My 13 complaints against one Daily Mail story

A front-page news story by the Daily Mail in January 2014 that buses and planes to Britain from Romania and Bulgaria were 'full-up and sold-out' was untrue. 

The newspaper asserted that planes and busloads of Romanians and Bulgarians were on their way to Britain in the New Year of 2014 because 'work restrictions' had been lifted.  But with the help of Romanian journalist, Alina Matis, we discovered 13 shocking errors or disputed facts in the story.  

Newspaper lies can cost lives

Heaven help anybody that the media or the government turns against – that’s what I told 'Russia Today' TV last year, but the interview was never broadcast.  Hardly surprising, really, since in Russia the media mostly is the government.  

In Russia, they don’t have a press regulator like we do. But is our system any better?

Daily Express Fury About Illegal Immigrants

Today’s Daily Express front page headline screamed, ‘Fury over Britain’s 2m illegal migrants’.  

Yet, on closer scrutiny, the ‘fury’ should instead be about the Express’s careless journalism.  The ‘exclusive’ statistic, claimed the Express, came from 'think tank' Migration Watch – yet Migration Watch this morning denied this, and announced that they, “declined to cooperate in this story”.

The UK government described the Daily Express number of 'illegal migrants' as a 'guestimate' and fact-checking organisation, FullFact.org today reported that nobody actually knows the true statistic, but previous estimates put the number of illegal migrants in Britain at between 417,000 and 1.1 million. The FullFact headline read, 'Think tank says it didn't estimate Express '2 million illegal migrants' figure

Campaigning for a free and accountable press

Campaigning journalist, Jon Danzig, with actor, Hugh Grant

On Tuesday night at a private drinks reception in London hosted by the campaign group Hacked Off:  with actor Hugh Grant, who is supporting my complaint against the Daily Mail.