MCD Productions and The Sunday Times

The Press Ombudsman has decided that an offer made by The Sunday Times to publish a clarification of a headline in an article it published about the financial arrangements for the staging of a concert for President Barack Obama in College Green was sufficient to resolve a complaint by MCD Productions, a company involved in the work done in preparation for this event.

MCD Productions complained that the headlines to an article published on 3 July 2011, “MCD’s €500,000 for free gig”, and “MCD in line for €500,000 from Obama event”, were in breach of Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and 3 (Fairness and Honesty) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines. The newspaper, they argued, had, by the use of these headlines, misled readers into thinking that the company would gain financially from the event.

The newspaper responded that everything in the body of the article was factually correct, and based on information furnished to it under the Freedom of Information Act and by the company itself, including the information that the company was not charging a fee. It initially offered to publish a letter from MCD Productions with an editor’s note attached stating that it was happy to clarify the matter. It subsequently offered to publish a clarification, to include a statement that MCD Productions did not gain financially to the tune of €500,000 from the event.

While the headlines were, as is commonly the case, reductive in character, and may for this reason have created a misleading impression, the offer to publish a clarification, while not acceptable to the complainant, was an offer of sufficient remedial action on the part of the newspaper.

7 September 2011