On the blog
With heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures bracing most of Britain barely two weeks ago, readers of this week’s papers might have hung up their thermals as three papers promised that the UK would this week be “as hot as Honolulu”.
Last Friday the Tabloid Watch blog monitored a dispute between the Daily Mail and the BBC. The Mail had published an article on Wednesday criticising the BBC, writing that:
"Half of BBC staff who pocketed £4m pay-off carried on working in the same job"
This morning, the Daily Mail reported that “580 foreigners a DAY got a job here last year”, citing the employment figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday. The Daily Express similarly reported that “Foreigners are snatching 580 jobs every day”.
Trevor Kavanagh of The Sun has been arguing that the police investigations of press misbehaviour are "wildly disproportionate."
In our factcheck we showed that he was wrong to call the investigation the largest "in the history of british policing" and that there were recent examples of even larger investigations.
Yesterday the Trades Union Congress (TUC) made headlines with its claim that 'true' unemployment in the UK could be as high as 6.3 million if different measures are used. General Secretary Brendan Barber commented on the matter:
"The headline unemployment figures are bad enough, but the true scale of joblessness is even worse. Over six million people are either out of work or under-employed. Tackling this crisis should be the government's number one priority"
Regular Full Fact readers will know that on 23 January this year Full Fact factchecked the Daily Express' front-page claims on the FTSE 100.
Recently the Online Journalism Blog raised the question: "The £10,000 question: who benefits most from a tax threshold change?", prompting much discussion on Twitter between opposing sides of the debate, and on Guido Fawkes' blog.
Back in November, Full Fact was asked by Men's Health magazine to take a look at the numbers behind the Government's 'Obesity Call to Action'. It had been reported in the press that the Department of Health had asked people to cut out a third of a cheeseburger per day to tackle a growing weight problem.
Our research was used as part of a feature on obesity in this month's edition, while the full factcheck is below.
Earlier this week Full Fact gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press culture, standards and ethics. It is a once-in-a-generation chance to fix some of the long-standing problems that have led to low levels of trust in journalism, and we are glad to be so heavily involved.
But there are a lot of other things we are working on at the same time:
Pages
On Twitter
- Was David Cameron right about the success of the Government's Work Experience programme? t.co/jdNOrkKl #PMQs follow
- Will the UK be hotter than Hawaii tomorrow, as three papers claimed? t.co/zfoDn8t3 follow
- Help make a good campaign great: we're recruiting a Development/Fundraising Manager t.co/IUwCJWud follow
- RT @escthecity: This is really a very exciting job >>> Your task will be to devise and run an effective fundraising and growth. ... follow
- Does the majority of the public oppose same-sex marriage? t.co/mCtAby4G follow
- @John__Field Thanks John. It's not comprehensive by any means but explains the claims made by the DfE. Do you know any good other research? follow
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Full Fact believes in the possibility of accurate and informed debate. Our factchecks look at whether it is reasonable for interested citizens to trust the claims of politicians and journalists based upon the evidence that is available to us. Where we find mistakes, we ask for them to be corrected.
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