A significant ruling in a number of ways:
The Express has been ORDERED (sanctions for recusal remain untested, a grey area at this point) to print a FRONT PAGE correction
That's a huge change from the PCC and GCP/PC before it, when papers managed to bury corrections inside
It isn't a one off or first either - they've already ordered The Times to do the same back in April
Papers really don't like this as it deeply undermines their brand and threatens reader trust; unlike buried apologies it is seriously embarrassing
This came about from a third party complaint, something the Culture Select Committee had attacked the PCC on (they generally ignored their own rules and almost always refused to consider such complaints)
The Editors Code breach is on Clause One: Accuracy, something the red-tops are guilty of on an almost absurd level of frequency. No real sign that this culture of falsity to fit ideology is being tackled, but still an improvement on the PCC's record?
The ruling was against the Express; phone-hacking and their woeful response (condemning The Guardian for reporting on it!!!) was the death knell of the PCC, but it was Desmond's withdrawal of his Northern and Shell titles from its remit that had already torpedoed its credibility as a regulator.
Let's not forget that several papers remain outside the new regulatory system (FT, Guardian, Indie/i), having refused to sign up to IPSO.
HUGE story nonetheless.
And there's more! Whilst Greenslade wryly but rightly flags up the small, misleading nature of it, The S*n was also forced to issue a front page trail to a longer apology inside, though it's owner will no doubt be content enough that the damage has been to his ideological opposite, Jeremy Corbyn.
