Language in Action
Daily Mail makes up with Poles
Stephen Brook
The Guardian, Tuesday August 5, 2008
The Daily Mail has reached a peace deal with Britain’s Polish community over its coverage following negotiations brokered by the Press Complaints Commission.
The Federation of Poles in Great Britain lodged a formal complaint with the PCC that the newspaper had defamed Poles working in Britain, accusing the Daily Mail of printing articles that gave rise to “negative emotions and tensions between the new EU immigrants and local communities”.
The Mail rejected the accusation, but after negotiations conducted via the PCC it has agreed to remove some articles from its website and alter others.
Associated Newspapers’ flagship daily will also run a letter from the federation and a longer version of the letter as a blog online tomorrow. “The complaint is to be resolved,” a PCC spokesman said. “The newspaper wishes to make clear that it wasn’t in any way anti-Polish.”
The Mail declined to comment before today’s publication of the letter and blog by the FPGB.
“We are pleased that the Daily Mail could see that some of the wording they had in their headlines was harmful and they have taken far more care,” said Wiktor Moszczynski, an FPGB spokesman.
The federation’s complaints about 50 Daily Mail headlines had been dismissed by the newspaper.
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