Mike Carlton calls Daily Telegraph ‘scum of the trade’ as editor apologises for photoshopping his face on Boston bombing victim
The editor of the Daily Telegraph has apologised “unreservedly” after it was revealed a photoshopped image making Mike Carlton look like a Palestinian fleeing an attack in Gaza was in fact a picture of a Boston marathon bombing victim.
In a statement to Mumbrella Paul Whittaker has said it was a “regrettable mistake” adding “I was unaware that that particular image had been partially used” and it had occurred in the art production process.
The image was one of three of Carlton carried in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph as part of the News Corp paper’s extensive coverage of his resignation from Fairfax after sending abusive emails and tweets to readers who had contacted him over a column he wrote on the Gaza conflict.
However, Carlton has condemned the paper’s use of the image as ” a typical piece of Daily Telegraph sewer journalism” telling Mumbrella: “It really is the scum of the trade that newspaper. To exploit the victim of a bombing attack like that is about as low as it gets but hardly surprising from Whittaker and his nasty little comic.”
The image had not been removed from the Daily Telegraph’s website as of 11.40am.
The use of the Boston bombing image was first revealed on the anti-News Corp The Daily Rupert Twitter account.
Earlier this week Essential Media’s annual survey listed the Daily Telegraph as Australia’s least trusted newspaper.
However News Corp has declined to say whether any members of staff have been disciplined or counselled over the incident, and whether the paper will review its policy on using photoshopped images to illustrate stories.
Whittaker’s statement in full:
The photoshopped image was an amalgam of different images put together during the art production process.
I was unaware that that particular image had been partially used. It is an inadvertent but regrettable mistake for which The Daily Telegraph apologises unreservedly.
Nic Christensen and Alex Hayes
The Daily Telegraph is now no longer a ‘news’paper and does not provide any useful service at all. We simply don’t need it anymore, and as a culture, are better off without its daily embarrassments, which make us all look dimwitted, blinkered, and cruel.
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perhaps if they actually reported news (as their parent company claims to be called) and not resort to photoshopped caricatures then these “regrettable mistakes” might not happen.
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They make a lot of mistakes at the Daily Telegraph. It is the one thing they are very good at.
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I think you need to clarify that Carlton had recieved thousands of abusive emails and been attacked on social media for two weeks. Your statement that he was ‘contacted’ by readers and that Carlton responded with abusive emails and tweets implies that he overreacted with abuse to readers of his column. In fact, Carlton has stated that some of these ‘contacts’ emanated from as far away as Israel and the US. Hardly likely to be regular readers of Fairfax newspapers.
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When you already know exactly what a paper will say before you buy it, you have no need to buy it. More and more are working that out.
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This is SO BAD! I can’t believe anyone would even consider this would ever be a good idea!
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You have to admire Carlton’s polite understatement on this occasion.
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Oh the delicious irony of the Tele going out of its way to revel in the misfortune (albeit self-inflicted) of Mike Carlton’s and Fairfax’s missteps, only to shoot themselves in the foot in the biggest way. I’d enjoy it more if the subject matter and the Tele’s photoshop job wasn’t so incredibly distasteful.
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As a Brit, I am repeatedly shocked by the infantile way that media rivalries play out in the printed pages of daily news publications. Its a reflection of the media’s inflated sense of self importance and its contempt for everyday Australians.
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I couldn’t agree more with TheFacts on this, I would also enjoy this more had it not been at the expense of the victim. I was looking at this today and it is just unbelievable that this tabloid is even allowed to be published. Not dissimilar to their pathetic attack on Carlton, in earlier pages they had a story about the attack on Jewish students. The photograph accompanying the story was grossly staged and a deliberate attempt to exaggerate a genuine social concern for racist behaviour. If any paper is ‘imploding’, it’s this one.
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No surprises here. Just wondering when the links between crap media and crap politics will be made.
Public is rejecting both.
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Why doesn’t the Daily Telegraph just run a daily full page ad stating ‘we apologise in advance for our offensive content’ and leave it at that. That would save everyone a lot of time.
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Is there now limit to how low they would stoop to present trash journalism. It really is a disgrace.
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But it’s the ABC that gets torn down by neo-con Libs/Nats for running actual news. Can’t wait to see the calls from Abbott, Pyne, Brandis, Hockey, Bishop etc for editorial reviews of the Tele, admonishing it for poor reporting and being un-Australian.
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Won’t be long until Murky Murdoch is out of business. Who buys newspapers anyway, it’s always yesterday’s new.
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It’s the Tele at its hypocritical finest – “everyone else is wrong, we’re never wrong ..oops”
Biggest selling newspaper in the state, part of Murdoch’s 70% of Australian newspaper domination, totally loony-right supporters of Abbott and yet none of it stops government popularity plunging? Odd
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We are at the end of an era. Rupert having achieved unreasonable influence has degraded public life in the UK and Australia and the US with his bullying and indulgent power plays. The hacking over-reach was the result in the UK. The incitement of extremism in Australian politics is costing him in Oz. And Time Warner has just told him to piss off in the US – a rebuff that has seriously dented his cred.
Lackeys like Whittaker and Mitchell will pass as will the Hywoods and Corbetts and co who have failed to offer any alternative or resistance.
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We should be surprised by a rag run by a man who hacked a murdered girl’s phone?
The perpetrator probably got a pat on the back.
Murdoch and his lackeys are beneath contempt.
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In a week we have the 2 extremes of journalism with Sarah Ferguson stepping down from the 7.30 report after 6 months of intelligent cut though interviews with politicians to get us the answers we need about policy and the budget and the gutter press who can only produce an infantile response to Carlton’s resignation. Hardly journalism. NewsCorp is increasingly becoming irrelevant -why bother.
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Carlton is right: The telegraph isn/t a newspaper, it’s a comic. And not a very good one at that. The only thing worse than Whittaker’s hypocrisy is his juvenile – nay, infantile – sense of humour. And as for the”i didn’t know what was going on ” line: what a fantastically effective editor you are, Paul. Not.
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In The Daily Rag’s coverage of the racist attack on a Sydney bus, they failed to mention that the perpetrators were too drunk to be interviewed by police, meaning that in all likelihood, they were not Muslim. The Telegraph’s “reporting” is a dirty mix of insinuation, conjecture and just plain bad practice.
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Mumbrella, Aug 8: News Corp revenues down 4 per cent….
enuf said.
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Mumbrella comments are more entertaining than any news.
I only flip through the tele to see if there are partially naked girls in sydney confidential.
The rest I may as well use to pick up dog shit
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Just desserts after their gloating over the past 24 hours. How supremely perfect for them to shoot themselves down so successfully. Carlton and all of us saddened by his resignation can go to bed tonight with a chuckle. Good one News corp… and of course they would blame production!
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I gave up on the Telecrap ages ago. It is far too toxic to use as toilet paper.
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I cannot think of a finer case of laugh out loud, egg on the face trash journalism. An absolute train wreck. And geez, didn’t they put some work into it. I believe that’s the Telegraph office exploding in the background of the pic. It was wonderful to watch it all unfold on Twitter too. Miranda, Sharri, Blair, all chiming in with rolling coverage of the demise of Carlton. And then they all shut up as The Daily Rupert kicked in. Citizen journalism at it’s best and the Murdoch press as usual.
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The Daily Tele never used to be a totally biased rag with trash journalism. I remember the period 1990 – 95 when it was the Telegraph Mirror it was a really entertaining quality tabloid with bright journalism and no cheerleading for loony right causes. The rot seems to have started in 1996 when they changed their name back to The Daily Telegraph and they brought in an editor named Col Pot, I believe (sorry, I don’t know his real name) who turned the paper into a totally biased trash sheet, and that crap has been continued with each successive editor. I only flip thru the paper to see if there are any pics of footballers in Budgy Smugglers or muscle dudes on Bondi Beach, I very rarely read any of the crap “journalism”.
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Sadly, until a few years ago I didn’t believe anything I read in any newspaper, now I don,t believe anything I see.
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Sad state we are in when 1. Carlton could still be employed when his lefty windbaggery stopped being relevant two decades ago and.. 2. The Telecrap is still regarded as a newspaper. A pox on both of them
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Amazing isn’t it. The supporters of Israel’s crimes get in a lather over a cartoon depicting an Israeli watching the destruction of Gaza as though it was some sort of entertainment. A cartoon based on fact. The Terrorgraph shares their bile and gloats over this then misappropriates an image of a victim of a terrorist attack to fabricate an image which both mocks Mike Carlton and the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. That’s No News Limited, all attack, no facts and zero ethics.
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What I like about the Telegraph is that it saves me a lot of money. I wouldn’t buy the rag unless I had run out of toilet paper and I was left with no choice.
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The great thing is the Telegraph has no influence. Not anymore. It managed to lose readers during an election year with its self parodic coverage and more since by hectoring its readers to support a government whose budget affects them most. The Telegraph has been driven into irrelevancy by its own senescent and inept leadership. This crowd has paved the way for citizen journos and sites like this.
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