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The Mail on Sunday’s take on this Daily Mail ‘scoop’ is a delight

John Plunkett. Updated November 20th, 2017

Here’s the Daily Mail getting very excited indeed after ‘rescuing’ explorer Benedict Allen ‘from the land that time forgot’.

An edited highlight or two to save you the bother of reading it.

“The Daily Mail rescued Benedict Allen from the jungle yesterday. The Mail found the father of three … weak from malaria trapped between warring tribes in one of the most remote hotspots on Earth.

The Mail launched the mission [and] following tip offs from tribal chiefs, we hired a helicopter and found him deep in the jungle amid towering volcano peaks.

Dubbed ‘the land that time forgot’ the valley has become a war zone with the Hewa people and their Paiela neighbours fighting with bows and arrows.

Mr Allen said: ‘I”m known as a survivor but it just wasn’t looking good. I didn’t think I’d make it. But I had to believe somehow that something would happen, and you came out of the clouds.’”

And here’s the Mail on Sunday’s take on the story a day later.

The highlights.

“The helicopter pilot who airlifted Benedict Allen from the jungle said ‘He didn’t really need rescuing.’

Craig Rose said the TV adventurer had been well cared for by tribespeople and appeared to be in no danger. The crew waited for an hour as the explorer posed for pictures with villagers before his evacuation.

‘He was lapping it up,’ said Rose. The pilot said it was a commercial arrangement rather than a rescue.

‘We don’t go in and rescue people,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t as if he was in mortal danger. It was just that his travel plans were stuck. He wouldn’t have been starving. There was water. He was looked after.'”

Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, edited by Geordie Greig, have a fierce rivalry and a long history of doing down each other’s stories, but this is a classic of its type.

The Daily Mail hit back again a day later.

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