Star publishes front page apology for front page story

On Saturday, the Daily Star ran this front page lead:


The article claimed:

Telly babe Christine Bleakley has set her heart on marrying football ace Frank Lampard on an Italian-style gondola in Las Vegas.

The lovestruck pair checked out marriage packages during a recent hush-hush trip to the gambling city before Frank returned to pre-season Premier League training with Chelsea.

Sources claimed the “head-over-heels” couple stayed at the huge Venetian hotel, which has more than 4,000 suites.

But it seems they didn't check the accuracy of this story before publication either because today, the paper ran this apology:

Frank Lampard and Christine Bleakley have no intention to get married at this time.

They did not travel to Las Vegas to make arrangements for a wedding as we reported on Saturday.

We apologise for any embarrassment this may have casued to Frank and Christine and their families.

So another of the Star's front page 'celebrity' stories based on anonymous sources turns out not to be true. Who'd have thought?

Yet not only have they corrected the story very swiftly, they've printed that apology on the front page:


No, it doesn't have the prominence of the original, but it's better than this feeble effort.

It's almost certain that the high profile of Lampard and Bleakley have played a big part in both the speed and position of this correction.

But it shows front page apologies can be (and indeed, should be) published for front page stories and the Star should be congratulated for that.

However, at time of writing, the original article is still on their website and the apology isn't.

Moreover, if the Star didn't write so much crap on the front of their paper in the first place, then such apologies wouldn't be necessary.

(Hat-tip to Conradder and Anton)