Today brings the news that the flailing Guardian Media Group has had to pay out ‘substantial damages’ to The Spectator’s Douglas Murray – after the Observer was found to have defamed him. In a court statement, lawyers for the paper said it ‘apologises unreservedly’ for the ‘false’ allegations it made about Murray in a piece about last summer’s riots. Oh dear…
Last August, the Sunday newspaper published an article by journalist Kenan Malik on the summer riots, titled: ‘The roots of this unrest lie in the warping of genuine working class grievances.’ In his piece, Malik alluded to an interview between Murray and the ex-deputy prime minister of Australia John Anderson – in which the pair discussed Israel, Islam and immigration. In a move Mr S can imagine the Observer journalist now rather regrets, Malik linked Murray’s claim that ‘the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage at what these people are doing’ to the 2024 riots, stating ‘these people’ was a reference to the migrants targeted during that time and accusing Murray of supporting these attacks. Yet what the Observer man failed to realise was that the violent scenes of last summer took place, er, more than six months after Murray made the remarks. So much for journalistic integrity, eh?
While the article was corrected before the online piece was published, the damage was already done. Guardian News & Media Ltd, the publisher of the Observer, was forced to apologise after Murray pursued legal action – admitting the allegations were false before paying out damages . Announcing the news, Douglas blasted the paper’s ‘lazy journalism’, adding:
Last year the paper made very serious and false accusations against me, based on unchecked claims on social media. On 11 August 2024 the Observer published an article by Kenan Malik in connection with the riots in the UK. Mr Malik falsely accused me of supporting violent attacks against migrants. This was not true and did not make it to the online edition. Nevertheless such baseless accusations have to be stopped before other careless ‘journalists’ take fake news from the internet and repeat such damaging allegations.
Strong stuff. The Grauniad group is not much revered for its commitment to accuracy – but might this rather public ticking off be a turning point? Don’t hold your breath…
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