Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Friday 14 August 2020

Murdoch Rag Forced To Say Sorry

While alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, spurred on by the demonic insistence of chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, holds to his rule that none of his team resign, or even say sorry, his pals at the Murdoch press have at least been forced to issue an expression of regret over their routinely bad journalism.


After a night during which north-east Scotland experienced exceptionally heavy rainfall, transport networks had to cope with flooding and landslips last Wednesday morning. On the railways, ScotRail’s 0638 Aberdeen to Glasgow Queen Street service had been stopped by the signaller at Carmont, south-west of Stonehaven, due to reports of a landslip causing an obstruction further down the line.

As a result, the service was directed to return to Aberdeen. The train crossed over to the Down line, but a mile or so further on struck another landslip which derailed almost the whole train. Despite the small number of people on board, there were three fatalities: the driver, conductor, and a passenger. It was the first on-board passenger accident fatality for almost 13 years, underlining the railway’s excellent overall safety record.


That, though, did not divert those at the Murdoch Sun from their purpose, and Thursday’s Scottish edition carried an aerial photo of the crash aftermath, a photo of driver Brett McCullough, and the lurid headline “Storms Train Tragedy … Landslide crash kills 3 … Driver among victims … DEATH EXPRESS”. You want subtle? Away with ye.

By noon today, Press Gazette admitted that there had been severely adverse comment passed by many readers and observers, telling “IPSO has said it is dealing with a ‘high volume of complaints’ about the Scottish Sun's splash yesterday headlined ‘Death Express’ about the train derailment in Aberdeenshire that killed three people. ‘We are dealing with these under our normal procedures,’ it said”.


And to show that times have changed since the deeply unpleasant Kelvin McFilth declined to apologise for just about anything the Super Soaraway Currant Bun published while he sat in the editor’s chair, Scottish Sun editor Alan Muir decided to say sorry.

Wednesday was a tragic day for Scotland, and the headline on the front page of our paper in relation to the terrible train accident caused further distress … For that I am truly sorry … this time I made a mistake … At a time when family, friends and colleagues are grieving the loss of their loved ones, the last thing they need is something else to add to their grief … I got it wrong on this occasion and can only apologise for that”.


For many people, to be grown-up enough to say sorry would be a sign of strength. Not the Murdoch press: in the days when the Sun was shifting four million copies a day, as with Kel over Hillsborough, there would be nothing more than a doubling down of the abuse and no chance of recantation. What Muir has done today is to show weakness.

The kind of weakness that comes from circulation across the whole of the UK falling well below the one million mark, losing the top slot to the Daily Mail, and a parent group - News Corp - that only last week posted a thumping $1.5 billion loss.

No more braggadocio, no more swagger. But the message is the same. Don’t buy the Sun.


Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6

4 comments:

Nigel Stapley said...

It's worth noting that the Scottish edition of the Bum is not generally as bad as its equivalent in England. It is still a cheapjack populist rag, but it has been allowed a degree of autonomy with regard to what it covers and how.

Anonymous said...

I hope somebody tells Muir to stick his "apology" up his arse.

Sideways.

Draco Kelso said...

If they truly mran it, then print your apologies on the front page, big font. Rather than page 26,just belod the "massage" ads. #totaleclipseofthesun

Anonymous said...

The blame game has already started I see. But as an ex-railwayman what is obvious to me looking at the aerial photos is that, unless the landslip happened at the moment the train approached, the train was being driven too quickly all things considered. Having been turned back because of a landslip and because of the weather conditions I would been proceeding at a speed that ensured I could stop within my field of vision even if that meant crawling along, the conductor should have been in the cab with the driver to assist him in looking out. I've had to do that a number of times including once trying to find local train in a snowstorm to assist where the protecting guard had put detonators on a check rail, another where a track circuit failure had been caused by a minor tunnel roof fall and best of all a wooden footbridge set afire by vandals collapsed on the line reported by a passing freight has a minor lineside fire! You can never be too careful!