Sun-watch: Yet more distortions.
You would think from the Sun's front page that in some way the law was to blame for why Daniel Charnock was released on bail, to then rape a third victim. Rather, as is usual of Sun distortions and with its on-going campaign against the Human Rights Act, which it today calls "disgraceful", it had nothing to do with it. He was released on conditional bail first by the magistrates, and then by the Judge. They didn't have to, and the blame must lie with them for not recognising just how dangerous the man was.
On the Sun's campaign against the "crazy" Human Rights Act, it claims that 35,000 phoned its "You The Jury" Hotline to call for it to be repealed. Like its claims that 100,000 of its readers had demanded the 90-day detention without trial bill should be made law, it's a rather less impressive figure than it first looks. The Sun, according to ABC circulation figures, sold an average of 3,154,781 copies in April. 35,000 then, comes to approx. 1.1% of its total readership. It gets worse though. The Sun often claims to its advertisers that it commands an actual average readership of about 8.5 million, down from its previous claim of 10 million. If we take its claim at face value, that amounts to a whole 0.04% who agree that the Human Rights Act is both "madness" and "disgraceful". Clearly then, the Sun has a mandate for demanding that the government act. Incidentally, you can vote for whether you think the act should be got rid of at the above Sun link. Sadly, you can't see the real time results. One can only wonder at why that is.
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Tim's got a great screengrab from when you could see the result: Yes 18%, No 82%! We should give the Sun readers more credit!
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2006/05/murdoch_calls_t.asp
Posted by
Steve |
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 1:26:00 PM