The Daily Star on Sunday must print a clarification that its investigation into UK mosques raising funds for terrorism was significantly misleading.

A journalist for the newspaper had posed as a man wanting to transfer money abroad “with the help of a group of Bradford-based Isis sympathisers”. The original print headline published on November 22, 2015 read “UK mosques give cash for terror”. The online edition had used the headline “UK mosques fundraising for terror”.

Miqdaad Versi’s complaint to IPSO on grounds of accuracy (Clause 1) was upheld on April 4. The committee ruled that both headlines did not expose serious, organised wrongdoing when the money was collected by a few individuals.

The Daily Star on Sunday has offered to publish a clarification in a forthcoming edition on page 2. It reads: “The headline of an article, published on 22 November 2015, stated ‘UK mosques give cash for terror’. We would like to clarify that the headline was based on the claims of radical Isa Amriki that funding for terrorism came from collections at mosques, not by or on behalf of UK mosques, which were not involved in any way.”

It also offered to amend the online headline and publish a clarification as a footnote. The newspaper, however, rejected Mr Versi’s offer of writing a positive story about Muslims and to work with him in the future to avoid such inaccuracies. And so Mr Versi then requested that the Committee adjudicate on the matter.

The original online headline

The amended online headline

The original article had received thousands of social media shares. Tommy Robinson, the founder and ex-leader of the English Defence League (EDL), now of Pegida UK, tweeted it.

The hooligan-linked EDL splinter the Pie and Mash squad wrote “I’m shocked by this. Not” after sharing the link on their Facebook on January 4.

Whether the amended article will generate the same level of social media shares remains to be seen.

The post Daily Star on Sunday amends misleading story on UK mosques appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The Mail on Sunday apologised for and corrected a story that blamed “Muslim gangs” for an attack on immigration enforcement vans in east London after a complaint to press regulator Ipso.

Miqdaad Versi, who is assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, complained in a personal capacity to Ipso after receiving a non-satisfactory response from the newspaper.

In July, the newspaper published the story with the headline “Welcome to east London: Muslim gang slashes tyres of immigration-raid van before officers showered with eggs from high rise”.

It linked Muslims with criminality in the same week David Cameron had called on the Muslim communities to support the “British way of life” and combat extremism.

The evidence? In the original story, it quoted an unnamed witness who claimed that, “I think they were local Muslim hoodies just doing a prank, but it’s not funny. It’s the sort of thing that will cause this area problems now”.

Following a complaint to Ipso, the Mail on Sunday agreed to rewrite the story to remove the references to Muslims and publish a correction both in print and online.

The correction said: “An article on July 26 said a gang of Muslim youths was responsible for damaging Home Office Immigration Enforcement vehicles in Shadwell, East London, in the week the Prime Minister appealed to Muslims to help combat extremism. Muslim readers have asked to point out that the youths’ religion was unclear and, in any case, irrelevant to the story. We apologise for any offence caused”.

One removed reference included that ‘more than half the population of Shadwell is Muslim, according to the 2011 census’. An irrelevant statistic that plays on deeper anxieties towards Muslim communities.

The original story proved a viral hit – achieving more than 15,000 online shares. Anti-Muslim hate sites, including Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugged were quick to republish it. Spencer did acknowledge the Mail on Sunday’s correction with a single sentence.

‘Counter-jihadists’ and the far-right insulate their echo chambers with such stories. In spite of the corrections, these groups already believe the worst about Muslims and lazy journalism acts as confirmation bias.

Take, for example, how supporters of the English Defence League reacted, ‘Fickin dirty Muslim nonses should all be shot at birth and fed to the pigs!’ ‘Just kick the muslim scumbags out , they will NEVER live in peace in this country EVER !’ ‘One word. HITLER. None of this would of happened. If we had stayed as an island’. If anything, the extreme nature of the comments are the blunt end of insecurities around Muslims.

The comments raises an interesting question: why would an individual post them? It could reflect how people navigate the internet. John Suler’s influential ‘Online Disinhibition Effect’ breaks down internet behaviour into six factors.

One factors details how an individual compartmentalises their identities into ‘online’ and ‘real world’ personas. Online behaviour therefore feels inconsequential. Some may never act on these comments offline. Others blur the lines of incitement.

Nor will the corrected reality of the story achieve the same viral success online – and that remains a bigger problem as the total online shares total just 29.

The post Mail on Sunday apologies for and corrects ‘Muslim gangs’ story appeared first on TELL MAMA.