Page two corrections to 'sloppy' front page mistakes can be legitimate, PCC says

The PCC said that two Daily Mail articles published in May and July respectively had breached the Editors' Code of Practice, but said that its offers to correct the mistakes had been in line with the rules of the Code.

Under the Code newspapers "must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures". Significant inaccuracies, misleading statements and distortions must be corrected promptly when spotted and apologies published, where appropriate, with "due prominence".

Full Fact, a fact-checking organisation, had complained that two front page stories published by the Daily Mail had contained inaccuracies. In the May article the paper had wrongly stated that the UK spent the largest percentage of its national income on aid of any country in the world, the PCC said. In its July story the paper had wrongly reported that the number of pupils excluded from school for violent behaviour every day had doubled to approximately 1,000 in the space of a year, the press watchdog said.

When the Daily Mail offered to publish corrections in page two of the paper Full Fact rejected the proposal and argued that the paper should have to publish the corrections on the front page. The PCC upheld Full Fact's complaints about the inaccuracies but said page two corrections would be proportionate to address the mistakes.

"It may be appropriate, on some occasions, for a correction to a front page story to be published on the front page, and the PCC has negotiated such texts in the past," the PCC said in its adjudication.

"The Commission does not believe that every front-page error, in whatever context, must be corrected in the same location. In these cases, the Commission had to have regard for the full context of the errors," it said.

"While the mistakes were sloppy, the issues were not personal to [Full Fact] and had not caused personal harm. In addition, in the Commission's view, the errors did not render the coverage of either story to be wholly inaccurate, including on the front page. In the full circumstances of the complaints raised on this occasion, page 2 corrections (within a new column) were proportionate. The Commission expected that the corrections should be published at the earliest opportunity, after the publication of this adjudication," the press watchdog said.

Last month Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, the company that owns the Daily Mail, announced that the paper, along with sister titles the Metro and Mail on Sunday, would be carrying a dedicated 'corrections and clarifications' column on page two.

The newspaper industry has previously been criticised for not highlighting their mistakes and apologies as prominently as stories that contained inaccuracies in the first place. In its adjudication the PCC said that publications should inform readers of mistakes.

"A regular (and appropriately prominent) location for corrections can mean additional prominence for the rectification of mistakes, and the Commission considered that it was good practice for newspapers and magazines to make use of this facility," it said.

The press watchdog said that there was no "exact" formula to determining where in publications mistakes should be owned up to.

"The issue of 'due prominence' will never be an exact one, and there will always be legitimate calls for newspapers and magazines to highlight corrections with greater clarity," the PCC said.

"When considering the issue of 'due prominence', the Commission has strong regard for the location of the original article. However, this cannot be the only determining factor. The Commission will consider the full circumstances surrounding the complaint: the nature of the breach of the Code; the scale of the error; the full context of the story; and the existence or otherwise of a designated corrections column," it said.

"Whatever the circumstances, however, the appearance on two separate occasions of significant inaccuracies on the newspaper's front page was a matter of serious concern to the Commission. It was incumbent on the newspaper to correct the record in an appropriate way," it said.

The Editors' Code is a set of self-regulatory standards journalists should observe when reporting and includes rules on accuracy, intrusion into grief and privacy and secret recordings.

The PCC can 'name and shame' publications that break the Code and ask them to publish apologies, but it has no legal powers to enforce punishments such as fines for violations of the Code.