Mr Brennan
As always I appreciate your input on the BM forum and hope that it something that continues.
With regard to the piece by David Lynch, forget the agenda theories, the conspiracy theories and the 'let's get more hits' theories, the bottom line is that this was an appalling piece of writing. It does not deserve to be labelled 'journalism' because that suggests an element of professional aptitude that was entirely absent from this article.
The fact that it was so badly compiled, so childishly presented and so factually inaccurate means that it should never have been published in the first place and there is no excuse or defence that the MEN can give. You know that, we know that and the senior management of the newspaper should read Prestwich Blues comments and apologise for having allowed an article of such poor quality to appear in their newspaper.
On a separate issue, I note from your comments that unless there is a legal issue, articles for publication are not 'signed off' by senior management. Surely, if nothing else emerges as a result of this fiasco, that has to change.