Ottawa Citizen publishes front page apology to police officer

by Craig Silverman Published Jan. 11, 2013 9:59 am

Canada’s Ottawa Citizen today published an above the fold front page apology to a police officer it falsely accused of violating a citizen’s rights.

Here’s the apology, which is also online:

The paper ran Friday’s apology in the same location as Thursday’s original story by crime reporter Gary Dimmock. Here’s how it began:

Here’s today’s front page, with the apology:

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http://twitter.com/TimLemkeTweets Tim Lemke

I agree. It’s great that they owned up to their mistake, but I want more information in what the CORRECT information is, as well as some hint as to how this mistake could have happened.
A. Hoedeman

That’s a pretty major journalistic blunder then. Puzzling.
http://www.facebook.com/xxtjmxx TJ Meehan

According to the Ottawa Police Association webpage:

“A more complete apology for Gary Dimmock’s
article would include the fact that they got the wrong city and the
wrong police service.”

https://www.facebook.com/OttawaPoliceAssoc

He’s a good reporter. Wonder what happened?

Gary’s been AWOL from Twitter and FB since this happened. Curious.
A. Hoedeman

Unfortunately, the apology doesn’t address whether the Citizen simply misidentified the officer involved or if the entire premise of the story was wrong. Since the apology doesn’t name another officer or provide any further explanation about how the article came to implicate Const. Chartrand, the reader is left with more questions than answers.