28/10/2009

Who doctored the picture, the Mail or the BNP?

This will be a short post, but I'm surprised this hasn't been covered more widely.  In its haste to use Griffin's disastrous appearance on Question last week to attack the BBC (while at the same time, attacking the BNP), the Mail published 'The BNP backlash - MPs accuse BBC of playing into Nick Griffin's hands by stage-managing Question Time onslaught'.



Just over halfway down, you'll notice a reproduction of the instructions allegedly given to Question Time audience members, above the caption 'Be provocative: The instructions handed to audience members along with profiles of the panel, starting with Nick Griffin'.

But, according to Question Time's executive editor, Gavin Allen:
The document that appeared in both the Daily Mail and on its website today is not, contrary to the claim by the Daily Mail, the same document issued to members of the Question Time audience.
The version of the instructions printed in the Daily Mail has Nick Griffin's profile first - the version issued to the audience had Jack Straw's profile first.
When I first saw this, via Heather in a comment at MailWatch, there was an 'enlarge' button on the picture of the instructions, to allow us to see the full document.  That's conveniently disappeared now.  Luckily for us, the full version is still visible by directly accessing the url, but in case that disappears - have a look:


Be provocative: The instructions handed to audience members along with profiles of the panel clearly do not start with Nick Griffin


The paper has clearly removed the 'enlarge' button, but hasn't changed the caption.  The instructions have pretty clearly been Photoshopped - look at the fold in the Nick Griffin entries.  Marvel at how the fold in the top entry doesn't fit with the other ones, and how the text on the left is out of line with the rest of the document.

Now, the unanswerable question is - who did the Photoshopping?  Someone at the paper, or some BNP sympathiser who easily hoodwinked the paper?


See how easy it is to get the Mail to print anything that fits with one of its favourite overarching stories?

**UPDATE** Looking at my Google Analytics today, I noticed a visit from Associated Newspapers to this very page.  "Hmm..." I thought, "wonder if they changed anything as a result."  Know what?  Looks like they have!  The caption now reads 'Be provocative: The instructions handed to audience members along with profiles of the panel, including Nick Griffin's' and the header has been chopped from Griffin's bit so the form is shown in two chunks.

Since there's a possibility of things being acted on by Associated after reading this here blog - how about stopping exaggerating and printing lying-arse crap about immigration, political correctness gone mad, the threat of crime and so on?  Any chance?  You might want to stop the easy practice of regurgitating poorly researched and misleadingly presented stuff from sympathetic pressure groups while you're at it.

Ta.


4 comments:

Quinn said...

Weird. Also the way that Nick Griffin's profile appears twice, and Jack Straw's not at all. Wonder why they bothered.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Good work but worryingly many Fail readers will think this is real.

Quietzapple said...

More Dully Maul dissembling, is there a book? Coffee table size perhaps?

With follow up volumes on the Dully Tele et al?

Five Chinese Crackers said...

If there was a book of Daily Mail dissembling, it'd be bigger than a coffee table.