Do journalists actually read the blogs which they quote from ?
It seems that the Daily Telegraph did not bother to read the clear statements on this website that it pre-dates even the referendum , let alone the creation of the office of Mayor of London etc., when they quoted from our blog entry: Nazi SS Shepherd Neame beer advert in the Evening Standard published on Deceember 16th 2005.
The Daily Telegraph via Tim Worstall:
'Spitfire' brewery shot down over advertBy David Sapsted
(Filed: 30/01/2006)The brewery that raised both smiles and hackles for poking fun at Germans in a string of adverts has mentioned the war once too often.
[...]In a newspaper last month, they ran the advert with a crossword-like clue that read: "German lager (4)". The answer had the last two filled in with letters "SS" in the lightning bolt shapes of the Schutz Staffel.
Quite apart from the obvious, crude answer to the clue - itself surprising because Shepherd Neame brews Holsten Export under licence at its Faversham brewery - it led to complaints being lodged with the authority.
Mr Livingstone, who had his own problems with the London Evening Standard after comparing a reporter to a concentration camp guard, branded the advert "astonishingly evil".
"The use of Nazi genocide symbols to advertise a mediocre beer is insulting to the victims of the SS and to present-day Germans," added the mayor on his web log.
[...]
That quotation was not written by Ken Livingstone, who, so far as we can tell, does not write a weblog - he has a whole taxpayer funded propaganda machine, a newspaper and the www.london.gov.uk website, which does not have any public comments section.
The Daily Telegraph have also "jumped the gun" on the official decision of the Advertising Standards Authority, which may very well find against the the advert. We are in receipt of a preliminary recommendation on a decison by the Advertising Standards Authority, on our compaint, along with those of several other people,
However, the ASA have not yet actually made a decison and published their official Adjudication, which they normally do on a Wednesday.
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