• Tonight at 8pm, (Monday 13th August) Channel 4 Dispatches broadcast this vilifying-the-unemployed classic:

    'Tricks of the Dole Cheats'

    The bile-ridden summary reads thusly:

    “Reporter Morland Sanders investigates Jobcentre Plus, the organisation tasked with getting Britain back to work and cracking down on dole cheats. With the help of jobseekers, undercover filming and a former insider, the programme reveals the shirkers' tricks that make it easy to cheat the system.”

    The trail for the current affairs programme is a right shit-tank as well —initially morphed into some sort of mock positive ‘life-style’ opportunity advertisement, it goes on to allegedly reveal the extent of Welfare fraud:

    http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/tricks-of-the-dole-cheats-trail

    This will only aid and abet the government's current attacks on Our welfare by framing claimants as 'benefit-cheating scroungers'.

    Heads up!

    Just 0.8 % of benefit expenditure was lost to fraud in 2011. The government lost a similar amount of benefit expenditure, 0.6%, due to its own errors in 2011.

    99.2% of benefit expenditure was not fraudulent.

    Alas, the usual glut of right-wing columnists & newspapers will have a field-day with this 'pinnacle' of Channel 4 investigative journalism, so it’s in our interests that we provide a little bit of damage control.

    At the very least, I suggest a response (via phone, fax, twitter #dispatches, CH4 facebook, CH4 Dispatches website comments section, and e-mail) on Monday during airing of the programme.

    Let Channel 4 know what you think of their damaging portrayal of claimants:

    Channel 4 Television Corporation

    Telephone: 020 7396 4444
    Fax: 020 7306 8366
    Minicom: 020 7306 8691
    Web site: www.channel4.com

    You can send free faxes here: http://www.freepopfax.com/

    They are using the twitter hashtag #HowNotToGetAJob ???

    Channel 4 facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Channel4
    CH4 Dispatches twitter: http://twitter.com/C4Dispatches

    hashtags #dispatches #HowNotToGetAJob #c4news #ch4

    Krishnan Guru-Murthy @krishgm
    Alex Thomson @alextomo
    Peter Heneghan Comm & Social Media Ambassador for @Ch4dispatches @PeterHeneghan

    Journalist behind the programme: Morland Sanders @morlandsanders

    Daniel Pearl is the Commissioning Editor for Dispatches
    Programme Coordinator: Kate Surfield
    Telephone: 0207 306 8647
    email: ksurfield@channel4.co.uk

    CH4 Dispatches website: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/home

    You can also make a complaint to regulator Ofcom regarding the promotional material and content of 'Tricks of the Dole Cheats' here:

    https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg