A shop complained to the press watchdog after a weekly newspaper’s photograph prompted fears his business had closed.

Penarth-based store Funky Monkey claimed the Penarth Times had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Indepndent Press Standards Organisation’s Editors’ Code of Practice over the image, which accomapnied a story reporting on shops being closed down and new ones opening up in the town’s high street.

Within the photo, which included an image of a ‘closed’ sign within a window of one of the shops, the reflection of the window displayed the banner of the Funky Monkey store.

In its complaint to IPSO, Funky Monkey said the image used in the headline showed its shop with a closed sign over the photo.

Funky Monkey, Penarth

It said this was inaccurate as it was not closing and added that, because of the publication of the story, he had received several phone calls from concerned customers and staff.

In response, the Times expressed sympathy with Funky Monkey’s concerns but denied any breach of Code.

The Times said the image was not a picture of the shop Funky Monkey with a closed sign, but was a composite image of several shops on Penarth high street – one of which was the closed sign in the window of another shop that had ceased trading.

Upon receiving an email from Funky Monkey, the paper removed the image from the online story and refreshed the image on its Facebook post meaning that the new image appeared when looking on the social media site.

It offered to add a statement clarifying Funky Monkey was not closed and also suggested a reporter could speak with the shop’s owner about writing a story about his business, but this was rejected.

Instead, the owner requested that the Times published an advert for Funky Monkey, as well as editorial and photographic content provided by himself and approved by the paper.

The Times did not consider that it was appropriate to resolve an editorial complaint with advertising space but offered to feature the business in a story as a goodwill gesture.

However, during IPSO’s investigation, the Times offered to publish a story about Funky Monkey, including editorial and photograph content provided by the shop, that was approved by the publication with minor stylistic changes.

This resolved the matter to the shop’s satisfaction and IPSO discontinued its investigation.

The full resolution statement can be read here.