Monday 6 March 2017

Part 4: Emily Duggan's reply, Fake News, Buzzfeed and maths

Hello again guys, Emily Duggan of Buzzfeed actually got back to me. I did write to her a while back when she first reported this story.  I am going to cut and paste her reply here and then share with you what I wrote back to her.
News? Fake News?
From: Emily Dugan <emily.dugan@buzzfeed.com>
Sent: 06 March 2017 12:05
To: Alex Liang
Subject: Re: Irene Celnnell did not live in the UK for 30 years



Hi Alex,
Thanks for your email. Sometimes the nuance of a story gets a bit lost in the headline. My latest story explains in great detail her immigration history - and that she built a life in the UK over 30 years, though she was away for a large chunk of that time (as I've said in all my reports, though I haven't had the opportunity to go into this much detail before). Thanks again for getting in touch and sorry it's taken me a while to reply - I've been in Singapore and tied up writing. 
All best wishes,
Emily 

My reply to her: 

Dear Emily, 

Thank you for your email. I have read your stories and whilst the latest one does offer more details, it still doesn't change the fact that she has not built a life in the UK over 30 years when she spent about 19 of those in Singapore with at best 10 of those in the UK. The numbers just do not add up and I'm asking you kindly to correct a mistake you've made with the figure '30 years' because it is not a question of 'nuance' but a question of accuracy. You are a journalist - it is your job to go through the details when someone like Irene or Angela makes a claim about the figure of 30 years, well they are lying to you and rather than just publish the lie, your readers would have hoped that you would have made the effort to go through the case in more details and say, "hang on, the numbers just don't add up." It took me all of 60 seconds to do the simple maths to realize that there was no way you could have arrived at the figure of 30 years and that clearly tells us that Irene and Angela were lying to you, not only that, but you didn't even make any effort to verify the figures when that would've been a matter of some basic maths. 

With Trump accusing Buzzfeed of being Fake News, messing up on the numbers, being unable to do basic maths and then claiming "as I've said in all my reports, though I haven't had the opportunity to go into this much detail before", well that just doesn't come across as professional. I'm asking you kindly once again to correct that mistake as Irene Clennell clearly spent most of the last 30 years in Singapore, not the UK. Please let me know if you intend to correct the very misleading headline in your earlier article. Your headline read: "A Woman Is Facing Deportation After Living In Britain For Nearly 30 Years" - there was nothing subtle or nuanced about that because Irene did not live here for nearly 30 years.  It's not a question of subtle nuances, you've clearly printed a lie that Angela has used on her GoFundMe page. This was a deliberately misleading lie and you printed it - I'd like to know if you have the journalistic integrity to do something about this please. I look forward to hearing back from you, thank you. 

Alex

11 comments:

  1. Hi Limpeh. I notice something in your blog that you always taking about. you Said "Life is not fair" but some people say life is fair. Because when you are rich it means you work hard and if you are poor it means you are lazy.(not me some other people said it)

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  2. Being smart (liked getting a PhD smart) does not mean you will end up being super rich. But being dumb means you are likely to end up poor, and in the case of Irene Clennell, kicked out of the country your husband originates from.
    Being hardworking or not doesn't mean anything. You can be stupid and work hard and still end up poor. Smart people figure out the shortcuts to success in life. Not saying smart people don't need to work hard but they work hard and smart and don't do "busy work".

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  3. "The nuance of a story gets lost in the headline" - what kind of lousy excuse is that? Headlines are what grabs your readers' attention in the first place. To pad the truth with fake figures in your headlines is nothing sort of false advertising and click baiting - this is downright unethical.

    Ms Duggan clearly doesn't give a damn about the fourth estate and you are right in calling her out on that. Good job.

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    1. Yup, she clearly didn't give a shit. I wondered why she even bothered reply in the first place if she didn't give a shit.

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  4. I wonder if you had any thoughts about the YouGov survey of March 1. It shows overwhelming support among all sectors of British society for allowing her to stay. Not just Lab/LibDem/SNP. 58 percent of Conservatives polled said she should be able to stay. Is there something more going on than confirmation bias?

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    1. I think it all depends on how the poll is conducted - are they being shown the Buzzfeed report claiming that she has lived here for 30 years? Probably. Are they being shown the BBC or ST report that showed how she flouted the rules of her ILTR and ended up where she is today? I doubt it somehow. So it's not so much confirmation bias, but conducting a poll based on fake news really. What do you think Sibylla?

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    2. It reminds me of another story Sibylla - there was a click bait on a website promising cheap holidays and cheap flights, people were tempted by the bargain prices to click through but when they tried to book the cheap deals, they got an error message, "sorry the flight/holiday you wanted is sold out, but we have these other offers for you" and they were showed more expensive options. Many just gave up and closed the window at that point, as they felt cheated, lied to - they were lured there on false pretense, believing that those good deals were available when they never ever were.

      If I said to you, hey Sibylla, fancy a 5-star holiday in Spain for £200 for an entire week? You'll say hell yeah, that's a bargain, take my money already. Likewise, if the YouGov poll presented the issue in a way like that cheap holiday scam, more people would say yes to a simple poll like that. But then again, the polls are meaningless, immigration doesn't work like that, it's not a reality TV programme where the audience votes for the winner.

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    3. Hi LimPeh,Sibylla

      Past is past. Now there are only 2 things that matter - the fact the she is married to someone here for 27 years and she was deported.


      Given the liberal compassionate way of doing things that we discussed earlier and with the 51k (after Gofunndme fees) legal fees to help her fill in the FLR(M) form properly (normally that cost about £500 - £1000 + visa fees), she is very likely to succeed.

      Part of the cash will help to meet the minimum income requirement via savings and her ability to work (as it should be) will further count towards the income requirement after the supreme court ruling few weeks ago.

      I believe the result of the survey would not have differed much even if they have read LIFT part 1 and 2. British people are kind and they want to be nice subjected to the NIMBY thing, they would of course vote yes.

      So yes, if they spend their legal fees properly, yes, we would be welcoming Irene back home to the UK in a few months time. And the remaining fund should be quite sufficient to fund a proper 5* holiday if they so wish after all the ordeal(!).

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    4. Hmmmm. I am not 100% convinced it will be that straight forward but we shall see. My gut instinct is telling me that if it was thaaaat easy to reverse a deportation, then that's going to make the home office look pretty stupid to have deported her at great expense (oh and the British tax payer picks up the tab) when it could have been resolved that easily if it was simply a matter of a little compassion + some forms. We shall see, the end of March isn't far away.

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  5. Heem.. not quite March.

    The appeal needs to be submitted within 28 days but will take months to resolve. A fresh FLR(M) can be put in and be processed under current rule. The interaction of the former and latter will be a little complicated but I speculate that the first one will be quietly forgotten at some point.

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  6. Well if you read the comments’ section of the Yougov poll, it's not really surprising that even UKIP supporters are backing Irene. Hardline conservatives tend to be anti-immigration but they tend to be "pro-family", i.e. they are concerned about job-stealers, criminals or terrorists, and people introducing their "different values" to the UK, but on the other hand, they would likely sympathise with a wife of a white, straight British man who wants to take care of her sick husband and re-connect with her estranged children.

    Perhaps, the people who are more in the “center”, i.e. those who tend to believe in the “system” and to support the “establishment”, are the ones who are less likely to sympathise with Irene’s cause.

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