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Watchdog rules on Hull Daily Mail 'porncoder' exposé

The Press Complaints Commission has issued a mild wrist slap to the Hull Daily Mail for its coverage of Paul Smith - the man behind local news site HU17.net who was discovered to have a bit of previous form knocking together smut websites. Back in March, the Mail ran a series of stories headlined "Town website publisher's porn …

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Stop

the PCC

is run by newspapers, for newspapers.

You killed a man once just to watch him die

At least it is the sort of thing that you might have done if you were that sort of person, and who is to say that you aren't?

Headlines can only be fully understood in the context of an article when read as a whole. Therefore it doesn't matter, apparently, if the headline itself is outrageously untrue, evenewhen it is likely to be the only part of the story that many people see, on account of it's printed much larger than all the rest.

* "Spilled it over her breasts" *

Furthermore I am assuming that the same principle applies to whatever you call the, um, sub-headings in larger and bolder type sprinkled through the text body and, so a casual reader might assume, indicative of the content as a whole. But it is the casual reader who is at fault if they do not read the article as a whole. It isn't the fault of the writers and editors who carefully design their output to create that impression to an incautious observer who may even be only browsing the paper in the shop. By the way, while you were distracted reading this, I have taken your wallet. So who is the wrongdoer there? You are! Obviously! I am not at fault at all!

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

Ah, tabloid hypocirsy...

So they splutter outrage at legitimate businesses, but continue to advertise escort girls who operate under dubious legality. Pretty much the same view I had after the Sun et al kept having exposés of "sordid perverts" (i.e. a group of people who got together to have consensual sex causing no harm to anyone else) while advertising porn chat lines, movies etc in the back pages. I suspect the journalists were just jealous that someone else was getting it instead of them...

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Reminds me of a NOTW front page headline a couple years back

It was to do with George Michael being caught gay cruising again, typical "ban this sick filth" article

Yet inside the paper, a 2-page spread on the new phenomenon of dogging, with a guide to the best spots and other tips and tricks.

Tabloid hypocrisy knows no bounds

winshite

scumbag paper anyway. i used to live next door to the offices. 4am every morning some twat shouting about whilst delivering all the stuff....

what do you expect anyway - the daily mail bit gives it away! IIRC the hull daily mail actually gets money from 'the daily mail' as it was the first paper to call itself that.

Joke

Even worse than that...

The reporter broke the Ts and Cs or Facebook! Someone tell MrZ about the "bitch"!

Anonymous Coward
Coat

Vlie Monster!

Damn him, damn him to hul...oh wait..

Anonymous Coward
Stop

escort girls

you can get actual real escort girls from newspaper ads!? really, i've never seen one, just those premium rate sex chat number things..

is there some coded language i should look out for?

Yes

A quick search of classifieds of the HDM site reveals adverts for 'escort agencies' and numerous ads for 'personal services' .

Now maybe they really want to escort you somewhere and a 'themed massage' is just a back rub with some exotic oil, but somehow I don't think so..

FAIL

What a huge surprise.

The PCC is just an exercise in whitewashing.

Having a watchdog run by the industry it is supposed to regulate is like a football club providing it's own referee and linesmen to regulate the games it plays. This was a deliberate attempt to sabotage a competing new media business with a combination of innuendo and outright lying by an outdated and thoroughly unpleasant local rag.

The story was NOT in the public interest in any way - The Hull Daily Mail themselves publish adverts for sex chat lines and 'masseurs', making any attempt to take the moral high ground utterly hypocritical. A real watchdog would have immediately identified this as a cynical attempt to smear the competition and would have administered a lot more than a slap on the wrist.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

PCC

PCC always has been and always will be a joke.

Pint

Those complaining about the PCC

The PCC's Editor's Code is, granted, a lot more liberal than the regulations that NUJ journalists have to abide by, but at least the PCC has ruled against such a pathetic attempt to make news out of a non-story.

Perhaps they have learned from the Mosley affair/lawsuit after all.

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Hypocrisy of the highest order

Let me get this straight - Mr Smith was investigated and reported for having designed some dodgy websites, and in doing so he is not a fit person to design HU17.net? Why not?

So by the same token, a printing press that prints children's books should not be used to print jazz mags? I wonder if the HDM's printing facility is used in such a way. Clearly they are printing HDM which could in itself be classed as dangerous (for poisoning innocent minds and whipping up lynch mobs) and disgusting (for printing those vile ads in the back of their rag).

I also see that the reporter used dishonest tactics to entrap Mr Smith - including fraudulent use of Facebook.

What a twisted bunch of twats.

FAIL

das ist failed.

what the fark is it with newspapers with 'Mail' in the title? is there some general agreement to be a piss-poor publication because of that word?

I think you'll find

That it's newspapers with "The" in the title that are quite often guilty of this.

Anonymous Coward
Flame

Running a thriving business

"The Commission was satisfied that the public interest argument advanced by the newspaper - to the effect that the ongoing design of websites connected to the sex industry was incompatible with the complainant's role in a prominent local community website"

Well I think the PCC are a bit behind the times. We accept gays for who they are. Just because someone is connected with the sex industry does not make them a pervert. So it should not bar them from working in other fields. We should accept people for who they are plain and simple.

Only if the web designer could be shown to be including inappropriate material in his local community websites would there be a public interest case. Anything else is an abuse of privacy.

In fact the story should be a success story showing how a local man is running a thriving business providing services to all without any discrimination at all.

David Cameron is a transexual

So that as a headline is perfectly acceptable, provide that somewhere near the bottom of the page I put a small "He's not really" near the bottom.

For the record, David Cameron is not a transexual.

Happy

RE: David Cameron is a transexual

Well, your headline would not be "illegal" if you could say that, "in your opinion, Mr Cameron used to be a Miss, for the following reasons.....", followed by some proveable facts gathered as part of journalistic research. If, however, you were to claim that he was a transexual without offering any proof then you would be liable for a PCC complaint and probably in quick receipt of a lawyer's letter from Conservative Central Office.

However, you could provide proof that Mr Cameron was a transexual and still fall foul of the law (and the PCC rules) if you were to imply in any way that a transexual lifestyle was less valid or fulfilling than a straight one, or that Mr Cameron was unfit for office simply because he used to be a she. To do so could be labelled a hate crime. So, I would just stick to describing Mr Cameron as a wannabe-Obumbler and leave it at that.

It's the old 'deny a story headline' trick

Viz magazine takes it to it's logical conclusion with headlines such as:

"Royal press office denies Queen addicted to crack cocaine"

and so on. The story is true enough, but gives the impression of something else.

the laziest of lazy journalism.

You guys are amateurs

"IS DAVID CAMERON A TRANSSEXUAL?"

(continued page 94)

p94

no

Welcome

Viz is superb at this kind of thing

Another trick they use is making an absolutely absurd, and probably libelous, headline, then following it with "claim" e.g. "Noel Edmunds kill puppies for pleasure - claim".

They don't always get away with their headlines in Viz. I remember them having to print a formal apology after running the headline "The Thieving Gypsy Bastards". But that was a long time ago (~1993). Most people don't bother suing Viz for what they write as its clearly a load of cobblers.

One of my favourite random Viz headline, from a very old issue was:

"WIG WAM BAN - Queen says NO to Royal Tee Pees".

Of course the more recent "Noel Edmunds is a Twat" has more facts in it than the HDM story about the HU17.net site.

P

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

it's all fair comment

Actually newspapers can say whatever they like, true or otherwise if it is a "comment". This is how Jan Moir escaped any comeback at all for her hateful, inaccurate, insensitive article about Stephen Gately.

Same goes for all headlines - they do not have to be factual as they are treated by the PCC as "Comment" rather than fact.

Anonymous Coward
FAIL

Nothing new

The reason I only bother with free papers now. If I just want something to read to kill time at least I haven't paid for the privilege of being lied to by scum gutter press.

The one story that always springs to mind is the one back in the 80s of the editor of the Star running a story about some 15 year old girl. Stated she's only 16 now, but she'll be 16 in a week's time at which point she'll show you her nipples. A perfect example of the wonderful tabloid world, banging on about stringing up the paedo-filth on page X then then promoting oogling naked 16 year olds on page Y.

Anonymous Coward
Unhappy

@ Nothing new

Don't forget in the early 70s that bastion of moral rectitude 'The Sun' not only did nude pix of Sam Fox on page 3 when she was 16 they also did ones of a 15 year old porn star about the same time. No idea of her real name but was called 'Pia'.

Paris Hilton

@Alpha Tony

"A quick search of classifieds of the HDM site reveals adverts for 'escort agencies' and numerous ads for 'personal services' ."

Presumably all of these `escorts` have been trafficked from Eastern Europe. If you've ever seen the native women of Hull you'll know that you wouldn't touch any of them with a stolen dick.

Coat

RE: @Alpha Tony

"......If you've ever seen the native women of Hull....." Well, I must admit to a passing interest in Poppy Morgan (purely on artistic grounds, honest!), but I would prefer not to meet her in Hull. Even the locals used to modify the "Welcome to Hull" signs by replacing the u with an e. One Hullite used to tell me that everyone from Hull was desperate to get out of Hull, a prime case being Amy Johnson, whom Hullites contend flew all the way to Australia to get away from Hull!

Interestingly, Poppy Morgan doesn't make the Wikipaedia list of famous people from Hull.

/Off to abuse the Wikipaedia editting tool.....

really?

ive lived there and there are some gorgeous women ;)

i guess you went to the wrong clubs. alos, on a saturday day they seem to hide. never any decent ones in the daytime. maybe vampires?

They also made much of

the fact that he covered some sort of sporting event (school sports day?) where he was <blink>photographing children</blink>. Not quite playing the paedo card, but not far off either. Shitheads.

(They didn't have blink tags, it being printed and all, but I bet they wanted to use them)

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

@ Nothing new

Another classic from the Star back in the day:

http://i30.tinypic.com/2yvj77b.jpg

Left side: close up of a 15 year old girl's breasts. "She's a big girl now" "Looking chest swell"

Right side: Outrage over "sick perv spoof programme about child sex" (Brass Eye)

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

All in the name?

Christ, is it some sort of odd law that when you put "mail" in the title of your rag you are also obliged to resort to language like "The sickening porn..." in every second story, even if it only concerns the imminent closure of the local old folks day centre? And does the word "sickening" even exist outside of that peculiarly warped piece of space time occupied by people who read papers whose title includes "mail". After a heated discussion with my Mother, a long term denizen of the Mail Dimension, I did an impromptu google of the respective sites of the Indy, Daily Fail and Torygraph for "sickening", and predictably the Fail hammered the rest on a basic count, with double points for prominence.

Sadly, that was a few years ago and a wormhole has evidently opened up into the normal universe, spewing forth the kind of infectious expressions of utter disgust normally the exclusive preserve of the sexually starved accountants of the home counties. The Guardian now leads the pack by a chunk and the rest are gaining fast. Are we all being subtly remodelled into an entire planet of people with a prurient and ludicrously critical interest in the terminally dull and sad lives of people who appear on telly a lot just because they DO appear on telly a lot?

We're Friar Tucked! Doomed I say, doomed!

re: @paulf

The Theiving Gypsy Bastards....

They were a great band back in the day, although admittedly there may have been drink taken!

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