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Here's a very interesting piece of detective work by a blogger, which seems to knock a big, fat hole in a Sun story which picked up and exaggerated the false police account of how Ian Tomlinson died at the G20 demonstration in the City of London in April.
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/04/g20_callum_winton.asp.
For more background on media misinformation around the death of Mr Tomlinson, see http://www.nickdavies.net/ for story headlined "Can journalists trust the police?", filed also under Police and Problems with Journalism.
The influence on the public
Thank heavens there are those who are prepared to highlight the falsehoods and laziness of the media.
No one should be in any doubt how dangerous this is where the police are concerned. Most I know who read the usual suspects in the press fully support the police line, even go further to the point that it's okay for the police to remove ID to avoid identification.
It perpetrates the view that 'well they must have done something to deserve it'.
I'm not a police 'knocker', I just think they should be rigorous yes, but also act professionally and within the law. This is after all the UK, we're meant to have the best police in the world. I believe ultimately that the police are not served well by peddling falehood via the media.
It's very sad that the media seem prepared to take so much at face value, or indeed maliciously skew events.
Nick, you're doing a great job, please keep up the good work!