This is the sequel to the letter Mr Pride wrote a few days ago to the Daily Mail complaining that they had not taken sufficient steps to protect the identities of the two children featured in a grotty story about ‘benefit scroungers’ spending £1,500 on Christmas. Despite the Mail’s justification for the article – that it was passed on to them by the Sun – one of the commenters on this piece, Futureindoubt, provides a bit of further background to the story, which makes it even more shabby and deceptive. According to this commenter, the story is a fabrication, and the couple featured in it were tricked into believing that it would be ‘a light-hearted one’ on ‘providing a good Christmas on a low income’. This explains why the Daily Mail is touchy about an article which was, from its origins, mendacious.
(not satire – it’s the UK press!)
Surprise surprise.
The Daily Mail have written to me rejecting my complaint that they bullied and smeared two young children – and revealed their identities – in one of their articles.
You can see my original letter of complaint here:
Complaint to Paul Dacre chair of press code about Paul Dacre Daily Mail editor
In fact, the Daily Mail’s so-called Readers’ Editor was so outraged that I had actually dared to complain about one of their articles that he or she threatened me that I was being “defamatory”:
“Your claims that the parents referred to in the article had been ‘targeted’, ‘tricked’ and told ‘lies’ by journalists at The Mail Online are untrue, unsubstantiated and defamatory.”
DEFAMATORY: damaging the good reputation of someone; slanderous or libellous.
In other words – dare to complain to us about one of our articles and we might sue you.
So you’d better shut the…
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