Front-page apologies should be reserved for the biggest foul-ups

Creating a regular corrections column may not be enough to resolve the most significant complaints that newspapers can face from their readers

The Independent ran a clarification over the apology issued by The Sun for this front-page story.

When you realise you have bought your nearest and dearest absolutely the wrong present for Christmas the best thing to do is apologise. But how prominent should the apology be?

Should it be the same number of words as the second-rate novel at which noses have been turned up, or should it be wrapped up and placed under the tree? Perhaps things can be rectified by a follow-up present.

As in life, so in newspapers. When things go wrong we should set the record straight and offer an apology if appropriate. And it should all be done with that old chestnut, “due prominence”. But judging when an apology – as distinct from a correction or clarification – is suitable, and determining exactly where it should appear is not an exact science.

Most newspapers have tended in recent years to move towards the corrections column model, which has the merit of regularity and in that way a particular kind of prominence which comes with routine. So readers know where to look when mistakes are to be rectified.

Placing it on an early page – page 2 in many cases, including The Independent – may be helpful too, though it is not necessarily crucial. The Guardian, which pioneered this way of doing things, runs its corrections each day on its letters page. An apology often comes into play when an error has led to hurt or distress.

Nevertheless, having a standard slot for corrections and apologies may not be a blanket solution. A recent case involving the Daily Express showed that a column published infrequently and not on an early page might not be suitable when the initial mistake was egregious, fundamental to the story and appeared on the front.

In that instance, the press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), ultimately upheld a complaint about inaccuracy after concluding that an offer to publish a correction was inadequate. It ordered that a reference to its ruling be published by the Express on its front page.

Another Ipso ruling, this time against The Sun in relation to a misleading page 1 story about Jeremy Corbyn and the Privy Council, also made an appearance on the front page – though, confusingly, in our report of the case last week we referred to the paper being ordered to apologise.

There may not be much of a difference to the casual observer, but it is an important distinction – which is why we corrected the point in our own page 2 column in the next day’s edition.

Ipso’s recent flexing of its muscle may be encouraging to those newspapers, including The Independent, which have so far stayed outside the system. Front-page trailers for its ruling show it can pack a punch.

Generally speaking though, I tend to the view that page 1 corrections or apologies ought to be reserved for rectifying only the most serious front-page foul-ups. It is, after all, the key news page and, if dominated by a clarification of an earlier story, has less relevance to the reader than reports of fresh events; it is the audience which loses out.

The other crucial factor when it comes to being sorry is that it must come voluntarily. Ipso, like the PCC before it, cannot order a newspaper or website to apologise. And that is right.

There is something fundamentally facile and insubstantial about a forced expression of regret. It is the equivalent of telling a child to say sorry and then obliging them to say it again (and again) as if they mean it. It’s ultimately a pointless, and often slightly vindictive, exercise.

Will Gore is deputy managing editor of The Independent, i, Independent on Sunday and the Evening Standard