Wednesday 14 April 2010

Sun buries apology to Harry

On Monday, the Sun ran a front page story about Prince Harry spending £10,000 on champagne during a night out.

St James' Palace denied the story - 'The £10,000 figure is nonsense' - and as a result, no other major news outlet repeated the claims.

Then the Sun removed the story from its website.

Yesterday, the Sun wrote a pathetic follow-up which didn't explicitly deny the original - and buried it on page 19.

So today, under the headline 'Sorry Harry':

Prince Harry did not go on a bender and spend £10k on champagne at a nightclub as we suggested in Monday’s paper.

We are happy to clarify this and wish Harry the best of luck in his exams!

Note the weasly use of the word 'suggested'. Does that front page really look like they are only 'suggesting' it happened?

So they've admitted the mistake and said 'sorry'. All is well?

Not quite. The original story ran on pages one and five.

Today's apology is on page 10.

And, at time of writing, it's not on the Sun's website.

The PCC Code states:

A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence.

How can anyone possibly describe a very short note on page 10 as having 'due prominence' compared with a front page splash?

3 comments:

  1. And they didn't even bother proof-reading it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Best off [sic] luck"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous (both) - they were actually the Press Gazette's typos. Now corrected.

    ReplyDelete

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