Press regulator IPSO has ruled that Daily Record did not breach the Editors’ Code when it put words into the mouth of a bereaved woman.
The IPSO board has ruled on a complaint brought by Elaine McMillan over a piece in the Daily Record on 31 October headlined: “We’re numb with shock.”
McMillan said that a journalist from the Daily Record called her after the murder of her sister-in-law in California.
The publisher said the journalist asked the woman: “Do you feel numb with shock at what happened?”
To which she replied: “Yes. We are sitting by the phone waiting for news.”
This appeared in print as the quote: “We’re numb with shock. We are sitting by the phone waiting for news.”
The Daily Record said the way the quote was presented was “a traditional journalistic convention”.
According to IPSO the complaints committee decided “had the words not been innocuous, their publication in this form might have raised issues under clause 1 [accuracy], but said it had concluded that in this instance their publication was not significantly misleading”.
A complaint that the telephone call itself was ubtrusive was also not upheld.
The ruling can be read in full here.
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