A regional daily has been absolved of wrongdoing after publishing inaccurate claims provided by the police about the circumstances surrounding two people’s arrests on drug-driving charges.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation found the Eastern Daily Press had been entitled to rely on information provided by the police in both a post on Twitter and a subsequent call to confirm the tweet’s accuracy.
The EDP offered to publish a clarification once the inaccuracy was confirmed.
The article in question reported that a learner driver and the person supervising them had been arrested after both tested positive for drugs.
It claimed that officers had stopped the car around 9am on the school run, with three children between four and nine in the car at the time.
Sarah Young, one of the people in the car, complained to IPSO under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, claiming that the article was inaccurate because there were no children in the car at the time of the arrests.
The Norwich-based EDP apologised for any distress the article caused, and said that the information regarding the children being in the car at the time of the arrests had come from a tweet posted by the police.
The journalist involved had also had a telephone conversation with the police after reading this tweet, confirming the details of the arrest.
On receipt of the complaint, the EDP contacted the police, who accepted that the information they initially provided was inaccurate.
After receiving the complaint the newspaper immediately removed reference to children being in the car in the online article, and also offered to publish a clarification in the first six pages of the newspaper.
IPSO found the EDP was entitled to rely on the information provided by the police, but that it should now publish the offered clarification to avoid a breach of Code.
The complaint was not upheld, and the full adjudication can be read here.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Oh the joys and pitfalls of obtaining leads and stories from social media, they knock it yet scour it 24/7 and rely on it in preference to professional,experienced journalists , and yes I know the police accepted the error so in this instance they were vindicated however with so many pleas for stories to be emailed in its an ongoing accident waiting to happen, and a potentially costly one at that.
Report this comment
I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do and defend the police…a bit.
The system police press officers use around the country was “revamped” a while back and is now an absolute mess.
Many times the first recording of a crime by the officer on scene is left for the press office and not updated by officers.
As anyone who knows anything will realise the first report of a crime is often very different from what transpires.
I myself, just this week, had an incident with our local police press office where we asked for info on a crash we’d got pictures of.
The official police log said it was one vehicle involved, in our picture there were clearly two cars damaged.
The press office accepted this but if we’d not had a picture then we would have taken the police’s word for it,,, why wouldn’t we?
I disagree with Norridge’s post above. Social media is great, it’s how we found out about the above crash, i’m also an experienced journalist.
I get your point about mistakes will be made in this new UGC-focused environment but I think, in this case, you’ve tried to make your argument fit an example and it doesn’t work.
The reporter saw the info on social media and BEFORE publishing it fact-checked it with the police. What else would you have them do?
Report this comment