The Daily Mail has been ordered by the press watchdog to issue a clarification, after it inaccurately claimed that proposed guidelines on best practice in reporting road traffic collisions sought to make abuse of cyclists a hate crime. The press regulator said there was “no suggestion” of the guidelines’ authors calling for such behaviour to be criminalised.
The newspaper published an article on 30 September 2020 regarding the draft Road Collision Reporting Guidelines, then out for consultation, with the headline, ‘You can’t say Lycra Louts – Campaigners call for abuse of cyclists to be made a hate crime’.
> Media guidelines launched for reporting road collisions
The article appeared to have been removed from the Daily Mail website shortly after its publication last year, although a version of it is still hosted on MSN.
Now, the Independent Press Standard Organisation (IPSO) has ruled that the article was inaccurate and breached Clause 1(i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.
According to the clause, “The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.”
The complaint was brought by road.cc contributor Laura Laker, who also writes on active travel for outlets including the Guardian, and who helped draw up the guidelines, published by the University of Westminster’s Active Travel Academy.
Back in the autumn the Daily Mail made inaccurate claims our media reporting guidelines for road collisions were calling for ‘abuse of cyclists to be made a hate crime’. Today, in Laker v Daily Mail, I’m happy to announce press regulator IPSO has ruled in our favour pic.twitter.com/LsR648vc2O
— Laura Laker (@laura_laker) April 9, 2021
In its ruling, Laker v Daily Mail, IPSO said: “This implication was inaccurate – while the guidelines called on publishers to avoid using language which may ‘incite violence or hatred towards road users’, there was no suggestion within the document that the authors were calling for such abuse to be treated as criminal behaviour.
“The Committee was concerned that the publication had inaccurately reported information featured clearly within an a publicly accessible proposal that was, at the time of publication, out for consultation. This inaccuracy had featured prominently in the article and as such represented a clear failure by the newspaper not to publish misleading and inaccurate information in breach of Clause 1(i).”
The Daily Mail has acknowledged the inaccuracy and will publish a clarification in the print edition as well as on its website.
The guidelines themselves are currently being finalised and will be formally launched during next month’s Global Road Safety Week.
The way we talk about road collisions matters, and after a huge, broadly positive consultation response, we’re finalising the Guidelines and will launch them next month, during Global Road Safety Week (17-23 May). Watch this space https://t.co/e59ZMkXgpq
— Laura Laker (@laura_laker) April 9, 2021
25 thoughts on “Complaint against Daily Mail upheld over false claim that campaigners wanted “abuse of cyclists to be made a hate crime””
Well done Laura. I’m
Well done Laura. I’m surprised they didn’t use the “obviously a joke” defence like most of the other Anti Cycling tosh they and others get pullled up on.
Daily Mail, or Wrong as it is
Daily Mail, or Wrong as it is more commonly known.
Well done to Laura and everyone who helped. I’m sure this will be all over the msm, and that the DM won’t be taking out their spite in an avalanche of anti-cycling articles; oops, too late.
The Daily Hate as it’s also
The Daily Hate as it’s also known. Remember it’s a newspaper that supported the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s.
More relevantly, they
More relevantly, they supported the rise of fascism here in Britain.
I prefer Daily Heil but your
I prefer Daily Heil but your point is valid.
That reminded me of this:
That reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvNRjYs6Nos
markieteeee wrote:
Brilliant, thanks for that!
No one wants a law to make
No one wants a law to make cyclist abuse a hate crime. It’s much more efficient to simply make anything that is in agreement with anything published by the Daily Mail a hate crime.
I believe all corrections and
I believe all corrections and apologies in newspapers should have to be published with the same promenance as the offending article,
Similarly it should also feature at the top of any web publication if said article
‘you shouldn’t say Lycra Lout
‘you shouldn’t say Lycra Lout it’s bigotry’. Simple fix.
The use of the phrase ‘Lycra
The use of the phrase ‘Lycra lout’ as a term of address tells you all you need to know about the person using it.
The same goes for any article with the words “Daily Mail” at the top of the page.
So is “Lycra Lout” in the DMs
So is “Lycra Lout” in the DMs style guide, that they were so worried about that specific expression? What do they call cyclists who aren’t wearing lycra?
“What do they call cyclists
“What do they call cyclists who aren’t wearing lycra?”
Lycra Lout. It is the general gammon term for any cyclist they don’t like.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
TFTFY
Still lycra lout. They know
Still lycra lout. They know we wear lycra all the time even under “normal” clothes like jeans and t-shirt.
Well that’s what I did today taking the tram into town (but I was collecting my N+1 and riding back as an “out” lycra lout.)
CygnusX1 wrote:
Even in jeans and tshirts
Abusing someone for their
Abusing someone for their method of transport should be a hate crime though, just as abusing someone for choice of style/clothes or religion is, see also refugee/settled/immigration status. It’s quite obviously marginalising and hateful. Until it’s socially unacceptable some cyclists will become victims of these hate-fuelled crimes.
Don’t be daft. Equating the
Don’t be daft. Equating the abuse we all get as cyclists with systematic oppression based on race or sex or immigration status is the sort of thing that gives us wet liberals a bad name.
Brauchsel wrote:
Nothing gives me a bad name dude, and saying that an experience of bigotry/hate motivated discrimination, abuse or violence is not valid is not helpful. In fact it is plain wrong.
If some twunt deliberately runs me off the road and kills me cos I’m a f*cking cyclist, it’s no comfort (emotional or material) to my family that “well at least it wasn’t racism that killed him”
Hate/bigotry motivated violence is wrong, whoever is on the receiving end
Captain Badger wrote:
duplicate
Captain Badger wrote:
It deserved repeating.
It is similar. Take any of
It is similar. Take any of the Telegraph / Mail /Times articles and replace ‘cyclists’ with any of the 5 legal definitions for hate crime (Race; Religion; Disability; Sexual orientation; Transgender identity) and the editors would have been arrested. e.g. Rod Liddle “tempting to stretch piano wire across a road at neck height to catch cyclists”, which was reported to IPS and the editor claiming it was a joke and “heavy irony”. There’s many examples published weekly in these toilet rag newspapers, which no doubt encourages some of their readers to think it’s acceptable. Look at how drivers have driven into cyclists and uploaded it to social media because the popular press suggests cyclists are fair game for this abuse. Just because the abuse is different doesnt mean it’s ok and should be tolerated, and agreeing it is a crime to incite hate towards people simply because they ride a bicycle does not dilute the abhorrency of race, religion etc. hate crimes.
Independent Press Standard
Independent Press Standard Organisation (IPSO) has ruled that the article was inaccurate
Dear me! Daily Mail publishes inaccurate article shock!! Sadly, Daily Mail readers won’t notice or care about the retraction. It’s the paper that tells them what they want to hear- Sod the Truth!
Bet the correction won’t be
Bet the correction won’t be as prominent as the original article.
Gus T wrote:
Further down Laura Laker’s Twitter thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/laura_laker/status/1380469102117056513/photo/1