Below is yesterday’s column from the reader’s editor of the Independent on Sunday. It comes in the wake of the paper’s front page story of March 18, "Cannabis: An apology," in which it reversed its position in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana. This is one of those rare cases when new evidence causes a newspaper to step back from a long-held position and offer up an apology. The column below discusses why the paper did so in this case and not others. Making a belated apology (see "Trend of the Year") often elicits the question from readers: why only for this?
Sorry.
Not always the hardest word for newspapers, who often say it at the
bottom of columns like this after receipt of expensively printed
notepaper from solicitors with menacing-sounding names. Even if you
don’t feel in the wrong, it is often handy to apologise rather than
risk expensive legal action.
But last
week’s front page headed "Cannabis: an apology" was of an entirely
different order. I cannot recall an occasion where a national newspaper
has turned its entire lead story into a mea culpa under a banner
headline. Jonathan Owen’s report that 20,000 young people are hooked on
the drug was powerful stuff, and many readers have applauded the IoS’s
decision to express regret over its former "Legalise Cannabis Campaign"
in the light of new knowledge.
But the
problem with apologies is that you can never go far enough for some.
"Good," writes Phil Robertson from Crowthorne in Berkshire. "Now why
don’t you apologise for all the other things you got wrong." But where
should we start? Richard Morris, a regular correspondent, has been
nagging me for months over a front-page headline from last year - "Home
by May", in which we predicted that large numbers of British troops
would be brought home from Iraq by early summer. It didn’t happen.
But
I think stories like this are of a different nature from the
misconceived cannabis campaign, and don’t require a formal apology.
Most derive from information carefully weighed up by our specialist
writers, and play a part in the national political conversation of the
day.
It is entirely healthy for papers to
be able to shift their positions. But there is a difference between
tweaks in matters of policy and backing a drug that harms people. This
newspaper, for example, was originally against Ken Livingstone’s
congestion charge. We were wrong on that, too, as it turned out. But
apologise? I think not.
Our doubts about
the cannabis campaign and our concerns about the dangers the drug poses
to young people were given chilling affirmation last week when cannabis
addict Tom Palmer was jailed for life for murdering two school friends
with a hunting knife. "Sorry" was absolutely the right word.
