The Times’s feedback editor, Rose Wild, has explained why the newspaper changed its mind about its failure to mention the Hillsborough inquest verdict on its front page.
In her Saturday column, she wrote that “as soon as the first edition of the paper went out on Tuesday night” the choice of page 1 stories “was called into question by, among others, members of the Times staff.” She continued:
“Our coverage of the ‘unlawful killing’ verdict in the Hillsborough inquiry, extensive as it was, was not flagged on the front, suggesting that we had overlooked both its significance in legal terms and its importance to the many people who had campaigned for this result for so long.
The paper immediately realised it had made a mistake. In the second edition the front page was changed.”
That accords with two Guardian reports (here and here) that told of sports staff upset at the decision to omit any front page reference to the verdict. Wild explained a little more:
“The initial decision not to put the story on the front was because it had been running as a news story all day. But it was an error not to have a visual signal to the coverage inside.”
She also referred to the paper’s public statement in which it admitted making a mistake, which “we fixed it for the second edition.” She added:
“This isn’t something we’d usually do. The intention was to explain why the page was changed and to lay to rest, if possible, some of the false and misleading conspiracy theories bouncing around social media.”
These conspiracy theories, aired widely in Liverpool and elsewhere, suggested that with both the Times and the Sun failing to carry front page mentions of the verdict, it must have been a policy decision, one possibly made by the papers’ publisher, Rupert Murdoch.
This may have been understandable, but it was - as with most conspiracy theories - wrong. Murdoch would have played no part in the decision-making and my hunch is, that if he had, he would have preferred page 1 coverage in both titles. Let’s be honest: the Sun made an error too.
Wild went on to report an interesting email from a Times reader who thought the paper’s apology was “misguided” on the grounds that it exposed the press to lobby groups who feel their cause has not been given due prominence.
He wrote: “Editorial decisions should be made on newsworthiness, not on the basis of who might be upset (or pleased) with a particular decision.”
He may well be right in general terms. On this occasion, however, the change of mind occurred because of internal editorial lobbying, which is - or should be - part of the editorial process.
Clearly, the Times’s sports journalists were omitted from the discussion that led to what was, on reflection, a monumental oversight. The writers, as distinct from their editors, understood sensitivities among the people of Liverpool.
