The Sunday Telegraph issues apology for incorrect Jake O’Sullivan drug overdose claim
The Sunday Telegraph has issued a correction and apology, after claiming Sydney man Jake O’Sullivan died as a result of a drug overdose.
The paper has now conceded O’Sullivan’s death cannot be explained and may have been related to a heart condition.
The apology in today’s paper
On 19 August, the News Corp paper ran a story titled ‘Stars mourn loss of their lifesaver, which appears to have now been taken offline. The original article claimed O’Sullivan had helped save the lives of NRL stars Dylan Walker and Aaron Gray after they suffered overdoses in 2015, but had subsequently died of one himself.
The original article as it appears on Google
“The story stated the 23-year-old [O’Sullivan] had himself died of a drug overdose,” today’s correction says. “As autopsy has since found it was a ‘sudden death which cannot be explained’, and may have been related to a heart condition.
“The Sunday Telegraph apologises for the hurt this has caused O’Sullivan’s family and friends.”
A sincerest apology would have been something bigger than a ‘short bite’ after falsely accusing a dead person of overdosing.
Those rules that mandate an apology to be the same size and placement as the original article need to happen.
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