The London Lite made a hasty change of splash yesterday – much to the relief of Boris Johnson, London’s mayor.
The Lite’s first edition, distributed from 3pm, splashed on Johnson allegedly cutting the pay of those who couldn’t work last week because of snow.
The headline read: ‘Snowed in Tube staff’s pay docked”, and the intro continued: ‘Boris Johnson has docked the pay of hundreds of Tube staff…”
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However, by 4pm, the paper’s splash was: ‘Potter star died saving brother”.
The Johnson story had been moved to page five, with the headline: ‘Boris does U-turn over docking pay of snowed-in staff”.
This story quoted the mayor’s spokesman, who said: ‘The mayor has absolutely no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work due to last week’s exceptional weather.”
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UPDATE: 19.3.09
London Lite editor Ted Young has contacted Press Gazette to point out that journalists for his paper did repeatedly try to get comment from the mayor before going to press with the first edition – and that he believes the Lite splash prompted the mayor to make the policy u-turn.
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