'The Sun' is the one that's the groper

On The Press: Red-tops are stuck in a time warp and should learn to say sorry

No need for the cautious use of the word "alleged" in the case of The Sun's cock-up over the Prince Harry breast-fondle picture, unlike the case of its stable mate News of the World's alleged involvement in accessing mobile phone messages. This time The Sun was forced to admit that it was nailed, and to apologise.

Not that there was a trace of humility or contrition about the brief apology. The Sun doesn't do "sorry" with any conviction. On Tuesday, we had almost the whole of the front page, headlined - "Dirty Harry - picture exclusive - playboy prince cops a feel" and a two-page spread inside. This was headlined "The booze brothers", and featured pictures of inebriated party frolics, or William and Harry's "booze-fuelled night out with chums" as The Sun would have it.

We were led to believe that Harry's girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, would be less than amused by the picture of the prince handling "pretty blonde Natalie Pinkham" or "saucily groping her boob with one hand", as The Sun put it. It emerged moments after publication that the pictures were not taken "this summer" as The Sun stated, but in autumn 2003, before Harry and Chelsy became an item. The nightclub where the party took place was also wrongly identified.

The photographs belonged to Pinkham, a television presenter and friend of the princes, who says they went missing when she moved flat recently. The day following The Sun 's publication the pictures appeared with equally lavish display in the Daily Mail. This was to illustrate a story about how The Sun had got its facts wrong, but the Mail may still be in trouble for publishing allegedly stolen pictures.

The Sun's apology occupied four paragraphs and was hidden on page six. But elsewhere in that day's paper was another two-page spread taking a markedly different line from the original story. The "booze brother" had become "history's wildest prince". The article said: "We love his playboy ways". Harry enjoyed "a special place in the hearts and minds of the nation".

They get it wrong in two ways. First, by assuming there is such interest in the Royal Family, particularly its younger members at play, that the public will rush out and buy a paper with a partying prince on the front page. I don't believe it. Most of us are semi-detached about the Royals these days. Most of us are agnostic rather than republican; we simply don't think about the Royals much.We can surely leave Prince Andrew and Princess Eugenie to Hello! magazine.

This is not to ignore the prominence of celebrity journalism. It is just to observe that, in the hierarchy of celebs who fascinate the public, the Royals are not Premier League. The tabloids, not least The Sun, seem to live in the age when we were absorbed by the antics of those inhabiting what was called "society". They may have changed the emphasis to nobs behaving badly, but it's pretty unexciting stuff - certainly not worth the money the tabloids pay for such stories and the corners they cut getting them. Princess Diana really was a story; she was a star in both the Hollywood and the soap sense. But all that ended when she died. Tabloid sales are in continuous decline. Harry groping on the front page is not going to arrest that.

The second way the red-tops get it wrong is in not admitting their mistakes. Surveys show a low and falling level of trust in journalists and the media. The figures are lowest for the tabloids. The public complains about newspapers getting things wrong, but it complains more about not admitting mistakes, apologising and correcting. Half-hearted corrections designed only to keep the lawyers at bay show a lack of respect for accuracy and for the readers - who tend to react by not buying.

Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield