Hypocrisy rests easy in every news medium on Earth

As I’ve said many times before, I am a great fan of Nick Davies: fine journalist, balls of steel, played a pivotal role in revealing details of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, good egg etc etc.

But earlier in this tumultuous week, the run-of-the-mill mendacious elements in the Guardian decided to do something without Nick’s usually applied thoroughness. The Guardian printed a front page story on Tuesday that claimed the Sun discovered Brown’s son Fraser had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis by accessing medical records in 2006, when Brown was chancellor. Brown was “in tears” when he found out the Sun was going to run the story about his child, he told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday.

But in fact, both Brownshirt and the Guardianista were completely wrong: The Sun denied any wrongdoing, and said the information came from a member of the public whose son also suffers from cystic fibrosis, who wanted to raise awareness of the condition. The as yet unidentified man has now signed an affidavit to confirm he was the source of the story.

Today, the Guardian printed a correction on Page 36.

 

“In fact the information came from a different source and the Guardian apologizes for its error,” the correction read.

There are four morals to this story:

1. If you lie your balls off 99.5% of the time, there will be few believers when you tell the truth.

2. In printing the retraction, Big G shows itself to be just as unwilling to accept responsibility as the Murdoch press.

3. For all the hypocritical bollocks poured forth by Brown yesterday, he was spot on the money when he said new guidelines must insist on apologies being given the same splash as the original story.

4. To all the pillocks still convinced that this is a Right wing site dedicated to the immolation of all things Left/Left wing sight dedicated to expunging free speech on the Right, it is a realist site dedicated to the destruction of The Dictatorship of the Establishment….whatever its hue.