The Daily Telegraph - broadsheet or tabloid?

[Mise]

Hello, this is a public service announcement that aims to dispel any myths that The Daily Telegraph is a serious newspaper, with serious journalists who actually do any research whatsoever into their stories.

But first, here's a prank call by comedy writer Robert Popper to LBC radio's Sunday morning show, claiming that Gordon Brown flew into such a rage that he threw a tangerine into a lamination machine while on a visit to a factory:


Link to video.

Don't worry if you can't watch youtube clips right now, or think that 2:20 is too long to listen to something so outrageously funny, because Jim Pickard of the Financial Times (a serious newspaper) has provided an abridged transcript:

“I have experienced, I have always liked, er, Gordon Brown, I think he’s a very decent man, I’ve had an experience, I’m retired now but last year he visited our place of work, I won’t name the place, obviously, but it was an industrial workshop that made lamination machines, it was to promote British engineering.

“He came along, he was very very polite, I actually shook his hand, but while we were having a tour of the workshop I witnessed his anger sort of eye witness if you see what I mean.

“I received a phone call and I just heard, we knew there was something up because he was saying, no, oh no, please don’t tell me, that happened or is true, something like that.

“……he threw a tangerine which he had, and it hit a machine, the actual lamination machine, and the actual fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged the whole machine, the whole machine broke down because of the peel, and it was very embarrassing, we had to sort of stop the tour and he got even more angry and he called the person that gave him the tangerine an idiot and shouted.

“They sat him down…you could see they were giving him tea and calming him down.

“And then he apologised and afterwards he gave a signed photograph of us which we put up but someone stole. But I have witnessed at first hand, it’s very strange.”

Pickard, being the intelligent sort of journalist working for the FT, had serious doubts about the caller's authenticity.

The Sun, unfortunately, had no such doubts:

A FACTORY worker claims that during an official visit to his plant the PM hurled a tangerine into a laminating machine after flying into a rage while on a phone call. He said: "The fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged it.

"It was very embarrassing, we had to stop the tour and he got even more angry. He called the person that gave him the tangerine an idiot."

But we all know tabloid journalism is an oxymoron. They regularly report rumour as fact, without researching the story or demanding any kind of corroboration before reporting it. Broadsheets, on the other hand, are supposed to be serious newspapers, with serious journalists who actually research into their stories.

In fact, not one single broadsheet reported "the incident".

Oh, that is, unless you count The Daily Telegraph as a broadsheet:

Gordon Brown accused of throwing a tangerine

Gordon Brown has been accused of breaking a machine by hurling a tangerine into it after losing his temper during a visit to a factory.

The incident allegedly occurred while the Prime Minister was taking a phone call during an official tour of a plant.

One of the factory workers told The Sun Mr Brown became angry and threw a tangerine he was holding into a laminating machine causing it to breakdown.

The worker said: "The fruit got stuck in the machine and clogged it. It was very embarrassing we had to stop the tour and he got even more angry. He called the person who gave him the tangerine an idiot."

The claim comes after allegations in a book by the political commentator Andrew Rawnsley that Mr Brown is prone to temper outbursts and has even shoved aides in the past.

Number 10 has vehemently denied the claims, but the row took a fresh twist yesterday when the chief executive of the National Bullying Helpline, Christine Pratt, claimed her charity had received a complaint from someone naming Mr Brown.

The Sun also reported claims from a security source that the Prime Minister had thrown a mobile phone in anger while being driven in his official car. The phone is said to have hit his police driver in the ear.

Political blogger Iain Dale also claimed that IT experts were called in to fix the Prime Minister's computer after the keyboard was smashed through the screen.

Downing Street has denied all the claims and Mr Brown's allies have rallied to his support insisting he is a passionate leader but not prone to outbursts of temper.

Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg have both called for an inquiry into claims of aggression and bullying within the Prime Minister's office.

Hmm. Lets recap, shall we?

1) 2 minute prank call made to LBC radio's Sunday morning programme.
2) The Sun writes a short paragraph about it midway through an article about Gordon Brown's "alleged" bullying (none of which, incidentally, the FT points out, has been corroborated).
3) The Daily Telegraph blows this up into an entire article, carrying the prank call's allegations in the headline.
4) They do absolutely no research into the background of the story, claiming the allegations were made to The Sun - when in fact they were made to LBC.
5) It's little wonder, then, that they haven't twigged that it was a prank, reporting the story in "he said this then she said that then he did this then this other thing happened" fashion so typical of useless news media.

They also report allegations made by "political blogger Iain Dale", who is in fact a well known Conservative party blogger, who stood for parliamentary election in 2005 but failed spectacularly (he ran for a previously highly marginal seat, which the Lib Dems won by just 483 votes in 2001, but which Iain Dale somehow managed to lose by 10,000 in 2005).

One wonders whether The Daily Telegraph has made the conscious decision to abandon any attempt at being considered serious broadsheet journalism, or whether it happened slowly and unintentionally, fostered by a culture of complete indifference towards "journalistic integrity", "researching stories", and pesky details like "facts". Remember how bloody useless they are, next time you use The Daily Telegraph as a source


TL;DR VERSION:
Comedian Robert Popper makes prank call to LBC radio, claiming that Gordon Brown lost his rag and threw a tangerine into a lamination machine on a factory visit. The Daily Telegraph reports obvious prank unquestioningly. Everybody lols.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Do they do this sort of thing regularly?

 

[Formaldehyde]

If someone accused Obama of a similar act, it would likely be worldwide news no matter how true or false it actually was.

And it does appear that Brown's temper is notorious.

Spoiler :

Gordon Brown's abusive behaviour and volcanic eruptions of foul temper left Downing Street staff so frightened that he received an unprecedented reprimand from the head of the civil service, an explosive new book by the Observer's Andrew Rawnsley reveals today.

Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, became so alarmed by the prime minister's behaviour that he launched his own investigations when he received reports of Brown's bullying of staff. O'Donnell then gave the prime minister a stern "pep talk" and ordered him to change his behaviour. "This is no way to get things done," he told Brown.

The revelation that the prime minister's behaviour was so extreme that it triggered a warning from Whitehall's most powerful official will shock the political world and is bound to lead to claims from his opponents that he is not fit for another five years in office as a general election draws near.

Or is the Guardian a taboid as well?

 

[Quackers]

read all this propaganda and make a decision. no ty.

 

[Mise]

If someone accused Obama of a similar act, it would likely be worldwide news no matter how true or false it actually was.

And it does appear that Brown's temper is notorious.



Or is the Guardian a taboid as well?

The Daily Telegraph reported a prank phone call from a comedian as genuine news. If you didn't bother reading my post then you perhaps shouldn't attempt to comment.

 

[Formaldehyde]

No, they reported that the Sun reported that it was so. While I do agree that they should have researched it further before posting the article, I really don't see how you can blame them. Newspapers and other media do this all the time.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, tabloids do this all the time. Broadsheets have real journalists, who actually research what they report -- which is why no broadsheet carried the story.

 

[Formaldehyde]

They all quote each other without discerning whether or not the original media's source was reliable or not, at least in this country.

You can certainly poke fun at The Sun all you want for being duped, but I really don't see how you can blame the Telegraph for merely reporting what the Sun alleged while making it perfectly clear that was what they were doing.

As I said before, if any US media made a similar statement about Obama, they would all likely report about it both before and after it turned out to be a hoax. And so would the rest of the world. It has already happened numerous times.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah it's a cryptofascist rag.

Oh, you mean the UK Telegraph?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Hoaxes that have fooled journalists.

 

[Mise]

No. Notoriously bad tabloid newspapers, such as The Sun, quote each other without discerning fact from fiction. Good quality broadsheets actually research the stories they report, in order to maintain their high standings as reputable news sources. Not only did The Daily Telegraph fail to ascertain the authenticity of a story it ran, it also claimed that the worker told The Sun -- that wasn't true at all, and The Sun never claimed the worker spoke to them. The prank caller, who pretended to be a worker, contacted LBC radio's Sunday morning programme; The Sun picked it up from there, and the Telegraph falsely claimed that the worker spoke directly to The Sun.

 

[Mise]

Hoaxes that have fooled journalists.

Except this didn't fool journalists, this fooled The Sun and The Daily Telegraph. Did it fool any serious journalist? No. No broadsheet newspapers reported this, because broadsheet newspapers would have easily found out after some brief research that the call was a prank.

 

[Formaldehyde]

First story from the URL I posted above:

Spoiler :

When composer Maurice Jarre died on March 28, 2009, many of the journalists given the job of writing an obituary for him turned to Wikipedia for information about his life. There they found the following quotation attributed to him: "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."

Although the quotation was unsourced, it nevertheless made its way into a number of newspapers including the Guardian, the London Independent, and the Sydney Morning Herald. However, those words did not belong to Jarre. They belonged to Shane Fitzgerald, a twenty-two-year-old student at University College Dublin. He had added the fictitious quotation to Jarre's Wikipedia page the day after the man died. Wikipedia editors twice deleted it, but the third time Fitzgerald added it, it managed to remain on the site for 25 hours, where it was then seen and copied by reporters.

Fitzgerald exposed his hoax a month later by sending a letter to newspapers. He explained his deception as an experiment to explore the relationship between the media and the internet. He told the Guardian, "My aim was to show that an undergraduate university student in Ireland can influence what newspapers are doing around the world and also that the reliance of newspapers on the internet can lead to some faults."

The media gets hoaxed all the time, including "broadsheets". They also report on these stories all the time without verifying the information themselves. They don't have ulimited resources.

What disturbs me is not that mistakes are occasionally made by the media. It is when they are not corrected.

 

[Earthling]

If those are the best "hoaxes" you've got that's actually really sad. I mean, not to say that journalists don't report utter nonsense all the time - but only a handful of lame cases (UFOs, really?) over a course of years doesn't seem so bad for journalists.

I don't follow British newspapers much but I haven't heard of this one as reputable, like the Guardian, so thumbed down.

 

[Mise]

@Formaldehyde: Well if you're simply going to ignore my posts I'll simply ignore yours Have fun posting things to yourself.

 

[Formaldehyde]

@ Mise. You do realize that I cannot instantly see your posts, especially when I am editing my own. Right?

 

[Earthling]

Well, no I'll be willing to keep talking about how journalism is a failing business, from the beginning of people studying it in college rather than better disciplines through most of their eventual outcomes as bloggers with dreams of local television anchoring.

 

[Mise]

@ Mise. You do realize that I cannot instantly see your posts, especially when I am editing my own. Right?

My comment stands even post-edit. No serious newspaper reported it. Why? Because no serious newspaper made the amateurish mistakes of The Daily Telegraph.