The Daily Express website has been censured by the newspaper watchdog Ipso for publishing what it said was a “significantly distorted” story claiming Ukip was leading Labour in an opinion poll.
Dr Robert Bray complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that a story titled “Ukip is now more popular than Labour: Nigel Farage gets polls boost as Ukip surges ahead” was inaccurate.
The article cited a YouGov survey of voting intentions, claiming that this showed that 38% “of those surveyed” intended to vote Conservative, 28% UKip and 25% Labour.
“Nigel Farage won a fresh boost today when an opinion poll pronounced his party the second most popular after the Conservatives, pushing Labour into third place,” it claimed.
The poll was based on 2,314 adults in Great Britain, but the results reported in the article related only to those who told the pollsters that they were Sun readers.
Bray said that the claim that Ukip was more popular than Labour was significantly misleading, and asked for an apology.
The Daily Express rejected his view, noting that “more general voter surveys had Labour just ahead or tied with the Tories with Ukip in third place”.
It did, however, add a clarification at the bottom of the story, stating: “We would like to clarify that the poll referred to in this article, that puts Ukip ahead of Labour, is a poll of Sun readers carried out by YouGov”.
Ipso upheld Bray’s complaint, saying it “found that the online article was a significantly distorted account of the results of the poll. It suggested that, overall, Labour was less popular than Ukip, when in fact the poll had showed the opposite.
“The findings of the poll had been perfectly clear, and the newspaper did not provide a satisfactory explanation for the approach it had taken.
“No amendment had been made to correct the text of the online article, and the footnote published did not clearly identify the misleading information which required correction.”
Ipso ordered the Express to publish its adjudication, which the publisher has done. The original article – with the footnote plus a statement noting the complaint – remains online.