The Daily Mail has such a bad reputation for faking stories and fabricating "facts", that even Wikipedia banned it as a source, citing its "poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication".
Quite a lot of fakery in the Mail was exposed over the years. Certainly a proportion of the "political correctness gone mad" stories they dreamt up. And the fabricated cannabis scaremongering "news". And the falsehoods on climate change, Labour politicans, etc. Sometimes it wasn't entirely fake - they just invented the more sensational details. They got an absolute hammering from scientists and doctors for "using minor studies to generate scare stories or being misleading". Quite often the rulings against the Daily Mail conclude not just that they got one thing wrong but that they made "a series of factual inaccuracies", or a string of misleading claims. Typically all slanted politically.
I was reminded of this when looking for further info on two stories that Tourist mentioned in the recent NHS thread, on supposedly far-left woke nuttiness in the NHS. Both stories, it turns out, come originally from the Daily Mail (or at least I couldn't find any other sources with the specific gaudy details). That makes me somewhat wary, particularly when I was unable to fact-check the details adequately - although that doesn't necessarily make them untrue. I found the framing of both utterly misleading, in terms of the wider context presented (generally collapsing NHS).
The Daily Mail seems to specialise in using outrageous stand-out "woke" stories as somehow causally explaining wider instituional malaise. But without any substantiation for any causal link (and they conflate stand-out cases with typical cases, etc). The Daily Express does the same thing, but with immigration. In this way these newspapers deflect from the real (ie better substantiated, factually, statistically) causal links to things such as economic downturns, instituational failures, etc.
It's such a f*cking tragedy that a large proportion of the good people in Britain get their "news" from these appalling, lying, politically tendentious billionaire-owned rags.
@Tourist - thanks for the info. Good piece you quote from care.org.uk, which uses sensible language and comes the day after the Daily Mail report:
'The proposed NHS training is based on research findings by activist group the LGBT Foundation, which was commissioned for the Department of Health in 2021 and has not undergone peer-review. The report urged maternity services to scrap “non-inclusive language” in favour of terms like “chestfeeding”.'
Interesting that the independent (non-NHS) research recommending this language was commissioned by the Conservative government, and was discussed critically within (and outside) the NHS - resulting in its withdrawal. This was a £100,000 contract (for the program as a whole, not just the external LGBT-language recommendations) - a tiny amount relative to the billions in private contracts having a far greater effect on NHS.
So much for the Mail's spurious implication that "woke" examples like this are a significant cause of a more widespread malaise in the NHS or are connected with deaths of babies or "unsafe" conditions for mothers. Obviously misleading bollocks. The Mail concludes its piece: "If the NHS cannot perform the basic task of looking after expectant mothers and their babies, what on earth is it for?" What is it for? What total, dishonest horsesh*t. But gullible people fall for this kind of framing over and over again. And the Mail has millions of readers.
Also good background from the 'Reduxx' feminist website (written by Bryndis Blackadder!) that you quote at length, and which is dated a few days before the Mail report. That certainly shows the absurd "chestfeeding", etc, language was real, although it comes from someone outside the NHS - and formed just part of the recommendations on which the £100K program was based. (To look at it cynically, one could imagine the Conservative Health Secretary approving this contract with the thought: "What's 100K if it keeps these LGBT activists and the woke media off our backs").
Anyway, back to the important issues... such as the imminent collapse of the NHS due to 13 years of Conservative anti-NHS ideology, underfunding, mismanagement and spending countless BILLIONS on private contracts that might as well be burning the f*cking money.
Daily Mail = Daily Fascist
Daily Express = Daily Racist
Quote:
"I was reminded of this when looking for further info on two stories that Tourist mentioned in the recent NHS thread, on supposedly far-left woke nuttiness in the NHS. Bothstories, it turns out, come originally from the Daily Mail (or at least I couldn't find any other sources with the specific gaudy details)."
From care.org.uk
Midwives warn against new NHS gender training plans 13 January 2023
NHS England wants to recruit a group to run ‘gender inclusive training’ classes across 40 NHS maternity services, including trans-inclusive language and pronouns. The sessions, with up to £100,000 taxpayer funding, will also include online resources, information posters and “best practices examples of how to care for trans and non-binary birthing people.” Midwives said the ‘gender inclusive training’, could have “real implications” for mothers and warn that NHS transgender training plans could “be a repeat of the Tavistock scandal”. 300 doctors, nurses, midwives, psychologists, maternity support workers have written to NHS England demanding the plan be placed on “immediate hold” as it has “no evidence base”. With Woman, a group of midwives and obstetricians, wrote to Lizzie Streeter, NHS England’s “national LGBT programme manager”, on January 9th, warning that, “A scandal similar to Tavistock could be repeated in NHS maternity services due to poor research and the influence of advocacy organisations.” The proposed NHS training is based on research findings by activist group the LGBT Foundation, which was commissioned for the Department of Health in 2021 and has not undergone peer-review. The report urged maternity services to scrap “non-inclusive language” in favour of terms like “chestfeeding”. WithWoman claims the research contained “significant flaws” and that its recommendation of “de-sexed language for all maternity service users is incompatible with evidence and current guidance”. The letter, now signed by 2,000 people, also warned Streeter of the “danger” in ushering in activist groups “without sufficient clincial expertise” and that the training scheme is “disproportionate”. “As someone who was instrumental in exposing the damage done to patients by an unthinking acceptance of ideologically based claims, which had no evidence base, I am shocked at this repetition of ideology again trumping careful examination of the evidence and little thought as to the likely damage.” David Bell Former Staff Governor at the Tavistock
link: Midwives warn against new NHS gender training plans | CARE
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From Reduxx:
England’s NHS To Spend £100,000 On “Trans Inclusive Maternity” Program
By
Bryndís Blackadder