There is little the Daily Telegraph likes better than bashing the BBC, and the paper was on the attack again in its editorial leader column of February 1, lambasting the corporation for its coverage of the Washington air crash and Donald Trump’s pinning of the blame on diversity schemes.
Under the headline “The BBC’s Trump problem”, the Torygraph laid into the BBC for saying Trump’s comments about the accident being the result of DEI policies were made “without giving evidence”. It went on to describe the BBC’s approach in providing this “unique coverage” as “an unusual editorial choice for an impartial news organisation to make”.
Just how “unique” was this coverage? Not entirely – at least one other media outlet did likewise, reporting how “President Donald Trump has suggested, without evidence, that the mid-air collision was the result of the Federal Aviation Administration’s efforts to hire a more diverse workforce”. That media outlet? Er, the very same edition of the Daily Telegraph, three pages earlier.
Meanwhile the Telegraph’s embarrassment continues over its nonsensical front-page story claiming that one in 12 Londoners was an illegal migrant. The paper has been reported to press watchdog IPSPO for magicking up the figure by using the highest possible estimate of a largely uncountable subgroup and a population figure for London around two million lower than the actual one.
Following the complaint from academic Jonathan Portes, other news organisations that picked up the figure have issued corrections, and the Telegraph has printed its own – of a sort. It has added 86 words to the end of the article online stating that its erroneous figure for London’s population was actually “the estimated population of the Thames Water London Water Resource Zone” and that its number of illegal migrants “includes children born in the UK with irregular status and, it is understood, those with indefinite leave to remain”.
Given that it concedes its story was dodgy, and it originally appeared as the print splash, this non-apology has not satisfied Portes. “This has not resolved my complaint to IPSO – I will continue to request a front-page correction,” he says.
