IPSO don't have a problem with Daily Mail columnists making stuff up - so long as it is about themselves!
A while ago I wrote about being asked to comment on a really ghastly story that was destined to be in the next day's Daily Mail. One of their columnists - who I'd previously never heard of - had written a piece bragging about buying a series of five pups and getting rid of four of them when they stopped being cute.
They didn't read it to me, they were on deadline, they just summarised it. It made me shiver. Ghastly.
My comments of outrage are tucked away at the very end of the piece, if you get that far I'll be amazed. Shona Sibary is hardly a future Pulitzer prize winner. Her role models are obviously the odious Katie Hopkins and the famously beautiful Samantha Brick. She is one of those new breed of columnists who delight in pretending to be as unloveable as possible.
I uncovered a piece the same woman wrote in January 2012 that completely contradicted her story.
Both articles simply could not be true.
Two of the no longer cute pups she bragged about giving away were Albus and Juno - the two dogs she admitted to conning an animal rescue charity out of in her 2012 article.
An article in which she admitted she had lied about her lifestyle and the ages of her children to obtain them - where she complained bitterly about the dogs not being 'hers to ever legally give away' in an angry tirade against what she had felt was a very over-careful rescue?
These are complicated three dimensional stories that completely contradicted each other.
Call me naive, but when I reported this to the press standards people I expected action...
Instead they ruled:
"As the alleged inaccuracy related directly to Ms Sibary, and concerned matters about her dogs from three or more years ago that only she would know about, the Committee took the view that it would not be possible to investigate your complaint adequately without her input."
How many people read the Daily Mail?
Everyone who bothered to read the first column and the second column knew she had lied - even if IPSO couldn't quite grasp that!
And if people making up stories don't report themselves to IPSO (or is it more likely if IPSO choose not to try to ask those 'journalists' awkward and embarrassing questions) no one will ever get reprimanded for making money out of making things up!
And if no one ever gets in trouble for lying to the public to fill column inches - then obviously IPSO will say it never happens and our press standards record is spotless.
This was IMO - if not IPSO's - a black and white case of 'liar liar pants on fire'.
A journalist openly caught out making stuff up.
IPSO obviously not only have NO teeth, they badly need glasses too!
Read the whole findings for yourself. What a disgrace!
The Complaints Committee has now considered your complaint against the Daily Mail.
The Committee noted your concern that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy). Regulation 8 of IPSO’s regulations states that:
“The Regulator may, but is not obliged to, consider complaints: (a) from any person who has been personally or directly affected by the alleged breach of the Editors’ Code; or (b) where an alleged breach of the Editors’ Code is significant and there is a substantial public interest in the Regulator considering the complaint, from a representative group affected by the alleged breach; or (c) from a third party seeking to correct a significant inaccuracy of published information. In the case of third party complaints the position of the party most closely involved should be taken into account”.
You said that the article was inaccurate because it contradicted a number of claims the same person had made in a previous article about her dogs (published by the Daily Mail on 3 January 2012). In particular, you highlighted the following - in the 2015 article, Shona Sibary said that her dog Albus came to her from a council estate, while in the 2012 article she said that Albus had been adopted from a rescue centre; in the 2015 article, Ms Sibary wrote that she had found new homes for Albus and Junior, while in the 2012 article, she said that one of the conditions of her adoption of the two dogs was that she did not legally own them, and they would have to go back to the rescue centre if Ms Sibary and her family could not look after them anymore.
In accordance with IPSO’s regulations, in determining whether to take forward your complaint under Clause 1, the Committee took into account the position of the party most closely involved. As the alleged inaccuracy related directly to Ms Sibary, and concerned matters about her dogs from three or more years ago that only she would know about, the Committee took the view that it would not be possible to investigate your complaint adequately without her input. As such, the Committee did not consider your complaint further.
The Committee would like to thank you for giving it the opportunity to consider your concerns.
Kind regards,
Ciaran Cronin
In the 2015 story in the Mail Shona says:
"....Albus, an eight-week-old chunky ball of cuteness, came from a council estate in South London. He was advertised, in September 2011, as a pure Rhodesian ridgeback, a breed I’d always been told are gentle giants. However, I was slightly suspicious that he had a touch of the Staffordshire bull terrier about him or, worse still, rottweiler, because his tattooed owners wanted only ￡350 for him, instead of the usual ￡700 to ￡900. Needless to say, he wasn’t Kennel Club registered but, still, what did that matter? I found him too gorgeous to resist...."
Yet, in her 2012 article, also in the Daily Mail Shona says:
"There were times — during a ludicrously long-winded and bureaucratic process of adopting our two pets, Juno and Albus — that I wanted to turn to the centre and say: ‘Look, do you want us to take these dogs or not?’ So when, in June, we found a rescue centre in the South of England advertising six Rhodesian Ridgeback-cross-Boxer puppies on their website, we couldn’t believe our luck. They were 12 weeks old — young enough to adapt to our family and still impressionable enough to train and fit into our way of life. So I did something naughty. I’m not proud of it, but I called back the next day pretending to be someone else with three children over the age of eight. And no toddler. Now I could be considered for a puppy — but only if I had owned a dog as an adult. Otherwise I would not be deemed suitable."
And again in 2015:
"By April 2012, quite frankly, I’d had enough of both dogs and decided to give them away. I found Juno, by then 18 months old, a new owner first. She’d been with my family for over a year, but her escapologist tendencies were causing me too much stress. ...I placed an advert online and found a fantastic owner for her. I knew Albus had to go, too — but not until I found myself another puppy. I soon set my sights online at Pippa, a tiny dapple-coloured sausage dog, who’d been brought into the country from Lithuania."
Yet in January 2012 she wrote...
"We had decided to name the puppy Albus. It was during one of these visits that we fell in love with another stray in the rescue centre. Juno is a Husky-cross-Pointer with piercing blue eyes. At the age of one, she was still deemed to be a ‘puppy’ and we were still ‘officially’ not allowed to have her. But having lied once, we were on a roll and so we decided to take both dogs.
By then, I was starting to feel more than a little irritated. We had already expended a huge amount of time, money and energy in meeting their re-homing requirements. Sending a warden to assess our home seemed to be an excessive measure. Let’s not forget we are talking about a dog — not a child. We were clearly a nice, middle-class family trying to do the right thing by giving not one, but two, strays a loving future with our family. But their stance through the entire process was one of distrust and annoying superiority.
"They even insisted we pay for a whole term of puppy-training classes — and show them the receipt — before they would consider releasing Juno and Albusto us.
"Now that they’re with us, it all feels worth it. They’ve brought that wonderful doggy spark back into our lives — wrestling for space on the sofa and barking endlessly at washing drying on the line.
"In fact, I can’t imagine our lives without them. Which is a shame, because they still don’t legally belong to us.
"If for any reason we are unable to continue to look after the dogs, we are not allowed to give them away to family or friends — they have to go back to the rescue centre. "
Read the 2015 article here if you can stand it: Click here
And her earlier article claiming how unfair it was that she couldn't find anyone to let her have a rescue dog without lying: Click here
Should you feel moved to complain about IPSO - well I don't know who you complain to...!