Thursday, September 17, 2009

Winehouse: Not a target at all, admits The Sun

So, amongst the stories that popped up in the last day and a half or so was the admission by The Sun that the big front-page splash which claimed Amy Winehouse and Alan Sugar were on some sort of terrorist hit-list was about as true as... oh, that story about Elton John's dogs or something.

The Sun has appears to apologise:
A PHONEY terrorism "expert" has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician.

Newspapers. Like The Sun, you mean?

Yes, it turns out that far from being an apology from the Sun to its readers, it's actually running an apology from Glen Jenvey to The Sun:
Jenvey - who had been described as "an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst" by Tory MP Patrick Mercer - said: "I'm fully responsible for the story. The Sun was deceived.

"The Sun did not know that I was behind the postings.

"I would like to apologise to all the British Jews who we scared and I'd like to apologise to The Sun newspaper."

Somehow, The Sun seems to think that this lets it off the hook - "ooh, he didn't say 'I've forged the postings', so how were we to know?". Shouldn't The Sun have investigated a little more closely before running the story?

So, apart from the relief that Amy Winehouse is now - officially - once again her own worst enemy, there remains a big question: had we paid to read this story behind a paywall, would we get a refund?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous18/9/09 2:16 pm

    Let us not forget that it was Patrick Mercer that said in The Sun: "Glen Jenvey is an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst of fundamentalist matters and ought to be listened to. If he says that this is a risk worth looking at, then we must take it seriously. He and I have done quite a lot of work together, and he is a source of reference for me." Without that endorsing statement from Mercer, Glen Jenvey, would not have been listened to so the responsibility is partly that of the senior politician.

    I doubt Mr Mercer can be considered a source of trustworthy information, in addition, it would seem that londonmuslims.blogspot think that "prat and rent a quote Patrick Mercer", is "attempting to stigmatise and stereotype", decent law abiding citizens with his "scaremongering", and so once again just like Dunblane scandal and the issue that gave him his marching orders to the backbenches Mercer’s conduct is in question (incidentally) "a lot" of "idle and useless" ethnic minority soldiers was in fact according to a BBC Radio 4's PM programme only two such soldiers.

    It’s been suggested there is something of the night about Patrick Mercer but I think there is also something of the winter about him and some people that have experienced him feel much the same way.

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