This Daily Mail correction is an extraordinary and very satisfying read
You might remember a little while ago a brilliant thread by someone called Marwan Muhammad who took issue with a Daily Mail story about ‘illegal immigrants’ in Paris and the ‘tensions in a community at odds with mainstream society’.
The forensic deconstruction of the Mail piece went madly viral because it was so brilliantly done.
Now the Mail has published a correction to the story and it’s going viral all over again. This is why.
That's quite the apology. #DailyMail pic.twitter.com/siGQQ8CpLD
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) February 6, 2019
And just in case that’s tricky to read, this might make it a little bit easier.
Shame it won’t get the prominence the original story did, so we’re happy to do our bit to help as many people as possible to see it.
Here are some of our favourite things people are saying about it.
https://twitter.com/BBCDanielS/status/1093087392523829249
The clarifications should be as big as the initial headlines. The error in/laziness of the original article has already caused damage as most people won’t bother to read the clarification. Also, clarification suggests it was true but needs further explanation.
— Leroy (@leemwales) February 6, 2019
Neither error nor laziness. Deliberate, cynical flame-fanning, knowing the worst that'll happen is they publish something like this.
— Chris Kearney (@ChrisKearney3) February 6, 2019
The number of innaccuracies in the original piece would be staggering if this wasn't the Daily Heil. https://t.co/iPCLM9E0La
— Brian Moore (@brianmoore666) February 6, 2019
could have saved themselves some column inches if they had just said "every place we quoted was wrong, every figure we quoted was wrong, the theme was wrong, and generally we were just stirring things up – sorry(ish)"
— Distant Ship_Smoke (@distant_smoke) February 6, 2019
I'm sure there was one correct figure in there, The date at the top of the page, although I'd still check to make sure
— mr_ceebs (@mr_ceebs) February 6, 2019
Wow! It’s incredible that they can just carry on with a “sorry”. That’s regulation not applied to other industries. https://t.co/nqSkoWflVW
— Adil Ray OBE (@adilray) February 6, 2019
This is from someone who complained about the article after it first appeared.
Daily Mail apologise for 8 serious inaccuracies that undermine the fundamental premise of the hatchet job written by Andrew Malone about Muslim immigrants in Paris – after my complaint (6 months after the original article) pic.twitter.com/LyKpATNkWh
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) February 6, 2019
Others said it showed the need for further regulation of the press.
https://twitter.com/0Calamity/status/1093061247405314048
There was also this important point.
Indeed, though none of it is actually an apology.
— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) February 6, 2019
And if you want to read the brilliant takedown of the original article by Marwan Muhammad , you can find it here.