International Law

The Daily Mail is still confused by images of the MI5 and MI6 headquarters buildings

Why do the Daily Mail's online picture editors keep mis-identifying images of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) headquarters building at Vauxhall Cross, at the corner of Vauxhall Bridge and the Albert Embankment, on the South side of the river Thames in London, with that of the Security Service (MI5) ?

The latter is at Thames House, on the North side of the River Thames, at the corner of Lambeth Bridge and Victoria Embankment, near to the Houses of Parliament.

See the official gallery of images of Thames House on the Security Service MI5 website.

Both buildings are completely different visually, but, in recent months, the Daily Mail has now twice mis-identified the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS / MI6) building at Vauxhall Cross as being the Security Service MI5 headquarters.

e.g. Today's article about First Division Association civil service trades union representation at both of these intelligence agencies (obviously with a "no strike" agreement in place);

The spy who came in from the union meeting: MI5 brings in 'relationships support' for staff

Spy central: The MI5 headquarters near Vauxhall Cross on the River Thames

The EXIF metadata in the original of this image only says:

Credit : © Reuters

Previously, to illustrate Quentin Letts' article on the Intelligence and Security Committee on the 18th of July: Some custard pies for our shadow spook-watchers they used the caption

MI5 headquarters - above scrutiny?

The EXIF metadata for this image is a bit more informative:

Object Name : picture NICK SKINNER.London views taken from roof of Millbank To
Keywords : LONDON BUILDINGS, LONDON SKYLINES, MI5.
Date Created : 2002:09:22
Originating Program : AMB eLib
By-line : NICK SKINNER.
City : London
Province-State : London
Country-Primary Location Name : United Kingdom
Original Transmission Reference : IP*1919671
Source : Daily Mail
Caption-Abstract : picture NICK SKINNER.London views taken from roof of Millbank Tower..MI5 headquarters.

This metadata captioning also mis-identifies the building, but that really is no excuse for a London based mainstream media organisation, which regularly publishes articles about these two intelligence agencies.

Obviously, we did try to leave a Comment on the Daily Mail blog style website, back in July, simply pointing out the error, but, as many other people have found, the comment moderation / censorship, which appears to have been sub-contacted out to a third party company, is insultingly useless, and there are no comments displayed at all.

Other people also seem to be having problems with the Daily Mail's website handling of comments and online images e.g. Tim Ireland: The Daily Mail: let's kick arse and take names and Beau Bo D'Or: Daily Mail Steals Another Image and Accuses Me of Google Bombing

The Associated Newspapers management need to sort this out, because it is damaging the online reputation of the Daily Mail brand.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on September 15, 2008 (boomark / email).