If you read the headline ‘Pupils suffer physical abuse’ in the County Press (16.09.11) you may have been mistaken for thinking that children at Chillerton & Rookley Primary school were being abused by teachers.
Only those who read past the headline would have seen the abuse being reported, was delivered by pupils with special educational needs, rather than the teachers, but you still might have been confused as to who was being abused.
“Nothing more than sensationalism”
The error in the headline (which sat above a picture of the school) caused outrage amongst parents, staff and governors of the school who, on the letters page the following week, explained in no uncertain terms their disgust at the inaccurate reporting.
The chair of standards and provision, Stenbury Federation, wrote, “This sort of headline is nothing more than sensationalism of an inaccurate report that does nothing but tarnish the hard and difficult work carried out by an extremely dedicated team of teachers and carers.”
Even ourselves, who are obsessed with news, often just scan papers looking at headlines and pictures, not always having the time to read the story fully before the paper is consigned to fire-lighting duties.
Abuse to staff?
Editor, Alan Marriott, said, “Firstly I would apologise for our error in the headline of the report last week. It should have read ‘Staff suffer physical abuse’ because that is what the report actually highlighted.”
However, looking at the article, it’s certainly not clear that this is what they’re reporting. It’s not until you get to the seventh paragraph in the article, that abuse towards the teachers is mentioned.
It states, “Verbal abuse towards teachers was also included in the report, which showed the highest number of incidents was at Carisbrooke High School.” By using the phrase, “also included in the report”, it’s not clear that this is what they were referring to in the previous six paragraphs.
One suggestion on the letters page was that the report “plays right into the hands of those who would like to reduce costs by closing down the excellent village school.”
Mistakes can and do happen
We all know that errors can be made. Sub-editing can be a tricky business if you’re pushed for time, but we’re surprised that the paper didn’t do more to correct the mistake in the following edition.
Given the number of letters published on the subject, it may have been more appropriate from the school’s point of view, for an article seeking to correct the damage caused to their reputation to be published.
Some may feel that an editor’s note on the letter’s page and a couple of lines in ‘For The Record’ (does anyone ever read that?) wasn’t sufficient.
Full article below, click on the image for larger version.
