Daily Mail caught stirring up hate against benefit claimants with fake story?
Busted! Actor Kamran Kam as appears in the Mail article (left) and on the Starnow website (right). Yes – it’s the same photograph.
The Daily Mail has been accused of using an actor to fabricate a story stirring up hatred against benefit claimants.
Its article I’m TOO FIT to work! Gym enthusiast who spends four hours a day working out claims benefits because ‘boring 9 to 5 jobs interfere with his fitness regime’ purports to be telling the story of Kamran Kam, and states: “He openly admits that he is making no effort to get a job, believing that fit people should not have to pay taxes that go towards treating overweight people on the NHS.”
However, Justice4Jobseekers has exposed this as a lie – because the Mail article is itself a job for Mr Kam, who is in fact an actor. His profile can be viewed here.
For somebody who’s making no effort to get work, his CV shows remarkable success at finding it, with roles in nine movies during 2014.
Perhaps somebody at the Mail should explain this piece of fiction, masquerading as news.
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Well done Mike….
Try the mirror and see if they can reflect some kind of facts from a “just’ Tory gutter press.
Perhaps someone at the Mail should admit to being a fiction-writer and stop masquerading as a journalist.
The Daily Mail have done this before – hiring an East European actress who lived in a posh flat , if I remember rightly . This is Kipper porn .
As the actor appears to be of Asian ancestry, might the Daily Wail also have committed an offence of inciting racial hatred?
Would be nice if this line of inquiry could be put forward!
Yes, this one proves the old newspaper maxim “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”!
His real name is Kamran Khan according to his facebook page
The Mail caught lying? I’m shocked!
Ron u are funny ha ha ha, I am not shocked I live in SCOTLAND we have to many (LIE’S) TOLD,
PAPERS &TV ITS NOT NEW
Since when has the nasty Daily Mail ever bothered with the truth?
It’s always worth complaining to the Press Complaints Commission for such things. I always love wasting the Daily Mail’s time by making them respond to investigations!
Also in The S*n.
surely there is a law about making stories up? theres proof the guy is an actor yet the article is still on their page.
There are laws about such matters, but this would merit complaint to the new Independent Press Complaints Organisation as no criminal offence seems to have been committed. Libelling benefit claimants? Such a claim would be laughed out of court – the group (benefit claimants) is too large to identify victims – and how would the Mail pay damages? Instead, the matter would have to be raised with IPSO, on the grounds that the story breaks the industry’s own rules regarding accuracy.
More hate inspiring of the disabled.
http://dpac.uk.net/2014/12/dwp-caught-giving-disability-propaganda-to-daily-mail/
Yes, I’m sure I’ve already published about this.
I hope this is some kind of satirical piece or along the veins of it. The daily mail has been manufacturing “news” for years.To honestly believe anything that is on it requires faith that is beyond any that Christ himself ever possessed.
Dear oh Dear.
There is more reality of everyday life in the Beano than the Daily Wail.
The article is not a fake. Mr Kam is a wannabe actor, but that doesn’t change anything. He has delusions of stardom, but has very very little real professional experience. Have you seen anything on his CV? Some actors claim JSA, but many trained, skilled actors do other work (waiting, bar work, telesales, fitness instructing etc) between acting gigs. Mr Kam should get a job, and pay some tax, rather than kid himself he’s the next Van Damme. Van Damme delivered pizzas and worked as a bouncer before the movie roles came along!
Yes I have seen things on his CV – like the nine jobs I mentioned him having taken during 2014. In the article he stated that he wasn’t looking for work. Considering that list, it seems likely that this Daily Mail article was another paid job for him.
The article is a fake.
The article IS a sham. He was set up. He was interviewed about food tips and healthy eating, in order to get his permission, then nothing of that interview was used, and they wrote an entirely fictionally piece with made up quotes and published it before he had a chance to see it.
He works in a security job and trains in his spare time while he pursues an acting career.
None of the published pictures were used with permission.
People are advising him to take legal action.
Ironic of the Daily Mail to take an innocent and ambitious British-born young man and ruin his career in order to promote “hard working britains”
So he works a security job? Well that means he won’t be claiming JSA. If he’s not claiming JSA (which the article says he is), he will have no trouble discrediting the article & suing.
If a reporter pretended the interview was about fitness/diet in order to get his story, that may be devious, but it doesn’t change the facts. If as j says, the article is “entirely fictional”, that’s of course illegal…which makes me wonder why they would feel a need to “get his permission.”
Perhaps the reporter DID appeal to Kam’s ego, and then Kam DID say things which exposed his attitudes towards JSA and job seeking.
@BL
You need to sign release forms for people to use your name in any of these media things.
But all the release forms typically say things like “I agree for my name to be used and waive any right to inspect the article before publication, or hold the publisher liable for any damages”
Every actor in a magazine or tv show has signed a release form like this. And most don’t get taken advantage of.
For example, Every time you see a mean prank show or something like that most of those victims can legally do nothing to the producers because they have signed release forms. It doesn’t matter that the aired result has nothing to do with what was being said at the time.
It is exploitation plain and simple.
And as for notion that Kamran was a willing participant in this deception, or is illegally claiming JSA — it’s nonsense. You can read it for yourself on his facebook page.
The quotes are direct lies.
Paul Dacre and his minions must be the most objectionable filth the objectionably filthy British media has vomited out in decades. Probably since the Daily Mail of the 1930s, in fact.
I doubt the PCC or whatever it is now will do much, though…
the sun fell for it too. printed the story in yesterdays paper
Perhaps someone at the Mail should be prosecuted for deliberately misleading the public and encouraging hate crimes….?
he is getting plenty of free publicity.
Leveson enquiry addressed this briefly and asked if certain groups of people e.g disabled should be given protection but answer was no. Because people from political groups or beliefs should not be protected from media ridicule, Leveson accepted this answer. It was Osborne that he asked and he just let him go unchecked on his disingenuous reply. This is a green light for papers to stir up hatred on specific groups of people but because it is not a religious or ethnic specific target then it’s a free for all. Really dangerous times we are living in right now. Media too scared to target celebs because they have got more power to sue, so they are turning their vileness on unemployed and disabled. Also the agenda is to privatise welfare by creating stigma around NI related welfare claims, thus more people being prepared to pay out of their own pockets for a private insurance scheme in case they can’t work through illness or getting laid off.
Same article was in the sun, unsurprising i guess… However, he did say in the article that he was hoping to become a hollywood martial arts actor, much like Van Damme.
Could be that he’s on the actor’s website in an effort to improve his acting career… and is on JSA while he has no real acting jobs to do…
so, not necessarily a lie.
he is reported as actually saying that he thinks the government should pay for Gym memberships & a personal trainer, and that he doesn’t want to work partly because he doesn’t want his taxes going towards ‘fat people who can’t be bothered to work and just eat fast food’ …
Of course he is an actor: I haven’t read the Daily Mail article because I don’t want to encourage them, but other reports referencing the Mail made it quite clear that he is an aspiring actor, and hopes eventually to make a living at it instead of having to suffer a boring 9-5 job like normal people. It would be very odd indeed if such an individual did not have an agency profile which can be found online.
The questions we should be asking include whether he has in fact been claiming JSA in between any paid work, and if so, how does that work when it’s supposed to paid only to those available for and actively seeking employment (and there have been many stories of apparently genuine jobseekers having their benefits stopped for spurious reasons)? Are the quotes in the Mail even remotely close to being accurate? If not, will we read about him calling the journalist a liar when he appeals his JSA sanction? How did he come to the attention of the paper in the first place? Why would he basically admit to claiming benefits fraudulently, which is what the story amounts to? If it’s true that he receives JSA, did he receive any payment from the Mail and does the DWP know about it? If he was not paid, what would he hope to gain from this negative publicity?
Regardless of how much or how little of this story is true, it’s very clear that its intention is to discredit and demonise benefits claimants.
The question we should be asking is, was this a paid acting job?
He will have something to worry about now as no doubt his benefits claim will be examined now you have brought his cv to light. Of course he will have declared his spells of work to the DWP so they will not be able to cut his benefits.
Complain to the Independent Press Standards Organisation here: https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/index.html
If he went into this with his eyes wide open he may have opened himself up to some unwanted scrutiny, no matter how much publicity it gains him. However it would be no surprise if Mail tricked him into it, after all they will not suffer from any stories they make up, the PCC is still toothless (Dacre is still the chairman of the editors’ Code of practice Committee).
The Sun newspaper have also been making up FAKE stories
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/01/20/the-reality-behind-the-suns-hatchet-job-on-lithuanian-benefits-scrounger/