Wednesday 25 August 2010

Mail keeps PCC and ASA busy

The PCC has published details of another apology printed by the Daily Mail:

On March 28 an article headed ‘The £450m Rothschild heiress and the ex-crack addict scriptwriter...’ referred to Sacha Gervasi, the award-winning film director, screenwriter and producer.

In fact, Mr Gervasi was never addicted to crack cocaine and never had a £200-a-day drug habit.

He met Ms Jessica de Rothschild at a stage premiere and not through pitching a film idea to her production company.

Their families are not concerned about the relationship. We apologise for any embarrassment caused.

Looking through the list of recently resolved cases on the PCC website, it seems that once again the Mail, plus its Sunday and Scottish editions are still responsible for a vast number of complaints. Of the last 30 'resolved cases', 10 are complaints about a Mail title and five are about the Sun or News of the World.

No other publication has more than two.

Yet Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief at the Mail, is still Chair of the Editor's Code Committee, which oversees the Code of Practice.

And it's not just the PCC that has to deal with them. Today the Advertising Standards Agency ruled a Daily Mail promotion for £15 holidays breached clauses on 'substantiation' and 'truthfulness'. On three counts, they found the Mail had been 'misleading'.

Like the PCC, the ASA doesn't have any meaningful powers of punishment, so the Mail has been told not to run the advert again. But since the offer ends on 10 September, it was never likely to anyway.

That'll teach them.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

Comments are moderated - generally to filter out spam and comments wishing death on people - but other messages will be approved as quickly as possible.