Correction and Apology

On March the 14th I blogged on how I thought the Operation Burnham inquiry is looking to be a waste of time in response to a Stuff report that Deborah Manning and Nicky Hager were critical of the inquiry decisions to date and Manning was undertaking legal action against the inquiry.

In the article I referred to an earlier blog post where I queried if Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson would accept the findings of the inquiry if the findings do not agree with their allegations. I concluded this article showed they wouldn’t.

The way my article was worded using “they” implied that both Hager and Stephenson were attacking the inquiry.

Mr Stephenson has been in contact to point out that he has not in fact attacked the inquiry. I’ve gone back and re-read the Stuff article and he is absolutely correct. While it quotes Hager and Manning as being critical of the inquiry to date, it notes that Stephenson and the inquiry are still in discussion about sources.

It was wrong of me to lump Hager and Stephenson in together and to imply that Stephenson was attacking the inquiry, when has has not. And likewise wrong to conclude that he will not accept the inquiry’s findings.

I’m very happy to correct the record and apologise to Mr Stephenson for the inaccuracy in the original post.

I would also note that it only takes me two hours to do a correction and apology (e-mail was received at 4.45 pm), as opposed to eight months for certain other media outlets 🙂