Press Gazette wrote:Express to be found as worst offender for misleading Anti-EU coverage
The 25 anti-EU stories which prompted IPSO complaints in the run up to the 2016 referendum
1. Daily Express, 18 January 2016; Europe’s leaders have no plan to cut immigration
The article claimed there was an “annual tidal wave of 228,000 non-EU migrants who use European passports to gain access to Britain”.
The online version of the article was amended on 4 March to reflect that the 228,000 figure was not an annual one, but referred to the total number of EU citizens born outside the EU living in Britain.
On 19 April, IPSO ordered the Express to also issue a print correction for the error.
Verdict: SERIOUSLY MISLEADING
2. Daily Express, 12 November 2015; 75 % of new jobs go to EU migrants in one year
The page-two article reported figures from the Office of National Statistics. The complainant said that the vast majority of new jobs went to people born in the UK. He said the figure refers to changes in employment rather than new jobs.
The Express corrected the story: “The figures referred to, published by the Office for National Statistics, refer to net changes in employment and not to the number of people entering employment, or new jobs. The figures showed that the number of UK Nationals in employment increased by 122,000 compared to an increase of 324,000 in non-UK EU nationals.”
Verdict: SERIOUSLY MISLEADING
3. Express.co.uk, 29 January 2016; Now European Union bureaucrats could make Britons put out SEVEN bins every week
Peter Jones complained that the article reported an academic study commissioned by the European Union has if it were policy. The complaint was resolved via IPSO when the Express agreed to take the story down just after a month later.
Verdict: SERIOUSLY MISLEADING
4. Daily Telegraph, 6 February 2016; Abu Hamza and the latest blow to British Sovereignty
This front-page story stated that an ‘EU law chief’ had ruled that the daughter-in-law of a terrorist could not be deported from the UK.
The complaint was upheld by IPSO just over two months later and resolved by the Telegraph publishing a correction on page two and amending the online version of the article. The correction reflects that this was an opinion of the EU advocate general, rather than ruling that would be applied to the UK.
Verdict: MISLEADING
5. The Telegraph, Mail Online, Express websites, 17 February 2016; More than 700 offences are being committed by EU migrants every week, official figures suggest; Criminal convictions for EU migrants leap by 40% in five years: 700 found guilty every week in the UK but less than 20,000 foreign criminals have been deported; EU migrants convicted of 700 crimes each WEEK – but only thousands of them are deported –
In Facts said the stories were misleading because they did not make clear that they were not based on conviction data, but were “convictions and ‘updates’ to convictions such as appeals and breaches of court orders”.
Verdict: MISLEADING
6. Daily Express, 8 March 2016; Now EU wants asylum control – Madness as Brussels plots to tell us who can come and stay in our country
In Facts said this front-page story was a follow-up from a piece in the FT and was misleading because it did not make clear David Cameron had promised to opt out of the European Commission proposal.
Article amended on 20 June 2016 to make clear the UK has an opt out and would not be forced to join any new system.
Verdict: PARTIALLY MISLEADING
7. Daily Express website, 7 March 2016; EU seeks control of our coasts
The Express said: “The EU has drawn up plans to seize control of the British coastguard service as it creates a Europe-wide border force.”
In Facts said the European Commission proposals only applied to Shengen area countries (so not the UK).
IPSO ruled the article was not misleading: “As a member of the EU, there was a possibility that the UK could be subject to these new proposals.”
Verdict: NOT MISLEADING
8. The Sun, 9 March 2016; The Queen backs Brexit
Following a complaint from Buckingham Palace over this front-page story, IPSO ruled that it was “significantly misleading”. The Sun was forced to publish the adjudication setting this out on page two, with a small mention of the correction on page one.
Verdict: SERIOUSLY MISLEADING
9. Mail Online, 30 March 2016; Britain could stop ten times more terror suspects from entering the country if it leaves the EU, justice minister says as he blasts EU rules for allowing terrorists to ‘waltz into Britain’
In Facts said: “Dominic Raab, the pro-Brexit justice minister, never said the UK could ‘stop ten times more terror suspects’ if it left the EU. He said that, since 2010, the UK has refused entry at its borders to 67,000 non-EU citizens compared to 6,000 EU citizens.” It also said that not all those stopped were terror suspects, so the headline was wrong.
Mail Online has since changed the headline to say: “Britain has stopped 67,000 non-EU nationals from entering the country but only 6,000 EU nationals, justice minister says as he blasts EU rules for allowing terrorists to ‘waltz into Britain’”.
Verdict: MISLEADING
10. Mail Online, 3 April 2016; Report shows the NHS is nearly at breaking point as massive influx of EU migrants forces doctors to take on 1.5 million extra patients in just three years
In Facts said the extra patients figure quoted included increases due to life expectancy and migration from outside the EU.
After being contacted by In Facts Mail Online changed the headline to read: “Figures show strain on NHS as doctors take on 1.5million extra patients in just three years – with Vote Leave campaigners blaming rise in EU migrants.”
Verdict: SERIOUSLY MISLEADING
You can check out the full rundown at:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/fake-news ... apers-was/