Don’t lie in the headline
The Guardian is even worse. Headline:
Leeds Green party councillor says sorry for comments about Gaza conflict
But he didn’t. That’s not what he said. Don’t rewrite what he said and then tell us he said it. He didn’t say it. Don’t tell us he did. That borders on the L word, the one that’s libelous if you get it wrong.
It’s probably an editor who perpetrated that title, because Eleni Courea, who wrote the piece, did not get it wrong.
A Green party councillor at the centre of an antisemitism row has apologised “for the upset caused” by his remarks but hit back at “Islamophobic” attacks against him.
Scare quotes on both his taking it back moves. One can also read them as simply putting quotation marks on the quoted bits, but at least that’s a slight improvement on calling “Sorry you got mad” an apology.
A more accurate headline would have been “Green Party councillor offers inadequate apology”, but media these days seem terrified of being accused of anything except subservient neutrality. There are pithy options for the headline, but they would be editorial stances for sure.