Neil Berry - an apology

I have removed the article written for the Jewish Chronicle and posted last Friday. It contained the suggestion that Neil Berry, the Treasurer of Christian CND, had written several articles of a questionable nature, bordering on anti-Semitism. Unfortunately for me there are two Neil Berrys, and the Christian CND one has never written any such pieces. This mistake, stupid as it was, was entirely my own fault, and not that of the JC. I apologise unreservedly to Mr Berry for it, and hope he will forgive me.

Comments

[Nick (South Africa)]

A genuine gracious apology; without any caveats or barely conceled 'barbs', how refreshing to see one. That's made my evening. Suddenly, all of a 'sardine'... I feel the room is particularly well aired!

Oh for more such civility from others...

[brixton blue]

Gracious perhaps but the avoidance of legal action will certainly have required nothing less.

This inadvertent slur seems to have originated at Harry's Place, where the writers have at least the excuse of not being professional journalists.

But someone who has been in the business as long as David Aaronovitch should surely know the basic rules of fact-checking. A simple call to Christian CND would have avoided all this. But maybe star columnists are not expected to subject themselves to such mundanities.

[Mike]

Neil Berry is an extremely popular name.

[Matthew]

David,

How did you make this mistake? What gave you the impression that they were the same person? Lots of people have the same name. Are there any links between them?

[Eric]

Get a grip brixton blue and Matthew.

A regrettable and embarrassing mistake, for a journalist, has been openly apologised for. That is punishment enough for someone of Mr Aaronovitch's integrity - there is no suggestion of a attempt to deliberately smear Mr Berry.

What more needs to be said?

Of course, I'm sure neither of you ever makes a mistake at work.

[j]

yes check your factsnext time and don't just copy off blogs . .

you'd do anything to cry woolf wouldn't you ? some people have an innate victim mentality, forever searching to justify their victim status.

[Matthew]

Eric, don't get all worked up, David can look after himself. I'm not alleging he was out to smear Berry, instead I'm asking a simple question, 'how did this mistake happen?'. It really isn't the most obvious thing to do.