An apology issued by The Mirror to Katie Hopkins ranks among the best to ever grace the pages of a British newspaper.
Back in 2018, the right-wing loudmouth won a complaint against the Reach title after a headline left the impression that she was prevented from leaving South Africa for taking drugs.
She took umbrage to the headline: “Katie Hopkins banned from leaving South Africa after taking ketamine” used to promote a story published online in February, arguing it could damage her reputation by suggesting she had been arrested for taking a drug used for illegal purposes in the UK.
In actuality, Hopkins had been detained for allegedly spreading racial hatred, leading to complaints that the Mirror had conflated two separate issues in its original headline on social media.
The Mirror argued its reporting was accurate but later added a correction to the story which the newspaper felt made the chain of events clearer: “A previous version of this article suggested that Katie Hopkins was stopped from leaving South Africa because of the consumption of ketamine. We are happy to clarify that Ms Hopkins was detained for spreading racial hatred, which took place after the ketamine incident.”
Hopkins took her case to the press regulator IPSO, arguing the update was not enough to “correct the misleading impression given to the millions of people who had been misinformed by the original headline”. She was concerned most readers would believe she had been detained for taking drugs, rather than alleged racism.
Following an investigation the press regulator sided with Hopkins and concluded the original headline gave “the significantly misleading impression that the reason for the detention had been the consumption of ketamine”.
As a result they concluded the Mirror had failed to take care over the accuracy of the piece and upheld the complaint.