By Daisy Cooper(Additional research by Georgia Tomlinson) You’d be forgiven for thinking that British ‘institutions’ had taken political correctness to a whole new level, if some of the January national newspapers were to be believed.The silly season for peddling the idea that ‘British values’ are somehow at risk of being undermined by ‘political correctness’ normally peaks at Christmas, with spurious claims that councils have “banned” the word “Christmas” in favour of “Winterval” or that an “NHS trust sends bizarre list of guidelines to staff to make sure their Christmas party is politically-correct”.But during a 16-day period in January, the Daily Mail ran two stories that erroneously claimed that children’s books and a local hospital had fallen victim to this ‘left-wing agenda’.On 14th January, the Daily Mail reported – wrongly – that the publisher Oxford University Press had “banned” sausages and pigs from children’s books in an effort ‘to avoid offence’. (The story was picked up in the Daily Mirror and The Times the following day.) To legitisimise its stance, the paper even went to the length of securing a supportive quote from a “Muslim Labour MP” (emphasis added), who endorsed the Mail’s view that the ‘ban’ (which wasn’t actually a ban) was “absolute utter nonsense”.

What is curious is that the article did quote an OUP spokesperson, but the quote itself only explained why the publisher needed “to consider a range of cultural differences and sensitivities”; it did not include an unequivocal denial that there was any sort of ban, a point that was made plain in the title of its Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ article the next day: “No, we haven’t banned books on pigs – but sensitivity is key in global publishing.” It is not clear to us whether the OUP’s statement was only partially quoted (and therefore deliberately misleading), whether the OUP was not made aware that this would be described as a ‘ban’ (and therefore not given an opportunity to refute this), or whether the OUP’s initial quote simply failed to state that there was in fact no ban (we contacted the OUP but they did not clarify this point).As it happens, the guidelines aren't new, haven't been changed, don’t ‘ban’ anything and don’t apply to publications unless such references might affect sales in countries where cultural sensitivities exist. The OUP boss sought to explain this approach in The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ section, saying:“In the UK, we take it for granted that we would not include references to sex, violence, or alcohol in our textbooks; to do so would be considered inappropriate and offensive to many. In order to make an impact around the world, there are other sensitivities that, although not necessarily obvious to some of us, are nonetheless extremely important to others…. Cultural taboos must never get in the way of learning needs, which will always be our primary focus.”It is curious that the OUP sought to respond through The Guardian, not in the three offending papers. We spoke to the OUP: they told us that they didn’t request an opportunity to reply or a correction/clarification. They told us that they choose publish a response in the Guardian on the basis that this is the publication most read by their own customers – teachers and educational professionals.Whilst this decision may make sense for the OUP from a public relations perspective, it’s interesting that the paper didn’t publish a correction of its own volition once the OUP rebutted the paper’s claim. Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code states that “A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be correctly promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published” – editors do not have to wait until someone complains.Another story concerned Hitchingbrooke Hospital. In its Corrections and Clarifications column the Daily Mail admitted that:“The headline to yesterday’s article about Hinchingbrooke Hospital said it had ‘shut down’ as a result of a Care Quality Commission report. As the article made clear, the hospital remains open under ‘special measures’.”The inaccurate use of the words “shut down” clearly constitutes a breach of Clause 1: Accuracy. The size and positioning of these words – in the centre of an almost double-page spread – magnify their misleading impact. They also dwarf the size of the correction, confirming that some papers are still a world away from the ‘equal prominence and positioning of corrections and apologies’ called for by the Media Standards Trust and others during the Leveson Inquiry.

Whilst misleading and super-sized headlines are designed to shock, newspaper executives have – by accepting the Editors' Code - undertaken not to intrude into the personal grief or shock of others.Arguably one of the most acute breaches of this occurred in January when, on the occasion of the terrorist attack on the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, three newspapers –The Sun, The Daily Star and The Times - published unpixellated photos of a police officer seconds before he was murdered in cold blood. In doing so, they breached Clause 5: Intrusion into Grief or Shock. Clause 5 (i) states: “In cases including personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively” [emphasis added].Whether and how to use photographs of such individuals, who are being terrorised or in the final moments of their life before being murdered, is a new question facing national newspapers. Tellingly, three newspapers – the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph - choose to pixelate the images.The family of the dying policeman complained about the coverage and the person who shot the footage on his mobile phone expressed regret for loading it onto Facebook. Yet the publication of non-pixelated images went completely unchallenged within the industry. Nearly 25 years ago, The Sun was criticised for publishing distressing photographs of the Hillsborough disaster, but lessons seem not to have been learned.Another particularly egregious intrusion into privacy was the publication by The Sun of the alleged details of a rape victim’s private relationship, as reported by a “pal”. It seems unlikely that this would have interested the paper if she had not been the victim in a high-profile rape case; her identity and whereabouts had earlier been revealed online and she has had to relocate several times. Gratuitously publishing private details, which may or may not be accurate, is clearly a breach of Clause 3: Privacy and may also be a breach of Clause 1: Accuracy if the information is not correct. It also raises serious questions about the journalist’s methods in tracking down the victim’s “pal”; the reckless disregard for the safety and wellbeing of a vulnerable woman goes beyond breaches of the Editors' Code and raises serious questions about journalistic standards. IPSO appears to have taken no action to uphold Clause 3(ii) which claims that “Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s private life without consent”, nor to reprimand or investigate such practices.The Sunday Mirror on the other hand, has demonstrated that it is capable of making such judgment calls and taking care of its reporting when there is more at stake. In January, the Sunday Mirror (copied by The Sun and the Daily Mail) reported that Jon Venables, one of the convicted murderers of then toddler James Bulger, had joined a dating website and was ‘seeking love online’.

We previously reported that in November 2014 the Daily Mail appeared to have broken a lifelong anonymity court order for Maxine Carr by alerting readers to social media sites where users claimed to identify the town where she was living and details of her appearance, which would make her clearly identifiable. In doing so, the paper appeared to breach a High Court injunction granted in 2005 to protect her new identity and to prevent information about her whereabouts from reaching the public domain.We expressed surprise that the paper would have done this, given that in 2013 two men who published photographs on social media sites, said to show the killers of James Bulger, received suspended jail sentences. In that case the Attorney General stressed that it was in the public interest to ban identification as it mitigated the “very real risk of serious physical harm or death” to anyone who might be identified – correctly or incorrectly – as being one of the two convicted killers.On this occasion, the Sunday Mirror made it clear that it knows what it can and cannot publish, and is also admirably open about its journalistic methods:

“Venables, 32, has signed up under a name we cannot reveal due to a lifelong order protecting the new identity he was given after serving time for killing the toddler.

We cannot also identify the website, which has many young single and divorced mums among its users, who will not know his background if they contact – and possibly meet – the killer.It is not clear whether the name on his dating profile is an online persona or the new identity given to him in 2001 when released on licence after serving eight years for his part in the 1993 murder. …The Sunday Mirror discovered Venables inviting women to contact him online in a joint probe with TV investigative reported and child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas.”In a later article, the Sunday Mirror claimed that the web profile had been taken down as a result of its story. It quoted the child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas, who called for action:

“Venables needs to be issued with a sex offenders’ prevention order with internet restrictions which, when he breaks, will mean he is recalled back to jail.”

What is clear is that reporting restrictions have not hampered the paper from publishing the story – an important and commendable piece of public service journalism - nor hampered the authorities from taking appropriate action, if they choose to do so.That the Mirror can so diligently follow legal restrictions and editorial guidelines, while other papers such as The Sun are happy to print the alleged details of a rape victim’s private relationship, suggests an industry that can – and does - abuse its own power on occasion.In that vein, the Daily Express published another of its dodgy polls. We recently reported that last November, the Daily Express incorrectly and misleadingly claimed that UKIP had “surged” to second place in the polls – a claim based on the voting intentions of Sun readers, not the general public. In January, the Daily Express published a super-size front-page splash claiming that “80% want to quit the EU”, with a further strap-line on page 5 claiming that the “Message is loud and clear: Britons want to leave EU”.The clear implication is that 80% of the public – or 80% of a representative sample of the public – think this. But they don’t. In the 7^th paragraph of the 'story', buried on page 5, we discover that the “Tory poll was organized across three neighbouring parliamentary constituencies by Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, and Tom Pursglove, who is standing as Tory candidate for Corby and East Northamptonshire at this year’s general election”. Wellingborough and Kettering are among the safest Tory seats in the country (with East Northamptonshire a key Tory/Labour marginal). This is- hardly a representative sample. The poll which has clearly been commissioned by the Tory party or a Tory member/supporter - it doesn’t say who has paid for it - is thus far from independent.The headlines on both pages are clearly misleading, breaching Clause 1 (“The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information, including pictures”).

Four months on from the launch of IPSO, instances where national newspaper editors appear to have broken the editorial standards they themselves have signed up to continue to mount. It's striking that the Sunday Mirror has shown that editors can perfectly well take care in reporting sensitive subjects, throwing into sharp relief the instances where other papers publish a gratuitous ‘story’ at the expense of someone who is unlikely to complain. They claim that political correctness has gone mad, whilst their political polls are clearly cuckoo.Will IPSO step in? Pigs might fly.