This Daily Mail correction is attracting quite a bit of attention due to the original, false accusation made against former British prime minister Gordon Brown:
An article on Monday said that in the past three and a half years Gordon Brown had claimed more than £316,000 in salary and ‘personal expenses’ such as water bills, airfares and petrol. This is not correct nor was the statement that he never forgets to claim his expenses. We accept that Mr Brown does not claim any ‘personal expenses’, neither for accommodation, utilities, personal travel, nor living expenses of any kind.
The U.K.-based Media Blog, which brought it to my attention, also provides a helpful comparison of the size and placement of the correction versus the original article. Here’s the breakdown, from that site:
One aspect to note is the original claim was carried in a column by Andrew Pierce. The online version of his column has been edited to remove the offending section — but the correction is nowhere to be found.
It’s on a different page online, and makes no mention of the fact that the error was in Pierce’s column. So good luck connecting the two…
If it weren’t for the work of The Media Blog blog and others to help promote the Mail’s correction, it would likely be missed by many.
Publishing a correction is the first step, and the Mail has done that. But every news organization has a responsibility to also ensure their corrections are seen, and make sense in the context of the original error.
This is where many, like the Dail Mail, fall down.
