Roy Greenslade of The Guardian thinks so, and he made a three-part argument earlier today:
Case one: yesterday it apologised in the high court to the Italian footballer Marco Materazzi who was infamously headbutted in the chest by Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 world cup final. The paper falsely claimed that the attack was prompted by Materazzi making racist comments.
It was not an error made once. The Star repeated the allegation in a series of articles. It was not the only paper to publish the claims, but the Star was more blatant than most. Anyway, lies are part of that disgraceful paper’s special stock in trade.
Case two: last Wednesday the Star carried a front page story about footballer Andy Cole that was, in all but name, an apology for a previous story that accused him of beating his wife.
Case three: three weeks ago the Star was one of the four Express Newspapers’ titles that carried a front page apology to the parents of Madeleine McCann for libelling them in a series of inaccurate and prejudicial stories. It also apologised formally in the high court.
But there is no sign of the Star’s editor, Dawn Neesom, stepping down for making a string of errors. Why? Because she has a proprietor who clearly doesn’t care about ethics (just a county to the east of London for him)…
Regret coverage of the Express Newspapers’ apologies is here. Another case against the Star is here.
