Gotcha!

Friday 13th seems to have been a good day to bury bad news, at least for News International. The Sun had been relentlessly attacking Gordon Brown's crass blunder of mis-spelling a bereaved mother's name when writing a letter of condolence after her son's death in Afghanistan. Then a screenshot of The Sun's own web site emerged, which seemed to show that The Sun itself had manged to get the mother's name wrong. This got me thinking:

I'm also curious to know the truth about The Sun's conduct in the "lettergate" affair. If this is genuine and this post at Harry's Place is correct, The Sun's own web site managed to mis-spell the bereaved mother's name. Since the paper's already told us what an unforgivable blunder it is to make such a mistake, I'd be interested to know whether The Sun intend a) to apologise for being caught red handed or b) send in some high-powered lawyers to challenge the libellous allegation that they made such an insensitive mistake. So far News International have been uncharacteristically silent.

Well, last Friday, with as little fanfare as possible, The Sun 'fessed up. I haven't been following the TV and radio news obsessively, but I've heard a fair selection of broadcasts and haven't heard a thing about the admission in the news headlines since. So I guess The Sun has got away with it again. The original attacks made the top slot even on the BBC news, so everybody remembers that Brown (who at least has the excuse that his day job is trying to run the country) blundered. The fact that The Sun also blundered hasn't been a news story. But, whether anybody notices or not, The Sun's clumsy gaffe blows their "story" out of the water - if you think this was a terrible, crass mistake for which there was no excuse, then The Sun is as guilty as Gordon Brown. If you think it's terribly hurtful, but understandable on the grounds of poor eyesight, poor handwriting and the pressures of high office, then the last week's news headlines were full of a partisan non-story.

Say what you like about The Sun - in the race to the bottom, it's a winner. Just when you thought that journalistic standards couldn't get any lower, it gets further down than you'd think humanly possible. For me, the big story isn't the one smeared all over the headlines last week - it's the fact that the UK's best-selling newspaper is a woeful national embarrassment. And it's just turned 40. For the lowdown on forty years of spiteful, inaccurate tabloid drivel, see this tribute. And, just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gutter, part 2.