Tue, 04 Oct 2011 1:31p.m.
By James Murray
For those of you who may not have come across the Daily Mail before, it is a mid-brow UK tabloid, rivalled by no-one for its astonishing level of hypocrisy.
It runs hand-wringing stories about the sexualisation of society, next to exclusives on the size of a celebrity’s new boobs; there isn’t a story in the world they wouldn’t twist to suit their own ends.
They are jingoistic and fearful of other cultures – particularly the WAVES! AND WAVES! of perfectly legal, useful-to-the-economy immigrants from Eastern Europe that genuinely liven up England’s shores on a regular basis.
I’ll have to stop there, otherwise vile hatred will bubble up inside me and I will be in danger of throwing up violently on my keyboard and throw my monitor on the ground like a spoilt toddler.
The guys at http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/ have more patience than I do, and do a fantastic job of keeping track of the UK’s most biased newspaper.
Suffice to say then I was amused by the Daily Mail’s bugger up on the Amanda Knox story.
Thanks to blogger Malcolm Coles for this surprising Daily Mail headline today.
These are some quotes from the story:
"Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction. ...
As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.
A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.
Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.
Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.
Both will be put on a suicide watch for the next few days as psychological assessments are made on each of them but this is usual practice for long term prisoners."
I would normally have sympathy here for their online team. When your deadline is one second ago, 24/7, and there is considerable pressure to be first, mistakes can happen.
It is also reasonably common practice to pre-write a story to some degree - it’s something we do at 3news.co.nz to speed things up.
However, we have two very important rules – the pre-written stories must remain as Word documents until the news has broken, and they must only contain what we can establish as fact before a verdict is reached.
The Daily Mail have clearly shown their colours here - they prefer to make up what happened than report on the facts.
Among the Mail’s incredible predictions were an ability to know Ms Knox’s emotions about the verdict in advance of the verdict, that someone said “justice has been done” (presumably in Italian while leaping round making stereotypically theatrical hand signals) and that Knox sank back into her chair as she received the bad news – a dramatic gesture ripped straight from the best John Grisham courtroom thrillers.
The next time you see or hear the Daily Mail try and claim they have the terrible truth behind some trumped up story about a minority group, remember this and think very carefully about where the real truth lies.
I have meticulously rewritten the story for the Mail below, with the correct headline:
Not Guilty: Amanda Knox breathes huge flames of delight as she receives not guilty verdict from a man who sounds like he is from The Godfather
Amanda Knox clasped her hands to her mouth and looked yearningly to the ceiling; she had just received the “not guilty” verdict she had every single one of her fingers crossed for.
“Freedom,” she thought to herself, as the courtroom around her descended into bacchanalian revelry.
She sunk back into her chair and savoured the moment. For a split second there, her life had hung in the balance.
Mere metres away the Knox family leapt for joy, immediately making plans for a piss-up around Perugia. The champagne would be on Amanda, of course.
The defence team were delighted with the verdict, saying, “for a moment there, we thought we were screwed!”
Knox was released straight onto the streets and immediately hired a unicorn carriage. This is usual practice for successful defendants in an Italian murder trial.
/ends