The sniffy Sun thinks we’re “very sad” in telling you how they claimed a regional newspaper exclusive as their own.

The Grimsby Telegraph splashed on Monday with the horrific tale of 11-year-old Porl French, who slipped from a chair on which he was standing while pretending that a snooker cue was a pogo stick.

The cue jabbed through his scrotum, lodging inside his abdomen, with the tip poking out through his stomach.

Yesterday’s Sun carried a page lead on the same story, tagging it “Exclusive by Caroline Sigley”. All that was new from Monday’s Grimsby paper was the X-ray of Porl, complete with digitally-enhanced snooker cue lodged in his body. But the same image had appeared in Tuesday’s Grimsby Telegraph…which had sold it to the Sun.

“It’s typical. They mislead the readers daily with these sort of claims,” said Telegraph editor Peter Moore.

“The fact is that papers like the Grimsby Telegraph outsell all the nationals put together by nearly two-to-one in towns like this and it’s inevitable our paper’s full of exclusives, but we don’t feel the need to bang it in front of our readers.”

In the interests of balance, HoldTheFrontPage contacted the Sun to ask about its policy of tagging stories “exclusive”. We were passed around four people in the news and features department, one of whom explained wearily that “exclusive means it’s not been in another national newspaper” (in fact, the story appeared in the Daily Sport on Tuesday).

Finally, a man who gave his name only as Peter said: “Is that the best story you’ve got? Get a life, mate. This is really, really sad” and put the phone down.

But back to the real story. A neighbour had called the Telegraph to ask it to publish an appeal for the return of Porl’s bike and his brother’s, both of which had been stolen while Porl was in hospital.

Reporter Dave Speck was attentive enough to ask: “Oh, what’s the matter with him?” and the stomach-churning truth emerged.

“Basically, it’s good journalism,” said Mr Moore. “He’s got that nice sense of curiosity.”

Has your story been claimed as an exclusive by the nationals?
Ring the HoldTheFrontPage newsdesk on
01332 291111 x6022, or e-mail us now