As seen at:

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/esfabrication.php

In a much awaited ruling the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) issued a stinging rebuke against the Evening Standard today. The usually mild- mannered PCC slammed the Standard's coverage of last summer's Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow as 'materially misleading' and 'alarmist'. The Evening Standard will be forced to carry the ruling on their front page today.

On 13 August last year, the Standard ran a front page story headlined 'Militants will hit Heathrow' the day before a climate change protest camp near Heathrow airport opened. Chief reporter Robert Mendick said he had uncovered a plot to paralyse the airport via invading runways and placing suspect packages. The story was subsequently echoed in several media outlets, all of which ran the false claims believing them to be true. The Camp for Climate Action immediately wrote to the PCC declaring that the article was "fabricated". The PCC adjudicated the complaint as "upheld".

The PCC gave the strongest possible reprimand in its powers, finding that the article was a 'serious breach' of the PCC code of journalistic standards. They found that "adequate care had not been taken" by the Standard, despite the Standard's claim that their reporting was the result of an 'extensive operation organised by an extremely experienced team of executives and senior reporters'[Doug Wills, Letter to PCC, February 12, 2007].

The rare PCC ruling comes after seven months' worth of submissions, in which the story's authorship, sources and credibility are all called into question.

For all the documents and more details, visit Anatomy of a fabrication

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