Back in February, Full Fact took a look at the a report from the Daily Mail which claimed that half of recipients of Disability Living Allowance are not asked to provide evidence to back up their claim.

Assessing the report, it was in fact the Mail who were failing to provide evidence to support their claims. All claimants have to complete a form which according to a Government consultation “requests detailed information about the impact that their impairment or health condition has on their ability to manage their care themselves and/or get around”.

The substance of the report was widely questioned, and now appears was subject to a number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission.

As covered on Minority Thought over the weekend, the PCC has now resolved this complaint.

The Mail has agreed to publish a letter from Neil Coyle, Director of the Disability Alliance, explaining his objections to the story. The letter now appears at the bottom of the online version of the original story.

From our point of view it is excellent to see other groups challenging newspapers to back up the claims made in their reporting, and also that the PCC was able to resolve the matter.

However the as others have pointed out, the printing of the letter does not actually involve any acknowledgement of error by the paper. This leaves a state of affairs where readers are offered two contradictory takes on the figures, with little guidance as to which is definitive, even if letters printed come from well informed people who work in the field.

With several complaints we have pursued through the PCC papers have as part of negotiations invited us to write a letter setting out why the story we complained about was wrong. For the reasons set out above we have always turned this down and pressed for a printed correction labelled as such in the paper.

This is not to say a letter to the editor is without merit given the additional space available to elaborate on certain points. Likewise, different forms of resolution will suit different types of complaints, and we do not argue that a printed correction is always the best form of redress if it is not what the complainant is seeking.

But when we see complaints resolved with what has been, from our experience the opening bid from papers resolving complaints, we have to ask whether this is a popular and effective way for newspapers to acknowledge inaccurate reporting, or simply a convenient one.