A rather intriguing "clarification" noses off The Times's Mediapolis column today. Here is the full paragraph:
In the Media Business section on Friday July 4 Dan Sabbagh drew a parallel between the Telegraph Group and Trinity Mirror, which has a £1.5bn pension fund and has a debt liability of approximately £425m. The Telegraph Group has asked us to make clear that it has no pension fund liability and it has more than sufficient funds to discharge all of its borrowings whenever it chooses. We are happy to clarify the situation and regret any misunderstanding.
You hardly need to read between the lines to intuit what brought this about. It is a further example of the Barclay brothers crying foul against a paper they have previously sued. I rather imagine they began with another legal threat before agreeing to the compromise. (And I'd lay odds it was Sir David who led the charge).
Sabbagh's original article (which I couldn't locate earlier) doesn't strike me as defamatory or malicious since it merely pointed to a parallel. It did not suggest anything untoward. It was an aside in a straightforward analysis.
I just wish that the owners of newspapers that bang on about threats to freedom of the press - as the Daily Telegraph does today about the Mosley case - did not enlist the help of lawyers every time they don't like something published about them elsewhere.
The Times should not have given in.
