A concert by a young American singer had to be cancelled amid security fears after the Liverpool Echo confused her with Grammy award winner Taylor Swift.
Saturday’s Echo reported that the country music star, who won three Grammys at Sunday night’s ceremony in Los Angeles, was due to play to 480 pupils at a local Catholic primary school.
In fact the concert was part of a tour by Taylor Bright, a 16-year-old unknown who has just released her debut single.
The newspaper has now apologised for the error and is making a donation to the school.
The concert, which had been due to take place yesterday, had been organised by St Margaret Mary’s Catholic Junior School in Knowsley.
A statement on its website read: “We had planned a short concert for the children on Monday 1 February, featuring an unknown singer, Taylor Bright.
“Unfortunately, the Liverpool Echo has printed an inaccurate story that pop singer Taylor Swift is coming. There will now be no concert and the Liverpool Echo has promised to print an amendment.”
A spokesman for the Echo said: “The Echo regrets the mistake in Saturday’s paper and has apologised to the school’s governors.
“We are making a donation to school funds as a gesture of goodwill.”
Ms Bright’s spokesman said the Echo’s incorrect story had also been picked up by the announcer at Liverpool’s home game with Bolton Wanderers on Saturday and passed on to 40,000 fans.
“I have no idea why they thought Taylor Swift would be performing at St Margaret Mary’s when she was in America picking up her Grammys,” she said.
Comments
Dave (02/02/2010 10:49:12)
good publicity for the young unknown though…
Ruthie (02/02/2010 10:54:40)
Oh dear! As Dianne Oxberry on the BBC said yesterday, everybody makes mistakes! :-/
However, maybe I’m missing something glaringly obvious here, but how did this even happen? When I was on a daily newspaper (albeit one in the Midlands, covering an area where a sighting of Ken Barlow from Corrie in the local Dixons would warrant a page lead), if we’d have got wind that Taylor Swift was appearing at a local school, there would have been a great flurry of phonecalls to everybody involved in such an event, as well as checks and double-checks, during which it would have been ascertained that Ms Swift was definitely NOT appearing at any school in the vicinity, long before any copy made it into print. Were the staff just not around on that day to ensure this didn’t happen? With so many cuts being made to editorial staff everywhere, it wouldn’t surprise me!
Col Kurtz (02/02/2010 11:44:05)
Taylor Bright rocks
Robbo (02/02/2010 11:47:22)
Surely the show must go on!
40,000 hacked-off Scousers would be quite a sight.
Bob (02/02/2010 11:53:00)
But the point is no-one turned up at the school. Ruthie, is this not example of an act who might be known to some people, but not others, so the odds of people querying it are reduced?
Swift exit (02/02/2010 11:53:53)
Diane is right. The BBC got the number of grammys she’d won wrong in their report too.
FAST WOMAN (02/02/2010 12:25:32)
I’m with Ruthie. Mistakes happen… but as this is a regional press news site I’d be more interested in knowing how it happened.
Web Man (02/02/2010 12:41:32)
How it happened? Presumably the thicky reporter who put it online didn’t know who Taylor Swift was (I rather suspect she does now!) and then then the sub who put it in the paper didn’t spot the glaring mistake. As if one of the biggest pop stars in the world right now would play at a school in Liverpool right after the Grammys. Someone should have figured it out. Someone should have known their Swift from their Bright.
Old groaner (02/02/2010 12:48:10)
“and then the sub who put it in the paper didn’t spot the glaring mistake”
What subs? This a Trinity Mirror paper which is getting rid of the subbing operation. TM bosses reckon it’s fine for reporters to put copy straight into the page.
Web Man (02/02/2010 13:04:27)
@Old groaner – I didn’t realise that was the case and things were quite so bad. Surely someone would have read the page before it went to print though?Just wondering if there is anything to show this wasn’t entirely the reporter’s screw-up.
Ziggy (02/02/2010 13:05:43)
Wow, 9 comments before someone raised the ole “well, if they didn’t keen cutting the subs this issue wouldn’t happen” routine…yawn, I’m bored with hearing this each and every time someone tries to explain a faux pas (although its refreshing that “management” doesn’t get a kicking this time…still, the day is young… ). At the end of the day it is the job of the reporter to put together the article that is broadly factually correct…the dimwit involved in this story clearly didn’t check their facts.
World Cup Willie (02/02/2010 13:12:39)
The subs at the Yorkshire Evening Post a few years ago proved their worth by gently querying a story from a local stringer that Buddy Holly was playing a comeback concert at a pub in Dewsbury.
The story waxed on about his career without mentioning the fact his 30-year career break had been due to a fatal plane crash.
Presumably in these days where a story can go from notebook to printing hall in the blink of an eye, this remarkable comeback event would have been publicised to the overjoyed millions of West Yorkshire.
“Tribute band?” said the stringer. “What’s a tribute band?”
Bluestringer (02/02/2010 13:19:00)
Meh. Who?
I hate Country and Western.
Hannah (02/02/2010 13:21:14)
I’m with Ruthie and FAST WOMAN. I don’t really get how this happened. If anything, you would want a quote in the story from the head teacher about how the school got someone winning Grammys to perform at the school, regardless of whether the reporter had heard of Taylor Swift or not. This couldn’t just be a case of getting the name wrong because of all the detail in the story clearly referring to Swift. You never know, the reporter could have simply got the name wrong and the sub could have googled it and put extra info in there. Subs can add mistakes to copy occasionally you know!
Old groaner (02/02/2010 13:50:34)
@Ziggy – I’m not for a moment claiming subs are perfect. But as the checks between reporter and print become fewer, so the chances increase of something silly escaping to the public. Going back many (many!) years, things missed by reporters and subs could be picked up by proof-readers, copyholders, Linotype operators and comps – even people in the press hall. The subs are/were almost the only protection left. I too would love to know whether the reporter was actually to blame. Maybe someone on the Echo will spill the beans 
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