Press Watch Far-reaching developments are taking place in the European Union which raise significant issues and are worthy of widespread public discussion. It is, therefore, worrying to note that in many cases, the British press prefers to highlight the trivial, at the expense of the substantive, issues. Even in the more serious publications, misleading assumptions about the European Union still abound.
Most newspapers refuse to publish a factual reply, even in the form of a letter.
With this in mind, we present here some recent examples of errors, together with short explanations of why they are wrong. This is the fourth of an occasional series which, as in the past will be distributed to ministers, MPs, Whitehall departments, the Press Complaints Commission, other national organisations and newspapers themselves. On 21 and 22 June, stories appeared in 'The Mail on Sunday' and 'The Sun' purporting that the European Commission was to ban brandy butter. The move spells potential disaster for the producers, principally small family businesses which now face the very real spectre of job losses. Dairy products marketed throughout the European Union are labelled in order to inform customers and protect the interests of producers.