(Credit: Gloucestershire Echo, screenshot)

The Gloucestershire Echo unpublished an article and apologized to a man named Bob Sayers after the Echo published an article that suggested Sayers was interviewed by the Echo, the UK Press Complaints Commission reported. Sayers was not interviewed by the Echo.  

The Echo had previously published a correction to note that Sayers hadn’t been interviewed, but Sayers complained to the PCC about the article in question being on the Echo’s website, according to the PCC’s statement on the case.

The previous February 2 correction noted that Sayers, a “retired teacher,” made his comments in “postings on the website Tewkesbury Voice” and not “directly to the Echo.”

The apology reads:

“Apology Bob Sayers

ON February 2, 2011, the Gloucestershire Echo ran an apology regarding an article featuring Bob Sayers entitled ‘It makes UK flood look like a puddle.’ This article which ran in the paper on January 13, 2011, featured comments attributed to Mr Sayers despite at no point speaking to him directly.

However, the story has continued to run on our website www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk for which we apologise and the article has been removed.”