Sky Owner And Crooked (and Guess Who Else?)

As MacGuffin @ Tabloid watch pointed out in may, there was something fishy about the Daily Mail headline of 14th May - Gypsies Smash £5 million police helicopter -

• A group of travellers wrecked a multi-million pound police helicopter which was being used to spy on their site.

This 'fact' was based on unnamed sources:

• A police source said last night: 'The gipsies were furious because they kept getting buzzed by the helicopter.

Note the stylised Mail spelling of 'gipsies' rather than the usual one of the headline. Note that there is no official quote. A police source = a dodgy PC we met in the pub.

But, at the end of the story (most Mail readers have gone to bed after the first few lines) we see something a bit more official:

• A Surrey Police spokesman said the identity of the mob members was 'unknown'.

Still, job done. Guilt without evidence and the Mail bigots are happy:

• Fact. The Police will know who did this.......

  - Mike May, Egham, 14/5/2009 13:00

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Via septicisle @ The Sun Lies (and hence the laboured Hayley Mills/Murdoch reference in the title) we see one of the other papers to report on the story, The Sun has retreated:

• SURREY Police have not blamed gipsies for an attack on their force helicopter, no staff in their operations rooms were threatened by gipsies and no gipsy site was being targeted for a raid as we reported on May 14.

Strangely, we now see The Sun reverting to the 'gipsy' spelling. Could the original have come from an unauthorized press release?