Unfortunately, like many people, the Mail was caught out by the judge finding her guilty of slander - before clearing her of the murder. At the sound of the word "guilty", they hit publish on a story about her appeal being rejected that includes reactions from the family and prosecutors being delighted - reactions that can't have happened as she was found NOT guilty of murder.

But she wasn't guilty ...

The Sun did it too I later discovered.

It's the Sun wot run it

Anyway, here's the story from the Mail's site:

Mail story

And some quotes:

"Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction. ...

As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.

A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.

Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.

Both will be put on a suicide watch for the next few days as psychological assessments are made on each of them but this is usual practice for long term prisoners."

And here they are publishing the right story a bit later.

So which is it?!?

And here are the Sun's two stories ...

The Sun's two stories

Embarrassing. (To be fair, Sky News and the Guardian also claimed she'd been found guilty - just not quite in so much detail ...!)

But for some reason The Sun website's own search engine won't show the apology when you search for his name ...

The Sun's apology to Chris, er Christopher, Jefferies

That's a screenshot of the apology. As you can see, he's changed from being Chris Jefferies (which is what they called him in the stories about him) to Christopher Jefferies, which doesn't exactly help.

But if you use the Sun website's own search engine to search for either Chris or Christopher Jefferies, you can't see the apology in the results.

Here's the results for a search for Chris Jefferies, organised into date order.

No apology to be seen ...

And here is the one result for a search for Christopher Jefferies.

No apology to be seen ...

No sign of the apology in either case ...

What hope is there for self-regulation if newspapers can't include in their own site's search results the apologies they have made about "false suggestions he might have killed his former tenant Joanna Yeates, acted inappropriately towards pupils in the past, invaded his tenants' privacy, was associated with a convicted paedophile and might have been involved in an unsolved murder in 1974"?

Back in June 2009, I somewhat rashly suggested that newspapers should turn off their RSS feeds as no one was using them (I then recanted slightly). Fortunately this means I have the data for back then on the number of people using Google Reader to subscribe to the three most popular RSS feeds for each UK newspaper.

So here's a table that compares the number of subscribers in Google Reader to each paper's most popular RSS feed 18 months ago and today - the overall fall is 68%.

The papers with large numbers of subscribers have seen significant drop offs. A couple have seen an increase (but from a very low base).

Some caveats:

• The search function in Google Reader can be a bit flaky sometimes, but I think I've found the top feeds in each case (although the feed with the most subscribers isn't always the same now as it was then).
• The number of people using Google Reader will have changed in the intervening 18 months - but I'm not aware of any figures which show that its market share has drastically fallen.
• The Times's numbers have obviously been affected by it going behind a paywall.

If you want to explore the data from June 2009, feel free. If you have any time, maybe you could work out the top three feeds now and compare them?

The debate was started by this post on whether RSS is dying (with a lively debate on Hacker News). TechCrunch reached the same conclusion separately. The truth is probably closest to this thoughtful follow up which distinguishes RSS as a mainstream browser-based user-facing service from a behind-the-scenes format. < Update I think that. I'm not saying RSS is dead. Don't flame me!

There's no right score - it depends on the audience, of course. These are ordered by basic score - the order's fairly surprising (though that may say more about Google's scores ...)

Sun

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Sun

FT

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

FT

Guardian

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Guardian

Daily Mail

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Daily Mail

Mirror

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Mirror

Times

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

The Times

Express

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic (which makes little sense given the graph ...)

Express

Telegraph

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Telegraph

Independent

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Independent

So if you ever want to know what a London SEO consultant does. It's this.

Now, if you want to understand how journalism works, compare and contrast ...

A teenager high on iDosing

Videos on YouTube

The Mail

Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out and leaping up in fear, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress.

The Sun

Videos posted on YouTube show a young girl freaking out, a teenager shaking violently and a young boy in extreme distress as they listen to the sounds.

Flocking kids

The Mail

But there has been such alarm in the U.S. that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning to children not to do it.

‘Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places, spokesman Mark Woodward said.

The Sun

There has been such alarm in the US that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has issued a warning to children not to do it.

Spokesman Mark Woodward said: "Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places."

News9.com from a few days ago

"Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places," said OBNDD spokesperson Mark Woodward.

A willingness to experiment

The Mail

He added that parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, since I-dosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

The Sun

He added parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, as iDosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

Newson6.com from a few days ago

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics said parental awareness is key to preventing future problems, since I-dosing could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs.

Schools in Mustang

The Mail

Schools in the Mustang area recently sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several high school students reported having physiological effects after trying one of these digital downloads.

The Sun

Schools in the Mustang area recently sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several students reported experiencing physiological effects after listening to the downloads.

Newson6.com from a few days ago

Recently Mustang Public Schools sent out a letter warning parents about the new trend after several high school students reported having physiological effects after trying one of these digital downloads.

A ship's horn

The Mail

some sound like a ship’s horn being repeated again and again whilst others are more abrasive and resemble cheap synthesizers being played very fast.

The Sun

Some sound like a ship's horn being repeated again and again whilst others are more abrasive and resemble cheap synthesizers being played very fast.

Binaural beats

The Mail

Dr Helane Wahbeh, a Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, said: 'Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

The Sun

Dr Helane Wahbeh, a Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, said: "Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

NPR.org from a few days ago

Dr. HELANE WAHBEH (Naturopathic Physician and Clinician Researcher, Oregon Health and Science University): ... Binaural beats happen when opposite ears receive two different sound waves.

Not similar to cocaine or ecstasy

The Mail

‘But when you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head.’

But Dr Wahbeh denied there was any possibility that someone could experience similar effects to cocaine or ecstasy.

She said: 'We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to.’

The Sun

"When you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head."

But Dr Wahbeh denied there was any possibility that someone could experience similar effects to cocaine or ecstasy.

She said: "We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to."

From npr.org a few days ago

But when you listen to these sounds with stereo headphones, the listener senses the difference between the two frequencies as another beat that sounds like it's coming from the inside of the head. ...

NORRIS [interviewer]: Now, based on your research, is it possible that listening to these tracks might lead someone to experience something tantamount to the effects of taking cocaine or ecstasy or even Viagra?

Dr. WAHBEH: We did a small controlled study with four people, and we did not see any brain wave activity shifting to match the binaural beat that people were listening to.

Two iDosings, please.

SEX slurs claiming England's World Cup hopes were undermined by a player's fling with a teenage girl are a sick HOAX, The Sun can reveal.

Thousands of fans have received texts and emails saying captain Steven Gerrard had got wife Alex Curran's 16-year-old sister pregnant.

But the lies are blown apart by one crucial fact - model Alex, 27, does not even HAVE a sister.

(I love the justification here for running a story about a rumour: people are receiving texts and emails. Makes it sound link some sort of conspiracy as opposed to people just emailing their friends ...)

Anyway, I don't know what Gerrard's lawyers made of this story but they might want to have a word with Google. If you get as far as typing Steven Gerrard into Google News, the auto complete function throws up this list ...

Google's autocomplete for "Steven Gerrard"

Unlike the Sun's story, the list isn't peppered with provisos that none of this is true.

But its own on-site poll from last night about who won the debate (and unlike other sites, these aren't easy polls to vote in - you have to go through a lengthy sign-up process)  reveals that Clegg won. Asked "Who won the 3rd debate", Sun readers voted:

• Nick Clegg 50.9%
• David Cameron 29.6%
• Gordon Brown 18.6%

Not sure how this squares with Clegg being toast as its main story says ...

Sun Vote results

Clegg: wins 3rd debate

Main story

Clegg: toast

What a surprise. Not.

The Sun's online polls tell a different story. (And, unlike the Daily Mail's, these are not easy votes to polljack. You must go through a proper sign-up process with email verification and provide personal demographic information).

Sun readers split over hung Parliament

Sun readers split over hung parliament

In a Sun poll that just closed this morning (suspiciously soon after the yes vote changed from just under 50% (last night) to just over 50%), they asked: "Would a hung Parliament be bad for Britain?".

Just 50.6% say yes. 46.2% say no - with the rest as don't knows. So fairly evenly split on the "disaster".

Sun readers: Clegg won 2nd debate

Sun readers: Clegg not Cameron won second leaders debate

When it comes to the second general election debate, the Sun readers, unlike Sun HQ, thinks Clegg won it. This is the vote as I type this:

• Nick Clegg 46.3%
• David Cameron 36.6%
• Gordon Brown 14.2%
• There was no clear winner 1.6%
• I didn't watch the debate 1.4%

A crushing Clegg win then ...

Hope for us all yet

Maybe the Sun's attempts to bully the British public (and other newspapers) into backing Cameron aren't working, just as they misjudged the mood over Brown's handwritten letter to a dead soldier's mother. Let's hope so.

The charts show how the number of stories about Nick Clegg has soared in The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Guardian - even allowing for the fact a general election is on.

Comparing April with January:

• Daily Mail: 37% more stories about David Cameron - more than 4 times as many about Nick Clegg.
• The Sun: 27% more stories about Cameron - more than 11 times as many about Clegg.
• The Guardian: 80% more stories about Cameron - more than 6 times as many about Clegg.

Daily Mail

Clegg bounce in the Daily Mail

Sun

Clegg bounce in The Sun

Guardian

Clegg bounce in The Guardian

Figures calculated using the sites' own search function. Pictures from My David Cameron and Daily Mail. April figures are until today, 22 April.

The PCC refused to rule on whether there really was a public interest defence that justified breaching the PCC code ban on intercepting private phone calls (on the grounds that they would only hear complaints from people directly affected ie Gordon Brown).

So I tried my luck with the Information Commissioners' Office, which enforces data protection rules. It's job is to "uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals."

The ICO has rejected my complaint as follows:

Thank you for your correspondence, regarding the recording of private phone calls and the release of this information by The Sun newspaper. I apologise for the delay in my response, however we currently have a significant backlog of cases awaiting attention.

In your correspondence you are of the understanding that it is illegal to record and publish private phone calls, it is important to mention this office can only comment upon the Acts that we oversee and the relevant legislation here is the Data Protection Act 1998.

The Data Protection Act 1998 requires data controllers (those collecting and using personal data), to comply with eight rules of good information handling practice called the Data Protection Principles. The Commissioner's specific duties include providing information and advice to the public and data controllers on the requirements of the Act and best practice.

The Data Protection Act regulates the processing of personal information across a huge number of activities carried out by data controllers. It is therefore necessary to exempt certain activities, carried out for particular purposes, from some or all the provisions of the Act where it would perhaps be inappropriate or simply not practical to subject them to all parts of the legislation.

The exemptions can be found in part IV of the Act, and also Sch.7 - miscellaneous exemptions. As the name would suggest, these exempt the Data controller and certain types of processing for specific provisions of the Act.

Section 32 of the Act contains an exemption for Journalism, literature and art. If the processing is undertaken with a view to the publication by any person of any journalistic, literary or artistic material, then it is exempt from large sections of the Act.

Therefore it would not breach the Data Protection Act to publish the material if it were for the above purposes.

Whether the recording of the conversation breached the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is another matter ... There's a handy Q&A about phone tapping on the BBC site, if you're interested.