A regional daily removed a story from its website five minutes after publication after it was revealed to be ‘fake news’.
The Manchester Evening News published the story based on a press release purporting to be from the organisers of the Manchester Pride LGBT festival and claimed a “naked streak” would be held in the city to raise funds for charity
In fact, the release on which the story was based had actually been sent in by FactsMCR, a pressure group which campaigns about what it perceives to be the inaccurate reporting of Manchester’s LGBT community.
It included fabricated quotes from Mark Fletcher, chief executive of Manchester Pride.
The MEN has since apologised to Mr Fletcher, pictured above left, who the newspaper says was “very understanding”.
The story appeared on the MEN’s site on Thursday.
A spokesman for Trinity Mirror, the MEN’s parent company, said: “The story was posted online in good faith, however after less than five minutes it was taken down when the error was realised.
“All efforts were made to remove the story from social media as quickly as possible.”
FactsMCR has accused the MEN of inflating facts and figures to try and provide positive coverage of the event.
The spokesman added: “As for accusations of ‘misinformation’, the only example which has been forthcoming relates to the reporting of attendance figures from 17 years ago.
“The Manchester Evening News checks attendance figures with multiple sources including Greater Manchester Police before publishing.
“Manchester Evening News is proud of its longstanding support of Manchester Pride, and it won’t be letting the malicious actions of one individual to deter it from covering the event in future.”
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You couldn’t make it up!
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Says a lot about the lack of editors and basic checks in newsrooms these days though. I’m pretty sure being naked in public contravenes a few laws. What next? a sponsored litter drop?
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There will be a great deal more of this sort of nonsense now editors, chief subs, news editors and all the other greybeards who used to prevent slap-dash chancers from causing embarrassment and expensive legals have been sacked.
Throwing all that experience and know-how out the door has allowed the regional publishers’ advancing army of wide-eyed digital-first children to takeover the show.
Trebles all round.
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Being naked in public in England is perfectly legal as long as no one is deeply offended or feels threatened. Shame it wasn’t a true story, really.
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I stand corrected!
* takes pants off
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“Being naked in public in England is perfectly legal as long as no one is deeply offended or feels threatened.”
Except there’s always someone prepared to be offended. Google Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler. Most of his arrests were in Scotland, to its shame, but he has fallen foul of the law in England too.
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This kind of unreliable news story is the result of the overall dumbing down of the regional press newsrooms on the belief that a youngster with access to social media can do the job of a time served ‘journalist’ at half the price, and will become more frequent as each editor or sub is moved aside to make room for keyboard tappers with the word content in their job title.
It’ll just take for some serious stuff to hit the fan once and the law suits to pile up before those who’ve chosen this route are forced to think again.
Meantime let the photos of AK47 weilding refugees continue to be published
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It’s not ‘fake news’.
It’s ‘lazy news’.
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