British paper apologizes for false story
LONDON - One of Britain's most-read newspapers was forced to apologize yesterday after falsely reporting that Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, was suffering from prostate cancer.
London's Evening Standard made the apology after Buckingham Palace notified the Press Complaints Commission about the Aug. 6 front-page story.
"We now accept that the story was untrue and that he is not suffering from any such condition," the Evening Standard said. "We unreservedly apologize both to him and to his family for making this distressing allegation and for breaching his privacy."
The decision to report the newspaper to the complaints commission was itself uncommon, but Buckingham Palace said it had done so because the story was not only not true but also damaging and was being widely reported by other media.
"Buckingham Palace has always maintained that members of the royal family have a right to privacy, particularly in relation to their personal health," the palace said in a statement.
The Standard's apology came two weeks after a judge made an important privacy ruling in Britain's High Court.
In that decision, Justice David Eady ruled that the tabloid newspaper News of the World had breached the privacy of motor racing chief Max Mosley by revealing his part in German-themed sex orgies with prostitutes.
Lawyers said at the time that the ruling, while not a landmark, was likely to make newspapers more cautious about how they reported on the lives of famous people, and could make it easier for celebrities to sue newspapers over privacy.
