Thread by @steveparks

Now it’s time for the @BadPressAwards at @BylineFest hosted by @johnmitchinson

He says there’s a Chinese proverb - lies in a newspaper are like rat droppings in a soup. They are both disgusting and obvious.

He says today the awards are a cornucopia of shit soup…
#BylineFest

@BadPressAwards @BylineFest @johnmitchinson … John says that standards are lower than ever before, and this year international bodies have cited the UKs news industry as an outlier in terms of how little the public trust it.

The first award: most obvious sponsored content. News that is really advertising, but is disguised as a news story...

#BylineFest #BylineFestival

First finalist - the Sunday Express with a puff piece for frozen food brand Goodfella’s pizza, about how to keep the kids happy on a budget in the summer holidays. Guess what, it involves lots of frozen pizza at home instead of going anywhere

Second finalist - The Daily Mirror for a story about Ghosts that turns out to be. plug for a TV programme

Third finalist - the whole mirror group including their local papers - “write a verse worthy of Hallmark in your Valentine’s day card - here’s how” which plugged both Tesco and Hallmark cards across multiple papers in a complete nonstory

And this is the WInner for this category.

Next category - non story of the year

Entries...

The Sun condemns Raheem Stirling’s tatoo of a gun on his leg. Turns out the sun hadn’t contacted him for comment, but the it turns out to commemorate the death by shooting of his father, not celebrate guns

The Daily Mail - over 2000 words from Jan Moir on Heinz planning to rename Salad Cream because most people don’t use it on salad. Moir ranged on about it being another example of millennial ruining everything(!)

And the winner ....

The Daily Mail with 42 pages about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle falling in love

And the next category of awards: the least accurate article

#BylineFest

Nomination 1:

The Sun- Vote for bargains: High Street prices are set to the Tumble after Brexit- if voters shun Jeremy Corbyn's plans

A massive set of corrections had to follow, as even the papers self regulator IPSO found it to be inaccurate

Nomination 2: Andrew Malone in The Daily Mail for ‘Powder Keg Paris’

A “devastating report” suggested 300,000 “illegal migrants” living in suburb of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where drug dealing, crime and poverty were rising due to “quite simple” explanation of “immigration

... unfortunately the story turned out to be full of errors and lies. Even the tame press regulator IPSO found it at fault.

The story was so wrong that even the Mail removed it from their website

Third nomination: Larisa Brown in Daily Mail for ‘Another human rights fiasco!’ Which again was found to be full of inaccuracy and lies. And even the Mail says it has sent some ‘strongly worded disciplinary letters’ as a result

And the winner is - The Mail for Powder Keg Paris

And now a new award - The Unicorn Cup For Burying The Lede.

It goes to Isabel Oakshott, once of Sunday Times now often on BBC sofa.

Unfortunately Isabel couldn’t be here to collect the award today, so it was collected on her behalf by the true journalist @carolecadwalla

Oakeshott gets the award for having email evidence of links between Brexit Leave campaign and Russia, and not publishing the story

google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg…

Next up - the Piers Me-Me-Morgan award for journalists trying to make themselves the centre of attention...

First nomination:
Giles Coren in The Sunday Times: “A couple of xx's could end my glorious career” about the #metoo movement

Second nomination

Julia Hartley-Brewer in The Sun: Get a Grip

Third nomination:

Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail for
“Up close and VERY personal with the Donald on Air Force”

And the winner (loser?) is.... Piers Morgan!

Next category: most misleading headline

1. The Times “Christian child forced into Muslim foster care”

@BrianCathcart comes to the stage and dismantles every part of the headline with research

#BylineFest #BylineFestival

You can read @BrianCathcart’s analysis of this story here: google.co.uk/amp/s/inforrm.…

#BylineFest

And as that is the most shamefully misleading headlinethe judges have ever seen, it won outright!

Final category “The Rothermere award for the publication that most normalises Nazis”...

First nomination:
The Spectator starring Steve Bannon - “Orban and Salvini are redefining democracy in Europe”
#BylineFest

Second nomination: The Spectator starring Rod Liddle - “Why Boris is wrong about burkas” (in which he says there’s not nearly *enough* Islamaphobia in the Tory party!)

Third nomination: The Daily Telegraph starring Tibor Fischer - “The Left doesn’t care to ask why Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is genuinely popular”

Fourth nomination: The Times starring Rod Liddle - “Just let Tommy Robinson have his say. He might even be right, occasionally.”

And the winner, of the Rothermere award for the publication that has done most to normalise Nazis, is... The Times

#BylineFest #BylineFestival

Finally, there was a spontaneous kind of Darwin Award for journalism - someone who has improved the journalistic gene pool by leaving it... and the award was for Paul Dacre for being made to retire early from the Daily Mail.

The audience gave three cheers!

#BylineFest

That wraps up the @BadPressAwards awards for 2018 at the @BylineFest.
In closing remarks @johnmitchinson hopes next year will involve fewer Fascists and more fun.

The British press is at an all time low in terms of quality. We need to demand better

#BylineFest #BylineFestival

The Bad Press awards for 2018 have now been announced. Follow along in this thread…

@BylineFest @BadPressAwards #BylineFest #BylineFestival #journalism

https://twitter.com/steveparks/status/1033360320658591744