The Wiltshire Times’s original article from 30 July, and the Bath Chronicle’s version, inset, four days later
Wiltshire Times editor Toby Granville has accused a second Northcliffe newspaper of lifting copy from his paper without permission.
Less than one month after Granville claimed Northcliffe’s new Warminster and Westbury title had lifted a story from his paper, he has accused the group’s daily Bath Chronicle of doing the same.
Granville said reporter Jenny Hayworth wrote a piece last Friday headlined “Archaeologists continue Roman excavation” following an interview with archaeologist Mark Corney.
The Times editor said he was “astonished” to find the same article reprinted word for word in the daily title on Tuesday. He immediately sent an e-mail to Bath Chronicle editor David Gledhill, who also oversees the weeklies in his area.
Granville said: “I am astounded that it’s happened again. As a daily they have twice as many resources as we have and it just smacks of lazy journalism.
They have tried to infiltrate our area and the best they can do is to steal our stories. David is the group editor in all of this so you would have thought he would have put out an instruction to the group’s staff.”
Gledhill told Press Gazette: “I will investigate this case. If I find it is true I will take the necessary disciplinary proceedings. I am delighted that Toby Granville is such an avid reader of my paper.”
He said the Warminster and Westbury Standard had a separate editor who was responsible for the paper.
Granville complained to Standard editor Joanna Roughton last month after the paper lifted a story about how a residential home would generate jobs.
He received an apology and a pledge that it would not happen again (Press Gazette, 16 July).
Granville said that, apart from the introduction, the story was identical to the page lead in the Wiltshire Times headlined “Scheme to build home for elderly”.
By Sarah Lagan
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