Economist declines to correct the record over Government work experience error

At the start of this week Full Fact reported an error in the Economist that echoed a mistake made by Prime Minister David Cameron last month. The article, like Mr Cameron, claimed that half of participants in the Government's work experience scheme found paid work soon after finishing the schemes.

As Full Fact found, there is no evidence that these participants found paid work, only that they moved off benefits - which could leave them in any number of different circumstances, not just being in paid employment.

Initially, the Economist printed a letter by NIESR Director Jonathan Portes which points out the error. In spite of this, there was no admission by the publication that the original article had been inaccurate, nor was the online version of the article amended.

After Full Fact contacted the Economist to find out why, they told us that the letter was adequate for setting the record straight, given its prominence in the newspaper, and that their readers would take a letter from someone like Mr Portes seriously.

However, there is a difference between correcting a claim and merely hosting a debate, and the Economist's readers weren't shown the clear distinction between the two. There remained no acknowledgement from the newspaper that their claim was inaccurate and, since the letter is less prominent online, the Economist's online readership are less likely to have seen Mr Portes' letter and thus to have been aware of the problem.

Full Fact asked the Economist both for a printed and an online correction. In response, the Economist made it clear that it wasn't their standard practice to print corrections after letters. In addition, online mistakes are only corrected if they are "egregious" which the newspaper denied was the case here.

Whether we can define the error as 'egregious' or not is open to question but besides the point. The Editors' Code of practice is clear that newspapers must correct "significant" inaccuracies where they occur.

Misrepresentation of the success of a Government employment scheme is a 'significant' inaccuracy that must be corrected frankly and properly in line with the Editors' Code. For this reason, we will be formally pursuing a correction through the PCC.

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