UK: 6 newspapers pay for their inaccuracy
Six different newspapers claimed in a series of articles that an individual had been suspected of being involved in last year’s liquid bomb terrorist plot. Some articles even suggested that the man had been arrested in connection with the plot.
The newspapers involved included the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Sunday Mercury (all owned by the Trinity Mirror), the Guardian, Daily Mail and the Times.
"The articles caused Mr Rauf significant embarrassment and distress at a time of particularly heightened sensitivity in relations within the Muslim community,” said Mr Rauf’s solicitor, Isabel Hudson.
According to, Hudson, a number of other newspapers had also repeated the false information on their websites.
As newspapers are increasingly pressured to break news as it comes, but are at the same time more than ever relied on for their credibility, editors must double their efforts and accuracy checks.
The newspapers issued an apology and will pay Mr Rauf substantial libel damages, as wekk as his legal costs.
Source: Media Guardian
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Yes, but...and wouldn't a simple apology have sufficed?
Heres a really loaded question. in the near future, when looking back on the role of the media during Bush's agitprop campaign for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, how will the now mainstream media explain its unwillingness to question the legitimacy of Bush's claims? Will disseminating information without verification as to accuracy result in shared liability for the consequential death and mass destruction? The potential for some serious money to be litigated over does exist, and we all know that wherever there is potential, there will be lawyers. I posit, however the mainstream media could possibly mitigate that potential by redoubling efforts to correct their mistakes of omission, and comission, get the real info out to the people. The decline in readership of newspaper I believe is more a result of erosion of trust, most see the media now as little more than an organ of a corrupt state, and trust little beyond the sports page and the comics section.