Hats off to the Daily Mail for its high placing in your survey of Britain’s most credible news-providers.
However, I put my hat back on again when I saw the paper’s account of the results (Daily Mail, 20 January).
According to the Mail: “The Daily Mail has topped a poll as the newspaper the public trusts the most.
“In
a survey, carried out for the newspaper industry’s bible, the Daily
Mail was comfortably ahead of the Daily Telegraph and The Times . It is
regarded as almost twice as trustworthy as the Independent .
“The poll… asked adults across Britain to name a publication whose news reports they trusted the most…”
When the issue is trustworthiness, it would be galling to let the Mail get away with errors and distortions.
According
to Press Gazette , the poll asked people to name a newsprovider (not a
“newspaper”) they trusted (not necessarily the same thing as the single
news-provider they MOST trusted).
The fact that people nominated
a particular title or TV news programme does not, of course, mean that
they actively mistrusted other news sources.
As such, it is ridiculous for the Mail to boast that it is “almost twice as trustworthy” as the Independent .
As
for being “comfortably ahead” of the Telegraph, the Mail may gloat at
this feat of being named by a massive figure of four more people, but
it forgets to mention that it was luxuriously behind the BBC by a
margin of 514.
The Mail only mentions later, and in passing, that it shared its top ranking with its nemesis – The Guardian .
Trust the Daily Mail!
Francis Harvey Exeter
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