Irish university University College Cork’s students’ union decided Dec. 14 to “organise 12-month boycott of the Daily Mail” after the Irish Daily Mail published fabricated news alleging that the body of a missing University College Cork student had been found dead, UCC’s students union president Ben Honan told iMediaEthics by e-mail today.
The student, Caolan Mulrooney, was found dead two days after the Daily Mail’s inaccurate Dec. 4 story. The Daily Mail issued a correction and apology and the Daily Mail’s managing director apologized personally to Mulrooney’s family, according to Trinity College Dublin’s student newspaper the University Times. According to the Daily Mail’s apology, “the error arose after a report stating that the body had been found was filed to the paper by a local correspondent. Although this was later corrected, due to a misunderstanding during the production process, the original incorrect story was published.”
University College Cork students union president Ben Honan told iMediaEthics by e-mail this morning that the boycott “won’t be a ban” but the students’ union will “be campaigning for students to not buy the paper.”
He added “This could lead to the campus shop withdrawing it but that was not our mandate.” Honan told iMediaEthics that the students’ union’s campaigns officer will determine what the boycott includes.
As we wrote last week, Irish university Trinity College Dublin’s students union banned the sale of the Irish Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday from its campus because of the inaccurate story about Mulrooney. The students’ union president, Ryan Bartlett, told iMediaEthics that the students union runs the campus stores, so it can ban any sales. He added that the students union will review the Daily Mail’s correction and apology at its January meeting.
iMediaEthics is writing to the Daily Mail for comment and will update with any response.