Cambridge News editor says sorry to readers over missing front page headline

The editor of the Cambridge News has apologised to readers after publishing a front page with dummy text in place of a main headline.

The daily paper ran with the headline: “100PT SPLASH HEADING HERE” and strapline: “THIS IS A STRAP OVER TWO DECKS WITH A CROSS REFERENCE TO A PAGE HERE”.

The sub-editing instructions apparently went unnoticed before the paper went to print and and made its way into local shops today.

Pictures: Twitter/Gareth Marlow

Editor-in-chief David Bartlett said: “I want to sincerely apologise to our readers for this mistake which happened due to a technical problem.

“We are still looking into how this happened and want our readers to know we take this seriously.”

Bartlett said the headline should have read “£2m for ‘sex lair’ school” and referenced a story printed on p11 of the newspaper. Other articles teased on the front page were printed correctly.

A correct version of the front page was printed in the paper’s Cambourne edition, said Bartlett who was appointed as editor in June 2016.

The paid-for Cambridge News, which is owned by Trinity Mirror, has a circulation of 12,000 according to ABC figures to June this year.

Press Gazette reported in July that seven journalists at the Cambridge News, including four members of the design team, were facing redundancy.

BBC News reporter Alice Hutton, who worked at Cambridge News from 2010 to 2012, tweeted that the cuts to the design team followed “the sacking of nearly all the subs several years ago as the paper bounced between three different owners since 2012- each chewing off another limb.”

She said: “You may think this error is funny (and who doesn’t look a good subbing error?) but in this case you are laughing at the dismantling of local democracy, the ability to fight for communities and the loss of dozens of livelihoods

“The reporters who still work there now (and there aren’t many) work incredibly hard in a newsroom so empty of journalists, subs and sales staff that they have all moved on to a single floor. They break exclusives, hold power to account and lay out their own work and headlines.”