Wednesday 7 July 2010

We published 'wholly inaccurate' quotes, but it wasn't our fault

A week ago, the Scottish Daily Express published the following apology:

On June 26, 2010, we published an article on Page 9 of the Scottish Daily Express concerning the grave of ex-footballer Colin Hendry’s late wife, Denise.

Quotes attributed to former friend Hector McFarlane, commenting on funeral arrangements and a headstone for Mrs Hendry’s grave, were supplied to us by Watson’s, a Blackpool-based news agency and used by us in good faith.

We now accept the comments attributed to Mr McFarlane were wholly inaccurate.

We apologise to Mr McFarlane and his family for any distress the article may have caused.

Once again, we see a paper blaming someone else for a cock-up so as to divert attention from the fact they didn't bother checking the story before they published it.

(The original article has been removed but a cached version is here. A response from Hendry, denying the claims, was published a couple of days later)

1 comment:

  1. That's horrible. Even had the story been true, it's hard to see how "man can't afford headstone for wife's grave" is in the public interest, or anything other than deeply upsetting and offensive to Denise's family. Colin Hendry is clearly (and understandably) distressed by it.

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