It's Question Time for the Daily Mail

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Let's play spot the difference. The top image is a set of instructions that members of the Question Time audience were given before filming last Thursday. And below that is a version of it that appeared in the Daily Mail and on its website on Saturday. Have you noticed what's changed? Funnily enough, the Mail used its version to support its claim that the BBC was "stage managing" an onslaught against BNP leader Nick Griffin during the programme. The Mail's story was headlined "Anatomy of an Ambush" and the caption to its altered leaflet, said that profiles on the sheet were "starting with Nick Griffin". But the original document in fact started with a profile of cabinet minister Jack Straw, the most senior of the panellists. The doctoring is so badly done that Griffin's biographical details appear twice, once in their original slot second to last on the sheet and then pasted into the top slot in place of Jack Straw. The Mail also fails to mention the vital fact that the "crib sheet" goes out to all Question Time audiences every week and always asks them for "short, sharp and provocative questions". Monkey wonders if those in the Mail's Derry Street glass atrium might be throwing stones when it comes to accusing the BBC of "stage managing". And might the Mail's extensive pot-boiling be prompted by the fact that one of the questions on Question Time – seen by 8 million viewers – was about Jan Moir's crass column about Stephen Gately? Surely not.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/oct/26/question-time-daily-mail-nick-griffin

I suspect the Daily Mail is attempting to portray Griffin as a victim because it's trying to balance the unsustainable position of being racist and agreeing with BNP policies while publicly rejecting the BNP as "racist." The Comments section of their newspaper website shows that that the core-readership are naturally supportive of the BNP.