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News website apologises over false rollercoaster story

A newly-launched news website has apologised after publishing a report that a local theme park rollercoaster ride had broken down.

Kent Live, the new county-wide platform launched by Trinity Mirror last month, reported that visitors to the Dreamland theme park in Margate had experienced a “virtual nightmare” after being stranded on the ride.

The story was based on a tweet which included a photograph of the rollercoaster carriages stationary on a descending section of the track with a member of staff stood in front of the vehicle.

It later emerged that staff at the theme park had in fact been testing the equipment.

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The original story, which has now been taken down, reported that the ride had turned into a “virtual nightmare” for a dozen visitors after they were stranded on the ride.

However a later story acknowledged that no-one had been trapped.

The website, which serves as the online platform for a number of Kent titles including the Thanet Gazette, issued an apology via the Gazette’s Facebook page.

It posted a link to the new story stating: “Good news. We apologise to Dreamland for the confusion.”

Kent Live, which launched last month, came under fire yesterday after a former sports editor of the Gazette criticised its coverage of non-league football and county cricket.

Jon Phipps, who took redundancy from TM in June, said sports content on the new site was mainly focused on league football club Charlton Athletic.

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10 comments

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  • September 1, 2016 at 9:50 am
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    I still believe that we were quicker in the old days than today, smashing out stories par by par on the old typewriter – but never without verifiying a story.
    ‘Rushing’ stuff out on social media should be no different, but then again, newspapers are different now. The miserable old sods in the newsroom, who helped put the brake on excited and inexperienced reporters, are mostly gone – well, most staff appear to be gone these days.
    Newspapers on the cheap are lacking in real news content anyway, without just jumping on social media feeds and accounts from elsewhere.
    I read with displeasure someone on Facebook delighting in tricking a local news hack in the Black Country. I don’t blame the reporters or subs or people on the shop floor. It’s the owners and managers.

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  • September 1, 2016 at 9:50 am
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    So. Some garbage appears on twitter and it’s run as a story without anybody bothering to check it out. What next? A bogus murder? A pretend pile-up on the M5? You gotta love this brave new world.

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  • September 1, 2016 at 11:15 am
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    Confusion? Confusion?

    Shouldn’t that be “Complete ineptitude”?

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  • September 1, 2016 at 11:24 am
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    That’s two inaccurate stories reported on today’s HTFP alone. Is nobody checking anything these days?

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  • September 1, 2016 at 11:52 am
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    Always happened. Anyone who worked on the Islington Gazette and sister titles in the 1990s were victims of a magnificent hoax run by a friend of mine. London League Division Five or Six rugby side (ie struggled to get a team together) submitted reports of dramatic games, plans for a new stadium, appointing a New Zealand All Black as director of rugby etc and these were used verbatim. Two of the stories for the new stadium (in ISLINGTON ffs) were back page splashes. When he moved away, the stories dried up and I never knew if the journos at the time realised they’d been had. Anyone care to own up?

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  • September 1, 2016 at 2:48 pm
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    It’s one of my major bugbears that ‘future of journalism’ discussions, on here especially, are straw-manned into it being about digital vs print, it’s not – the issue is journalism vs ‘content’.

    This is just garbage and anti-journalism, designed to fill a space with no proper research done. It would fit right in with all the SEO celeb non stories we get.

    Newspaper companies are placing their faith in digital but without the quality, as though somehow people who read online aren’t as clever, won’t notice mistakes or bad pictures the way they would in a newspaper. It’s baffling.

    I guarantee the digital news services will go the way of print in the very near future, they’re all doomed for the simple fact that they’re rubbish – it’s no more complex an issue than that.

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  • September 1, 2016 at 6:41 pm
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    The answer is simple: Don’t believe a word of what Trinity Mirror tells you – and pass this message on to as many people as possible. Sooner – (but more likely) later, it will rebound on them. Regrettablt, by then, it will be too late.

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  • September 2, 2016 at 5:32 pm
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    If so-called journalists are relying on tweets for stories, without doing any fact-checking, then the profession, as I know it, is doomed. This monumental blunder was made even worse by the mealy-mouthed apology — “confusion” indeed, Journalism lecturers should use this as a prime example of how not to go about the job.

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