“The diffusion cannot be stopped”: Daniel Defoe, the tabloid press and newspaper corrections
Portfolio: www.clippings.me/tomcalver
Newspaper corrections have been around for nearly as long as newspapers.
In 1690 the publisher Benjamin Harris — while setting out a vision for the first American newspaper (named “Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick”) — introduced probably the first news corrections policy recorded on paper.
“Nothing shall be entered, but what we have reason to believe is true […] when there appears any material mistake in anything that is collected, it shall be corrected in the next”, he wrote.
Early newspapers depended on what journalist Craig Silverman calls a “Contract of correction”, designed to “instil and build trust by making it clear to readers that the press is accountable, that we acknowledge our mistakes and do so publicly.”
In Harris’s time, Silverman continues, “a corrections policy was a responsible act, and it was also good business. Accountability and transparency were a selling point to convince the public that a publication was worth reading.”
It would be naïve, however, to hark back to a golden age in which early newspaper editors strove at all costs to report faithfully and truthfully.
In the 19th July 1712 edition of his periodical The Review, Daniel Defoe — later of Robinson Crusoe fame — accuses the press barons of the day of “forging” news to suit their means.
“What is the lie courant for the day?”, he asks, punning not-so-subtly on the name of the first English daily newspaper The Daily Courant. Many writers, he says, are satisfied “if a printed lie will hold one day”:
“A lie spread but this hour, though it be detected the next […] the diffusion cannot be stopped.”
To Defoe, it didn’t matter if the lie was detected and corrected a day later — the damage, or “diffusion”, had already occurred. It wasn’t that the “contract of correction” was a lie — it was more that it didn’t prevent the dissemination of lies.
What of today’s papers, supposedly bound by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) to “take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures”?
On November 23, The Sun posted the results of an “exclusive poll” which declared that “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ Sympathy for Isis”. In response to the question, “How do you feel about young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria?” 14% expressed “some sympathy” and 5% “a lot of sympathy”.
Crucially, as put by The Times two days later, “The survey did not distinguish between those who go to fight for Islamic State and those who join other factions in Syria, and it did not ask about attitudes towards Isis itself. Our headline, ‘One in five British Muslims has sympathy for Isis’, was misleading in failing to reflect this.”
The apology appeared on The Times’ “Corrections & Clarifications” page buried halfway through the paper, and, most importantly, never actually graced The Sun’s pages. Although not yet made by Ipso to apologise, News UK shifted the burden of the “Contract of Correction” from one paper to another, where it would less easily discovered by Sun readers.
Nearly a month later, the Daily Express was forced to issue an apology for its July front page “special investigation” , which sensationally exposed the “classrooms where English is starting to die out.”
Ipso ruled that the article — full headline “311 languages spoken in our schools”— was “inaccurate”, and that the newspaper “failed to comply with its obligations under clause 1 [of the Ipso Editors’ Code] to correct it. In such circumstances, a reference to the adjudication must be published on the front page, directing readers to the full adjudication.”
This “adjudication”, printed on page 2 of the 16th December edition, admitted that the article was inaccurate in suggesting “that in some schools, lessons are not taught in English.”
It continues: “The data referred to by the newspaper only recorded a pupils’ first language; it did not say that those pupils would be unable to speak English. Further, English is the language of instruction in all maintained schools in England.”
While the front-page reference was tucked away (see above photo), this adjudication wasn’t much more prominent, squeezed into a box entitled “Ipso complaint upheld” — making no reference in its header to the original story, or the fact that the paper was at fault.
Then, only last week The Sun was again forced to apologise for its headline story from 15th September, “Court Jezter: Leftie who hates the royals WILL kiss Queen’s hand to grab £6.2m”.
The story wrongly suggested that had Jeremy Corbyn not accepted Privy Council membership after Labour leader, he would have missed out on £6.2m of ‘short money’ (the annual payment to Commons opposition parties).
The paper was once again found by Ipso to have breached Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code after a complaint from former Labour press officer Rosemary Brocklehurst. The page 2 “apology”, on Tuesday 22nd December, read:
“The Sun said that the article could have been clearer, but was based on accurate information. If Mr Corbyn had not accepted Privy Council membership, his position as Opposition Leader would not have been “secure” — this would have triggered the “constitutional crisis”, and risked his party’s access to the £6.2m.
“Nonetheless, it offered at a late stage in the complaint to publish a clarification.”
The Independent splashed “Gotcha!” on its front page, gloating: “The Sun was ordered to publish a front page correction.” This, ironically, was untrue: Ipso had only ordered The Sun to put a “reference to the adjudication” on page one. The Independent acknowledged the next day:
“The Sun newspaper has asked us to point out that it was not instructed to “apologise” for its front-page story on Jeremy Corbyn by the Press watchdog Ipso, as we claimed on our own front page yesterday.”
Political blogger Guido Fawkes then took issue with The Independent’s positioning of the correction in what quickly became a correction war, posting on the 23rd December:
“So, did the Indy make a reference to their incorrect front page headline on today’s page one? Alas not, the only mention of it is on page two. See if you can spot it”
Crucially, by this point the story has ceased to become about the truth — whether Corbyn did kiss the Queen’s hand for £6.2m. Instead, it’s a public spat between ideologically differing news outlets. The original story became irrelevant.
Take, for instance, The Sun’s reference to its apology on 22nd December — “Ipso complaint on Labour short money upheld”. No allusion whatsoever was made to Corbyn, or the fact that the paper was guilty of wrongdoing.
Secondly, corrections simply do not receive “equal prominence” with their original headlines. This is most obviously the case in tabloids, where headlines take up most of the front page and corrections are relegated to the bottom of page 2.
Visually and rhetorically, a tiny correction column written in Ipso-dictated jargon cannot compete with front page splashes proclaiming “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ Sympathy for Isis”.
In Daniel Defoe’s words, the result is that “though [the lie] be detected … the diffusion cannot be stopped.” The modern day version of Silverman’s “contract of correction”, papers still have free reign to publish false polls, lie about politicians and misrepresent information.
And — as Defoe can testify — this has always been the case.
