Katie Hopkins has won a complaint against the Mirror after a headline used to promote a report on the newspaper’s website left the impression that she was prevented from leaving South Africa for taking drugs rather than because she had been detained for allegedly spreading racial hatred.
The rightwing columnist and broadcaster took exception to the headline “Katie Hopkins banned from leaving South Africa after taking ketamine” used to promote a story published online in February, arguing it could damage her reputation by suggesting she had been arrested for taking a drug used for illegal purposes in the UK.
She said the newspaper should have made it clear her passport was briefly confiscated over entirely separate allegations she had been spreading racial hatred, an incident that coincidentally happened after she took medically prescribed ketamine.
The former Apprentice contestant was in South Africa to produce a film about the treatment of white farmers when the two incidents happened, both of which were publicised on her social media accounts. One picture posted to her Twitter account showed Hopkins being resuscitated by paramedics after collapsing in the street after taking the ketamine, which she uses to reduce pain in a dislocated shoulder.
Two days later she posted a separate video from Johannesburg airport in which she claimed she would miss her flight home because “my passport has been marked for spreading racial hatred here in South Africa”.
She complained the Mirror had conflated the two issues in its original headline on social media.
The Mirror argued its reporting was accurate but later added a correction to the story which the newspaper felt made the chain of events clearer: “A previous version of this article suggested that Katie Hopkins was stopped from leaving South Africa because of the consumption of ketamine. We are happy to clarify that Ms Hopkins was detained for spreading racial hatred, which took place after the ketamine incident.”
Hopkins took her case to the press regulator IPSO, arguing the update was not enough to “correct the misleading impression given to the millions of people who had been misinformed by the original headline”. She was concerned most readers would believe she had been detained for taking drugs, rather than alleged racism.
Following an investigation the press regulator sided with Hopkins and concluded the original headline gave “the significantly misleading impression that the reason for the detention had been the consumption of ketamine”.
As a result they concluded the Mirror had failed to take care over the accuracy of the piece and upheld the complaint.
- On 25 May 2018 this article was updated to clarify that Katie Hopkins’ accuracy complaint related to a headline used by the Mirror to promote the article online.
