A non denial

NBR reports:

Truth’s story quotes unnamed sources close to the King family claiming the Dom Post contacted Mr King on Friday, November 2, allegedly informing him they were running a front-page story based on an accusation made by one of their snitches in jail.

The story has information which could only have come (directly or indirectly) from family members.

Dominion Post editor Bernadette Courtney told NBR ONLINE the Truth story was wrong and she had no further comment.

That’s the sort of response you normally get from politicians, not media. It is called a non denial, denial.

Saying a story is wrong, and saying nothing else, means that one word could be wrong. It is not saying that the substantive allegation is incorrect. A proper denial would be “There was no investigation and there was no contact with Mr King or his family that week”. Of course you can only make a denial like that, if you are sure that no one can not prove otherwise.

Also rare to have an Editor to refuse to comment beyond a non denial, denial. If you worked for Fairfax and were doing a story on the ethical conduct of a business, would you accept such a statement from the CEO and regard it as the end of the matter?