Sunday 6 February 2011

Mail on Sunday accused of 'grave robbing' Tribune


A marketing ploy by the Mail on Sunday in Ireland to produce copies with a front page wrap around looking like the The Sunday Tribune, which has suspended publication while in receivership, has been branded "shameless" and "grave robbing" by the Tribune's editor.

Noirin Hegarty said in a statement reported by RTE: "The Mail On Sunday has shown in this act that it will leave no stone unturned in the race to the bottom.

"The Tribune management and staff and indeed Jim Luby the Receiver are working flat out in the hope of keeping the newspaper afloat. We are talking about 43 jobs in Ireland here, not extra remuneration for Associated Newspapers back in the UK.

"This attempt at burial of a still alive corpse and grave robbing by the Mail Group is a shameless act of commercial vandalism and I would beseech the fair-minded Irish Sunday newspaper audience to fight back by refusing to buy its titles."

The Irish Mail On Sunday said in a statement carried by RTE that its "marketing exercise", which involved the paper using a Sunday Tribune wrap around on its front cover, is to "persuade as many Tribune readers as possible to keep buying newspapers".

NUJ Irish Secretary Séamus Dooley condemned the move: "This was a cynical marketing exercise and represents a new low in Irish journalism. The defence offered by the Mail on Sunday is disingenuous. Even in a fiercely competitive market there must be respect for basic standards of decency.

"This was an attempt to confuse readers and to cash in on the crisis at the Sunday Tribune in a crass manner which does no credit to the Irish Mail on Sunday or publishers, Associated Newspapers."
  • Hat-tip Peter Sands/ Roy Greenslade/Media Guardian on Twitter

No comments: