Adebayor's started so well for Man City
Sorry for Publishing Lies..
The Daily Express and Daily Star say sorry for printing the following: "McCann's Hiding a Big Secret", "Madeline Killed by Sleeping Tablets", "Parents' Car Hid a Corpse in their Car". - the two papers admit this morning they were all lies.
Here's a quote from their unprecedented front page apology: "we now recognise that the stories suggesting the couple were responsible for, or may be resposnbile for the death of their daughter are untrue and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughters' disappearacne".
Express Newspapers have also paid 550 thousand pounds to the Madeleine Fund. Is that enough? Does an apology mean much? Should the Editor resign? Will you stop buying the Express or Star?
Unfortunately the McCanns are not in a position to deal with each lie individually. I did contribute to the live debate using my own experiences of media fabrications and claims, but in addition, I want to say that I'm a very assertive person and was able to deal with the consequences of what transpired with humour. I chose to go the public humiliation route and made those responsible and those who bought into the lies the subject of my writing, and I put it in a public place. People only needed to visit my website to know the truth.
If those who write lies and the individuals who embrace them can be made to feel foolish and ashamed they may think twice before repeating their behaviour.
Where's the true accountability here then?
A phrase that the Editors of the Press are often fond of throwing at errant politicians for instance." I think they ought to be seriously considering their position." comes to mind.
I suppose in this cynical age of ours, one ought not to be that surprised that some in our media make up stories. But, such is the nature of this case, that their attempt to defame and discredit the McCanns by telling lies about them, should have caused the Court's to have punished their "tittle-tattling" falsehoods a tad more harshly.
I personally would have thought a short prison sentence for the editors and several £millions more in fines would have been in order.
The Press have got to learn that they just cannot go around telling lies about people. They have a social as well a legal responsibility to behave with a bit more decency. Their lies can and have wrecked lives in the past. All power to the McCanns, who have shown a steadfast dignity and bravery in the face of the enormous pressure they have been subjected to since the tragic diappearance of their daughter Maddy.
What the McCanns needed from the Press and anyone in a position to do so was and is still unqualified help, and not to my mind what has been exposed as nothing more than malicious hindrance, in order to sell papers.
Seems to me that the wording of the Express apology begs the question of who actually wrote it. It's either a complete capitulation where they were given a text by the other side and specifically ordered to put it on the front page, or it's the most jaw-droppingly hypocritical piece of writing since the Sun accused Heather Mills of making things up.
Of course it is not enough. Every day they published a slander the profit should be taken away from them and put into the fund. The Editor MUST be fired and the papers heavily fined on top of previous fines.£500,000 is probablt one days profits and is not nearly enough.
I am not buying these type of papers anyway, because I have always believed they are rubbish and not worth the paper they are printed on. It is nice to see my suspicions confirmed... If they lied about this, what else have they/will they lie about?
PS Victoria: you may want to run a spell checker next time you post :-)
The rest of the newspapers today have barely mentioned the apology by Express group. What do you read into that?
The Express along with most tabloids lied about Iraq and WMD along with numerous other falsehoods and scare stories to justify an attack and occupation. They are all pro-capitalist, anti republican, Monarchist, anti real Labour and trade unions! Such newspapers, in the guise of a 'free press' will lie about anything, sensationalise about anything, scaremonger about anything in order to achieve one aim and that is to deter its readership from evaluating the real problems that threaten our society and above all to question the status quo. Anybody whether left wing or not who ventures to read a hard left journal will realise by the way it covers world or domestic events that much of the popular press are all the same and justify their separate titles by merely putting an innocuous twist on the same storyline. In a democratic society, all papers should be publicly financed like the ´óÏó´«Ã½ but with democratically elected news editors from all parts of the political spectrum who will ensure that all key topics of the day are covered by contrasting politically biased journalists. Letter sections should also be enlarged and again, what letters are published should be subject to democratic judgements by the elected editors! Such principles ideally should be applied to what is heard and seen on the ´óÏó´«Ã½! Only until this happens will incidents like the Express v McCann debacle be thwarted!