Nearly Three Months Later, Southern Daily Echo Corrects Reporting of Southampton Census - But Only After We Intervened

 

Daily Echo 1st December 2022

"11.6 per cent (of Southampton's population) is white" reported the Daily Echo in December 2022

The Southern Daily Echo has apologised for its coverage of the Census for Southampton by the Office for National Statistics. 

In a printed article on 1st December 2022, the Southern Daily Echo had previously reported that "11.6 per cent is white" of Southampton's population. Clearly this is false reporting of the facts. Anybody who lives in Southampton would say this is incorrect.

 

Daily Echo, p.5 1st Dec 2022

The false information appeared under the headline "Census reveals city of diversity" and was front page news under the headline "A REAL MIX - CENSUS DATA REVEALS HOW CITY HAS CHANGED - READ THE FULL REPORT ON PAGE FIVE" with a photo of Southampton's Bargate. 

 

"11.6 per cent is white" said the Echo

 

The article "full report" was in fact only half a page. It also appeared on the Echo website, which we understand has been corrected.

A second article written by another Echo reporter repeated the same misinformation.

Neither article provided any context or explanation for the false claim.

Southampton Independents campaigner and NCTJ-trained journalist Andrew Pope contacted the Editor of the Daily Echo, Ben Fishwick, with a set of concerns about the article's accuracy and how it could be interpreted. 

 

Former Councillor Andrew Pope
and our Co-Founder

Eventually, on 23rd February 2023, almost three months later, the Echo printed the correction, saying that: 

"We apologise for the error and are happy to correct the record."

The correction appeared on page 16, in the corner next to an article with headline "Pub set to expand" and above adverts that took up half of the page.

 

Daily Echo, 23rd Feb 2023, p. 16

 

 

The Correction

In actual fact, the ONS website clearly states in bold that:

"In 2021, 10.6% of usual residents in Southampton identified their ethnic group within the "Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh" category"

Coincidence? You decide.

And the ONS site also clearly states that in 2011, that the ethnic group of usual residents was 85.9% white. By 2021, this had decreased to 80.7%.

We will leave you to draw your own conclusions as to how these "errors" were made, but you can see in the photo that the Echo "Correction" states that "the correct figure (of non-white Sotonians) is one in five"  - meaning the figure for white Sotonians is four in five - close to the 80.7% white figure above from the ONS. 

However, the Echo blames it on third party analysis, saying that:

"This was due to the stories being based in part on third party analysis of Office for National Statistics data".

Yet the ONS itself clearly states the above facts at the above link. We do not have any explanation as to how the ONS analysis could have been missed. We found it immediately using a Google search.

You can decide for yourself why it took so long to correct, and why the mistakes were made in the first place. The Editor of the Echo has been offered the right of reply.

We stand up for Southampton and its residents. That was why we were formed.