Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

22Sep/096

Next stop: Racism central


This journey terminates at Riot, calling at Fear, Exploitation, Prejudice, Xenophobia, Lies and Shit Journalism.

Yes, it's the Mail again, doing what they do best: lying about immigration. You'll see from the URL on this story about the clearance of "The Jungle" that originally the story was about "Britain-obsessed" asylum seekers who were going to be allowed in to Britain 'at the earliest convenience' thanks to the European Justice Commissioner.

Yesterday, that Justice Commissioner says:

On Monday a spokesman for EU justice commissioner Jacques Barrot denied reports he had called for a change in the law to allow some migrants to be fast-tracked into the UK.
Michele Cercone told the BBC there was no attempt to force countries to take asylum seekers and Mr Barrot was urging France and the UK to "find a joint solution".

How odd that the Mail didn't ask him for a quote before saying he'd said the exact opposite! Why, it's almost as if they wanted to create an entirely false impression. Whoopsy! Of course, having said something which has been directly contradicted, the Mail have done the decent journalistic thing and printed a correction. Oh no hang on a minute, they haven't. They've simply deleted the original story and pretended it never existed. Classy.

Also in the original story, there was a claim that the "Britain-obsessed" asylum seekers had been 'groomed as suicide bombers'. Yet in fact these are people who had fled from the Taliban. Kind of almost as if they didn't like suicide bombings, or something.

So there you have the Mail's journalistic standards. Print a load of fearmongering rubbish about immigration and asylum, then hastily delete it from the internet and walk away whistling, pretending it never happened.

You can bet that some will have noticed those bullshit headlines, though - our friends at the EDL, who used a compendium of Mail atrocities to further their cause in a recent video. They'll have lapped it right up thanks to their friends at the Mail. Is it irresponsible of the Mail to be like this? Undoubtedly? Do they care? Of course not. Immigrants painted as perpetrators when in fact they're victims: perfect. "They're all coming over here" when in fact they're not: perfect. Job done.

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Comments (6) Trackbacks (0)
  1. The Mail and media outlets like it who lie about the ease at which people gain entry to the UK and the benefits they get once they're here are pretty much responsible for these people becoming 'Britain obsessed'.

  2. I love that the sign the refugees are displaying quite clearly states 'Europe'. They want to live in 'Europe' not necessarily the U.K. Just somewhere nice and safe. Somwhere we haven't blown the shit out of probably.

  3. What I love about the front page is that the Mail has been banging on for years – it warned that Return of Sangatte – Countless immigrants plot to slip into UK in 2007.

    Now that the camp is being razed, somehow these migrants who have been plotting and plotting to come to the UK are going to magically arrive – as if they just couldn't be bothered to before.

  4. That cover is heavy, heavy stuff, really ramping up the fear and invasion imagery.

  5. Don't worry I'm sure the impartial PCC will step in to stop such irresponsible….

    Sorry, couldn't finish that sentence, realised how ridiculous it sounds.

  6. I had a chilling experience yesterday on this very issue. Mrs Akela talked me into going to see Loose Women (don't worry I talked her into letting me go to the footy in the evening in return).

    Anyway this issue, complete with the Mail front page came up and the stupid bint that is Carol McGriffin decided to take on the persona of Littlecock and bang on about how all these migrants were swamping the country etc including the out right lie that they had all been offered asylum by France. Worst of all nearly the entire studio agreed, turning into nothing short of a baying mob.

    Most extraordinary of all the "warmer upper comedy chap" or whatever he is known as decided to engage the audiance in debate during an ad break and tried giving them a few facts and figures on immigration. It seemed to be him plus me and MA versus a whole studio of "send em all home" brigade.

    It left me really quite uncomfortable and is, I think, a direct result of the coverage of papers like the Mail.


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