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Press watchdog clears Telegraph in political poll row

A complaint over the Belfast Telegraph’s coverage of a political poll before the recent Northern Ireland Assembly election has been thrown out by the Press Complaints Commission.

The United Kingdom Unionist Party claimed articles and headlines in relation to the poll were inaccurate and erroneous.

But the PCC rejected claims that the paper had misled readers.

The Belfast Telegraph reported that the Ipsos-Mori poll had revealed the Democratic Unionist Party was to consolidate its dominance in the election while the Ulster Unionist Party receded.

The commission said the UKUP’s central concern had been that the Belfast Telegraph shown the percentage of voters who intended to vote for a particular party, but did not include the “don’t knows”.

The commission said the front page of the newspaper had included a pie chart which clearly set out that it represented “those who intend to vote and who have decided which party to vote for”.

It said: “The newspaper had not claimed that everyone who intended to vote had decided their allegiance and the commission was satisfied that readers generally would not be misled on this point.”

The commission also rejected the UKUP’s argument that a headline claiming the poll had boosted the DUP was erroneous, and the party’s particular concern that the results were published just days ahead of the election.

The commission said it was satisfied that no breach of its Code Of Practice had occurred, despite the complainant’s concern over the timing of the articles.

Belfast Telegraph editor Martin Lindsay said: “The United Kingdom Unionist Party made a great play of this at the time, issuing statements and giving interviews.

“But we refused to budge and now, despite the pressure, we have been vindicated.

“I was always confident that the survey figures were accurate and more importantly the way in which we presented them in the Telegraph was accurate.

“Ipsos-Mori is a respected organisation and they too were adamant their research was sound, and the way the Telegraph reported it reflected it accurately.”

The UKUP’s David Hoey said he intended to appeal the verdict and also send the PCC conclusions to the Electoral Commission.

He said he queried the methods of the PCC and believed it had not examined the articles against Ipsos-Mori’s original research.

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