The Sun 1/2/07

Following the arrests of 9 men in Birmingham on Wednesday morning West Midlands Police told the media not to engage in speculation. They said that it is "unhelpful of the media and potentially damaging to the investigation or any future court cases to speculate on the details of this investigation." However the Sun took no heed.

I tell a lie... the Sun did take heed - it presented everything as fact, not speculation. No qualifications appeared on its frontpage of 1/2/07 which featured an image from the execution video of Nick Berg. A terror gang did plan to kidnap a British Muslim soldier. They did plan to behead him. And they did plan to show the execution on the web. No need for a trial. The Sun's got this one in the bag.

Defence editor Tom Newton Dunn elucidated further. Two people are on the run. The execution was to have taken place in Tipton (of all places). Two soldiers were being targeted. After several paragraphs of Sun-style "facts", in the bottom left hand corner of page 6 doubt creeps in: "the plot was said to have been at an "advanced stage."" Further on, "the plot is understood to have been..." and "it is not known whether..."

Towards the end Mr Dunn quotes West Mids assistant chief constable David Shaw in two and a half paragraphs. However there is no space to mention that assistant chief constable Shaw had also said "my professional judgement as the officer in charge of the operation is that some of the speculation has been unhelpful and is potentially damaging to the criminal investigation."