British Papers Make Rare Page 1 Apology
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
LONDON — For British tabloid editors, sorry always seems to be the hardest word. Readers and journalists got a shock yesterday when they saw the headlines in the Daily Express and the Daily Star: “Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry.” Both newspapers ran rare page 1 apologies to the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann, acknowledging there was no evidence to support claims they caused their daughter’s death.
The words — and the papers’ million-dollar libel payout to the McCanns — sent a chill through the British press.
But some press-watchers doubted the case would rein in Britain’s fiercely competitive tabloids, which regularly blur the lines among rumor, innuendo and fact. In their apologies, the newspapers said, “Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.”
“Express Newspapers regrets publishing these extremely serious, yet baseless, allegations,” the papers’ lawyer, Stephen Bacon, said.
