove the doubt or concern though).
The usual noise from the commentators about the Scottish currency and banks having their headquarters in Scotland at the bank crash.
However some acknowledgement of Scotland being able to print their own notes.
Oh here he comes on now.Sky News
While we know the PCC is a joke it is unfortunately the only avenue to follow, kudos to Rev for giving it a go. It would probably be funny if folks scoured the Daily Fail for inaccuracies and submitted a dozen complaints a day in “consort” for a couple of months.
creigs
If there is an EU vote in 2017 the Tories have won in 2015. Which does not fill me with joy. I agree with Wilson that the independence vote could be close although I hope close in our favour. I am less sure of the EU. The runes suggest increasing disenchantment in England egged on by the Mail, Sun and others.
As always with these things, it’s what they don’t say.
No ruling out of the Currency Union, but checks and balances must be put in place.
That goes both ways, which I think the Scottish Public will be happy with.
Just spoke with Brian Wilson, ex-Labour MP.
He reckons it’ll be a NO win in the ScotRef but that it will be very close. He also reckons if there’s a Euro vote in 2017, the UK will vote to remain in the EU. (Still doesn’t remove the doubt or concern though).
So, presumably his conclusion is that although polls, if taken at face value, historically show the UK would vote to leave the EU, he believes they’d swap around come EU referendum time when people hear the facts in the end the UK would vote to stay.
Funny he doesn’t apply the same logic to the Scottish referendum.
Whatever happens today with Carney, it is worth noting that when Salmond met Mervyn King 2 years ago whilst he was still BOE Governor, Salmond said that ” the first thing he said to me was ‘your problem is what they say now’, meaning the Treasury, ‘and what they say the day after a Yes vote in the referendum are two entirely different things’ “…
http://archive.is/cK13K
Apologies – OT
A friend of mine pointed out on FB that the ‘Related Internet Links’ at the bottom of this article include one for Better Together but not YES Scotland!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25930075
Good start about historical context of Scotland’s place in the world. Not patronising either.
rUk and Scotland will negotiate after YES.
Hard to walk on eggs without making an omelette is it not.
On balance a guarded cautious ‘better not do it’ thread permeating his speech in my opinion. However some warnings there for the rUK to play fair in negotiations if YES.
I’ll look forward to the SG response and also to Business for Scotland’s view on the matter.
@@creigs & scottish skier. Brian Wilson, the man Alex Salmond called “the abominable no man”. As hard line unionist as you can get.
Quote, Gerry Hassan, “The ‘cybernats’ are mostly if not exclusively lone operatives typing away furiously into the night in their bedsits, whereas Darling, Brown and Davidson are elected public figures with the first two having global stature.”
An example of how someone, even a supposed intelligent someone, can get it sooooooo wrong.
There is just conjecture on both parts, there is no hard evidence to support Hassan’s claims.
Carney will have been ordered by Cameron to keep it vague and commit to nothing.
There is something rotten in the state of Britain.
With poor people getting arrested for taking food from bins, to flats in the shard going for £50m.
Re the gagging law and the demonising of ordinary folk from WoS – do you think this will have an effect?
Do you think this was one of the reasons behind it?
They know they are losing the indy debate on the net.
We need to get out of this and fast – the comments re London’s Scotophobia – lets face it a lot of them have always loathed us.
According to a poster on the Guardian – seeing Henry V – ‘the weasel Scots’- brought a laugh from the audience.
September can’t come quickly enough.
To sum up Mark Carney’s speech.
The BOE has no objections to a currency union.
Sky News spinning Carney’s address and advise. Making out there will be ‘uncertainty’ and that Better Together are ‘gleefully jumping on what was said’
Which is rather strange as I watched Carney’s address and it was highly technical as expected. But the bottom line was that it would be to both Westminster and Holyrood to agree terms. These terms by the way would be based on the structures laid down to follow from the Bank of England as at the end of the day it will be the Bank of England that will be managing the currency union.
But I find what the media are spinning is entirely negative, emphasising that Alex Salmond will find it difficult. Why?? Consider again that its about an agreement by BOTH Westminster and Holyrood based on structures set down by the Bank of England
I see the BBC want YOUR views if you intend to vote in the referendum ‘Will you be voting in the Scottish referendum? Do you want to keep sterling or should Scotland have its own currency?’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25930075
That was the perfect opportunity to torpedo the whole idea of a currency union, the fact that that happen says far more than what was actually said.
edit *didn’t happen FFS
“The Trussell Trust reports an 170 per cent increase in people using food banks in the last 12 months. Of course; that’s because there are more food banks. As anyone with their wits about them can grasp, if you increase the free supply of something worth having, you’ll have takers queuing at the door.”
@Vincent McDee, Ms Currie is living proof that you can be an absolute cretin and still achieve ministerial rank at Westminster. (Will this do, Mr Dacre?)
@ Edward
Yet another BBC article on Scottish independence with ‘related links’ to Better Together but not YES Scotland.
Train Fares says
Yes, that is the upshot, however a very cagey soft thread of it is too difficult and we would effectively have to give up some sovereignty in order to keep the treasury happy.
Stuff that, peg to sterling and keep ourselves free. Notes would be of par value and interchangeable.Many other countries do this and it works fine. Carney has his instructions.
Exactly Mocha……
Anyways, Salmond may find it difficult as it depends on how many advisors from Scotland are put on the Monetary Policy Committee…..
Strange that the BBC are broadcasting Q&A from Carney, but according to Sky its finished…………………
@ Jimbo
I’ve lodged a complaint with the BBC about their clear bias by having only ‘Better Together’ on that page when, to be fair and impartial, it should have contained a link also to YES Scotland.
This is very O/T but the BBC are asking for creative input from people about what freedom means to them or even what means freedom to them, here’s the link for all those of a creative bent, can’t imagine that yours will get picked but how embarrassing if they were to receive such things from within the glorious and free UK! http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25750283
I believe Carney is saying a currency union is completely do-able but it means negotiations and paperwork.
The media will find only the negatives as I see they had already started before he finished is technical analysis.
That should read ‘ his technical analysis’.
Note the unionist media chipping away t5rying to get the angle they want from Mark Carney
Some prat from the Times asking how Scottish banks like RBS and Lloyds will be regulated
When since did Lloyds become a Scottish bank?
Happy for BBC to only have link to BT. Shows their bias. Moreover visiting that site can only move one towards YES.
I notice on the Guardian that the No voices are not entirely happy. The more ‘couldn’t give a toss about Scotland’ ones think he has been too accommodating. The regular Noes are trotting out ‘it isn’t real independence’ stuff. If it isn’t real independence what are they worried about?
Last night GlaikitGeezer on twitter was retweeting some really messed up BritNat abuse to Better Together, Daily Mail etc.
It seemed like a good idea and I joined in. Does that mean we acted in consort? I don’t know the guy in real life and we’ve never exchanged messages. Just because we share the same anger at the Daily Mail’s behaviour doesn’t mean we have some sort of evil plan.
I retweeted a bunch of them, so if you want to see a picture of a a man’s testicles next to a picture of Alex Salmond’s face then look at my twitter timeline.
But remember; that which has been seen can never be unseen!
What I take from what Carney has said is that a currency union is not a problem unless Westminster wants to make it one.
The unionist media does seem desperate to get him to throw them a bone, but he seems to be too clever.
What is most apparent is that Carney has just increased Westminster’s hand, by saying he does what arrangements the treasury is minded to instruct him to work with.
So does this mean the BOE is neutral or not?, seems not to me , by definition.
Mark Carney had a great opportunity today to completely undermine the notion of a currency union between an iScotland and rUK.
What he said, “In short, a durable, successful currency union requires some ceding of national sovereignty. It is likely that similar institutional arrangements would be necessary to support a monetary union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK.”
Over the short term it can be argued that it would be preferable for iScotland, rUK and the Bank of England to have a “durable, successful” currency union in place. Over the long term it would be for Scots decide if it is Scotland’s interests to continue with a currency union.
What we saw today was a BoE governor confirm that it was up to Scots to choose their own path and that it as an institution had no objections to a currency union.
I think the Guardian posters ar getting more agressive.
There’s an awful lot of glee around as if it’s going to have any effect on the ordinary punter.
I think I might stop reading the guardian – it’s sad but I’m starting to think a lot of the CiF folk are sounding very bitter – it’s like they need to demonise someone else so they can feel better about themselves.
Didn’t MP Ian Davidson say that after a No vote all nationalists should be bayoneted?
@Cyril
Only the wounded ones
Although he might bring in Darling to ensure the dead ones can me made increasingly dead… or something.
In todays Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine reveals in which circumstances she feels it is acceptable to punch cyclists.
In a week when her paper has been going into overdrive about nasty Cybernats saying bad things about Unionists, they then advocate actually physically hitting people who run through red lights.
I try not to cycle in the gutter. I leave it free for the Daily Mail.
An interesting piece on Paul Dacre, by the Newstatesman.
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2013/12/man-who-hates-liberal-britain
Also here’s a realistic view of the Daily Mail, and what it stands for.
http://www.rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail
@ Creigs1707repeal
Gaun yersel – I see they’ve now included YES Scotland in the related links.
If you discovered that the Daily Mail liked you, you would slit your wrists. So I don’t see what the problem is here.
In the meantime, the Telegraph posts a picture of Alex Salmond designed to look as if he is giving a papal blessing. Seriously, the article on BOE meeting.
Deliberate or ‘innocent’ portrayal… make up your own mind.
By the way, I am not religious in any direction. I am a committed Atheist, but I can spot coordinated campaigns from a mile.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Scottish negotiators on the currency exchange said “Well if you want to play hard ball we’ll hold fire on debt repayments till you grow up!”
My earlier reply to Handandshrimp has gone missing?
It was your comment about Kezia Dugdale.
I think it was: ‘Profoundly wee troll’.
You’re on their cyberwatch list.
@alexicon – I think I saw that comment on a different thread. The Mark Carney one?
@ Seasick dave
You have a talking Greyhound that lies? Excellent
Cheers Alexicon 🙂
So, in the Mail’s brave new North Korea it is a crime to call a politician a troll?
FFS! They will support Murphy and co. calling for Draconian curtailing of freedom of speech (probably thinking it won’t affect them) and then bitch for an eternity about how Draconian the new freedom of speech laws are when they try and criticise a Labour politician.
Daily Mail you are total and utter saps and you can pin that on your cybernatwatch board as my prognostication of your future.