The Times has undermined its red-top stablemate by admitting that its story about a controversial Sun poll run, which stated that “one in five Muslims sympathises with IS”, was misleading.
In its “corrections and clarifications” column on Thursday it stated:
“We reported the findings of a Survation poll of 1,000 British Muslims... Asked ‘How do you feel about young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria?’, 14% of respondents expressed ‘some sympathy’ and 5% ‘a lot of sympathy’.
The survey did not distinguish between those who go to fight for Islamic State and those who join other factions in Syria, and it did not ask about attitudes towards Isis itself. Our headline, ‘One in five British Muslims has sympathy for Isis’, was misleading in failing to reflect this.”
This statement, published on the Times’s letters page (36) and online, echoes complaints made about the survey by other pollsters, journalists and a number of complainants to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).
And the Guardian ran an editorial in which it accused the Sun of “fomenting suspicion of Muslims and scaring non-Muslims” by using “brazenly doctored data.”
The Sun’s managing editor, Stig Abell, rejected such claims in a letter to the Guardian. He wrote: “The question about sympathy for Muslims ‘who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria’ was clearly – by its context and ordinary meaning – a reference to those fighting for Islamic State, and was chosen by the polling company.”
But Ipso has received some 2,600 complaints about the Sun’s poll article, and it has issued a statement about them in which it explains that it has selected a lead complaint as the basis for its investigation, one from a group called Muslim Engagement & Development (Mend).
Ipso states that the majority of complaints refer to alleged breaches of clause one of the editors’ code of practice (accuracy). It adds: “While the matter is ongoing, Ipso will not make any further comment on the case”.
