20/6/22: IPSO has rapped the websites of the Daily Express and Daily Star for publishing unsubstantiated content about a paramedic who was allegedly “refused entry to a mosque” to treat a heart attack because he was gay.
Each site covered the same radio interview, in which a man identified himself as a paramedic and claimed to have been barred from a healthcare emergency because of his orientation. The Star carried a write-up of the interview and the Express carried a standalone video clip of it. Both were published in March 2021.
The Centre for Media Monitoring, a media watchdog specialising in rebutting misrepresentations of Muslims, contacted the local ambulance service and found they had no record of such an encounter or an employee who matched the description.
Once informed, both the Star and Express deleted the offending content and replaced them with clarifications. However, the Centre for Media Monitoring pursued its complaint, charging the sites had not taken care to verify the claims they were reporting were true.
IPSO agreed, saying the 39 minutes the Star gave the ambulance service to respond before publishing was not an “adequate amount of time” and that both sites should have amended the errors quicker once the ambulance service responded. (Full rulings here and here)
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