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Regional daily carries pages from rival title

Readers of a regional daily were given a little pre-Christmas surprise today after it carried pages from a rival title.

Two pages of Trinity Mirror’s Newcastle-based morning title The Journal found their way into the Newsquest-owned Northern Echo.

The bizarre mix-up, which Echo editor Peter Barron says will probably become a collectors’ item, happened as a result of both titles being printed at Trinity’s plant in Middlesbrough.

Peter wrote on his blog: “It is perhaps the most bizarre cock-up in my time in newspapers.

“How can The Northern Echo be published with two pages from the Newcastle-based Journal?…..I can only assume someone at the print centre was too full of Christmas cheer last night.

“The phones at our reception have been ringing non-stop with complaints.

“To make matters worse, the first Journal page you come to reports the story about Darlington-built Tornado rescuing stranded passengers in Kent under the headline ‘100-year-old train rescues stranded passengers’.

“Everyone knows it’s not 100 years old – it’s not even two years old yet.

“If nothing else, today’s Christmas Eve paper is a collectors’ item but The Northern Echo must never again be brought down to this level.”

A Trinity Mirror spokesman said: “We have carried out a full investigation which has revealed this unfortunate mistake was down to human error for which we unreservedly apologise.”

Comments

Bill Marshall (29/12/2009 11:25:40)
The only parallel I can draw is from about 15 years ago when the Hull Daily Mail managed to print a page (or pages) from the identical day of the previous year!

Cynic (29/12/2009 12:32:53)
The editor says he’s never known it happen in 30 years. Probably because for 29 of those years, the Echo wasn’t printed by a rival! Another consequence of cost-cutting – and it will happen again.

dave (29/12/2009 13:03:01)
You would have to be a very sad collector…