A Fleet Street relic strikes again

Scientists worldwide were alarmed  Jan. 29 when the London Daily Mail reported — inaccurately — that British Meteorological Office had released “temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.”

The Met Office immediately issued a press release saying the article contained “numerous errors in the reporting.”

In other words, the Mail just seems to have just fabricated the data they attributed to the Met Office.  They just made it up. Invented it.  Pulled it out of the air.  Lied.  (Could it be any clearer?)

This would be outrageous for an actual NEWSpaper, but it’s standard procedure for the Daily Mail —  one of the grotesque and humble relics that once adorned Fleet Street the way gargoyles have graced Notre Dame cathedral.

The Mail is a “red top” tabloid, and its editors and reporters are known for their inventive and malicious creativity, as opposed to accuracy or
professionalism.   Which of course, has led to dozens of libel suits in
recent decades.

It was started in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth (who became Lord Northcliffe).
He said he “struck a gold mine”  when the paper achieved a circulation of
400,000 overnight and a million by the early 1900s. It was built on the previous success of a Harmsworth publication called Answers, which asked its readers things like:  Can fish speak? Do dogs commit murder? How many people cross London Bridge each day? How much gold is in the Bank of England?

In short, the Daily Mail was London’s  version of a Hearst newspaper, and in
his day Harmsworth was best friends with good old William Randolph.

The Mail is probably most famous for publishing the story about how many
potholes there were in Blackburn which of course became part of John
Lennon’s “Day in the Life” song.    But it was also well know for supporting
the German and British fascists in the 1920s and 30s. “Youth Triumphant” was one of the editorials supporting the Nazis in 1933.  (See the Wikipedia article).A good overview of the London press is found in the 1987 script of  Yes, Minister, (S2 E4):

Bernard:  Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.*
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits. **

*The other country, in this case, being Russia. This is an allusion to the Star’s leftist politics and the Telegraph’s over-reaction to it.

** This is a reference to the famous “Page Three” girls of the Sun and other tabloid newspapers.