This time, it's the Daily Star that has had to cough up, for invading the privacy of Little Britain star Matt Lucas following the death of Kevin McGee.
MediaGuardian reports:
Lucas informed the media that he did not want to discuss the matter and asked for his privacy to be respected.
However, the Daily Star published a story alleging that Lucas had been put on suicide watch and that he had met a new boyfriend and chosen to move on.
"Such claims are wholly without foundation, and publishing these false claims at this time considerably aggravated the hurt and distress caused by the article," [Lucas' solicitor John] Kelly told the high court.
He added that the newspaper had also published an article speculating that the reason for the couple's divorce was McGee's use of cocaine.
The Express Newspapers:
offered its sincere apologies for invading his privacy and for the distress caused.
That sincerity would be more believable if they'd thought about that before rushing to print.
Meanwhile, the PCC has published details of a resolved complaint, where a woman complained about The Sun calling her a 'gender bender'.
Another sensitive bit of Sun reporting, resolved when:
the newspaper wrote to the complainant accepting her concern about the language used and removed the article from its website.
Alas, as the article was published in 2008, it took the Sun two years to understand the 'concern' about that term.
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Another day, another piece of steaming bullshit from the Murdochracy. Hey-ho. I wonder if the Sun would complain if someone were to call them 'truth benders'. Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what a pathetic "resolution". If the PCC was worth a jot, they'd make all newspapers print grovelling apologies about this kind of insensitive reporting. No further back in the pages than the original offending article. One can dream.
I think "truth benders" would actually be unduly kind!
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