A regional daily has apologised after publishing an inaccurate planning story based on information provided by a campaigner objecting against the proposed development.
The North Wales Daily Post ran a story in December last year which reported that an emergency meeting had been called to discuss a planning application to turn a former pub into a holiday home in the village of Garndolbenmaen.
However, the Post had been supplied inaccurate information by a campaigner in the village, who had claimed the disused pub would become a holiday home.
The story prompted a complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation by Liz Sutcliffe, who said there was no such plan. Instead, the planning application was for change of use to a residential property.
The pub is not set to become a holiday home
In response, the Daily Post said that the information the article was based on had been provided by a campaigner, and was published in good faith.
It added that it had tried to contact the complainant for her version of events, but she did not want to speak.
Following IPSO’s investigation, the Daily Post said it was happy to amend the online article to reflect the fact that there was no intention for the pub to be turned into a holiday home.
It also offered to append a footnote to the online article as follows: “A previous version of this article suggested that planning permission had been submitted for [the pub] to be turned into a holiday home.
“We would like to make clear that this is not the case and that the plans are for residential use only, and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
The complainant said this would resolve the matter to her satisfaction, and the full resolution statement can be read here.
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Did nobody check with the local council? Was there not a library check of the paper’s archive to see if anything had been granted?
What is happening to my industry?
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All planning apps are on local authority websites.
How did no-one check? 10/15 years ago someone would be sacked for basic incompetence like this.
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Get it online first and worry about the details later. I’ve come across more than one executive who has argued the case for this line of thinking.
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This is ridiculous. OK, it is not the world’s costliest error, but It is so basic as to be an embarrassment to our industry. Check, check, check. Who is supervising journalists and checking their copy nowadays? I think the editor has something to answer for, not just the hack. Does nobody care any more, or is it they simply do not know what they are doing?
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Looks like a single source story.
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It is not, and never has been in all its long history, called the ‘North Wales Daily Post’, it’s the Daily Post. Please stop mis-naming it every time you write an article about the Post – it really isn’t hard to get right.
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It looks as if no-one thought to check the “facts” before ploughing ahead with a story given to the paper by someone who was biased. What worries me these days with so many cutbacks in experienced staff is that all too often those left at the helm do not have as much experience and are all too few in number. This coupled with the demise of many sub-editors who would have questioned the source of the story makes me shaded. If this had happened 50 years ago when I started in newspapers I would have been hauled over the coals.
All it needs is for a huge libel case to make the powers that be at the top of the newspaper publishers to make them realise they have gone too far with their cutbacks.
At the risk of sounding facetious or sarcastic, though, they would probably cut their losses and just close the paper. Oh dear.
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Hang on a bit, chaps! I’m all in favour of giving today’s generation of journos a jolly good kicking – and of harking back to a (non existent) golden age when newspapers never made mistakes. I’m guessing here but it seems likely that the ‘campaigner’ was already miffed that the village pub closed and that an earlier tale had been written about that angle. Then, as a follow-up, he/she believed that the property would become a holiday home. Not much of a tale to be honest, but the Daily Post did contact the owner and was given the bum’s rush about his/her intentions. So what to do? Run the story as it was; or spike it because the owner was staying tight-lipped? It is simply untrue to say that a quick call to the local planning office would have revealed the truth. The planning application would just have been for a change of use from business (pub) to residential. Whether the owner planned to live in it himself/herself or sell it or rent it as a permanent home (for a local family or an in-comer) – or whether it would become a holiday home – wouldn’t have been in the application, because such information is not required. It’s probably not the reporter’s (or the Post’s) finest hour – but it’s not a hanging offence either, or (in truth) a matter for mighty IPSO on such a sub-parochial tale..
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The Local Authority planning application from business to residential should have been in the story. The campaigner should be reported as “claiming” the property would be converted into a holiday home, along with the owner’s “no comment”. That might have forced the owner to come out with the real purpose in a follow-up story. Simple.
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No it’s not a hanging offence but did the story contain the fact the owner was being tight-lipped. It should never have got as far as IPSO.
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