Daily Mail And Sun Say Amanda Knox Is Guilty: Race To Be First With News Shames Tabloids

AMANDA Knox is innocent. She did not kill Meredith Kercher. There is not a shred of evidence against her. But still the Daily Mail reported that she is guilty. The Sun, too, reported that her appeal had failed. In the race to be first with the news, the Mail published this:

But she is innocent.

Nick Pisa was on the scene:

The Sun says Knox is guilty:

But the Mail had the scoop, even providing 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 The Sun:

Fabulous stuff from the papers of record…

Spotter: Malcolm Coles

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, October 2011 | In: Key Posts, News Comments (11) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

View comments:

Samuel Peach says:
February 17th, 2012 at 10:59 pm

Anorak is guilty of poor journalism as far as the Meredith Kercher case is concerned. There was and is a very great deal of evidence which indicates the guilt of Amanda Fox, and in a British court, the question of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ would have been satisfied. Italy (despite the efforts of a $2m PR campaign to persuade the public otherwise), has a system where convictions are hard to obtain. The layers of safeguards and checks were instituted to ensure the system could not be subverted by organised crime or extremist political groups, both of which have posed a threat to the state in the past.

In particular, allegations about the low standard or quantity of physical evidence have been made by a highly paid team which have supplied (mis)information packs to lazy journalists in the US, UK and Italy.

coolandcalm says:
October 4th, 2011 at 9:46 am

Must confess that I was watching it ‘live’ and I thought they’d lost their appeal… took a few minutes for me to realise.
But I’m just Joe Bloggs watching at home… The Press should have been more on the ball so I don’t forgive them for getting it wrong!

Karen says:
October 4th, 2011 at 8:49 am

I couldn’t bring myself to use the word ‘reports’ – not even with inverted commas.

Emma says:
October 4th, 2011 at 8:38 am

‘How can I ever believe any of their stories again?’

I hope that’s irony.

Karen says:
October 4th, 2011 at 8:29 am

Because of the slight confusion before the real announcement, I could probably forgive the DM for getting it wrong – what I find shocking is the stuff they wrote about people’s reactions and the way they made up quotes.

How can I ever believe any of their stories again?

Anorak says:
October 4th, 2011 at 7:10 am

yes. ion a case like this the new media knows no more than the news watcher.

Dw says:
October 4th, 2011 at 5:39 am

Strictly speaking, the Guardian was correct: Knox did lose her appeal against slander, while winning her far more significant appeal against murder.

The newspapers were blindsided when the presiding judge decided to create a bit of dramatic tension by announcing the slander verdict first.

Gary says:
October 4th, 2011 at 12:32 am

When the judge announced the verdict he began with “Your appeal was not successful”. But he was talking about the other “slander” appeal. So I guess the 2 newspapers were a little too quick to press the button.

Gary says:
October 4th, 2011 at 12:22 am

No. She had also appealed against a conviction for lying about the involvement of another person in the killing. That appeal she lost and will now need to pay that person 23000 euro.(the judge also tonight sentenced her to 3 years for this offence, but accepted the time already served). However she does automatically receive half a million euro compensation for “wrongful conviction” so paying 23k won’t hurt. The popular opinion here in italy is that knox and sollecito are guilty, and that the convictions have failed because of the ineptitude of the italian csi team – which is very common here. case after case is ruined because forensic evidence is somehow contaminated and therefore useless. There is even belief that this happens once enough cash has been received by the police to lose or ruin evidence. It wouldn’t surprise me.