The Portuguese Atrocity That Didn’t Happen

On july 10, 1973 the Times of London carried a long page one story under the headline, “Portuguese Massacre Reported by Priests.” The story created a considerable sensation at the time. Subsequently it became something of a journalistic cause célèbre. In February of 1974, the British Press Council, having heard complaints against the Times, handed down a decision dismissing the complaints, but the Council’s decision was rather less than a ringing exoneration.

The matter merits reflection. In my own view, for whatever it may be worth, the Times blundered in its publication of a story that certainly was fabricated in part, and quite probably was fabricated in whole. But the particular article of July 10, 1973 has an importance beyond the editorial judgment exhibited by Foreign Editor Louis Heren and his associates. It illustrates, or so it seems to me, the kind of double standard that is so often applied by press and by politicians not only in African affairs but in foreign affairs generally.

JJ

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James Jackson Kilpatrick

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On july 10, 1973 the Times of London carried a long page one story under the headline, “Portuguese Massacre Reported by Priests.” The story created a considerable sensation at the time. Subsequently it became something of a journalistic cause célèbre. In February of 1974, the British Press Council, having heard complaints against the Times, handed down a decision dismissing the complaints, but the Council’s decision was rather less than a ringing exoneration.

The matter merits reflection. In my own view, for whatever it may be worth, the Times blundered in its publication of a story that certainly was fabricated in part, and quite probably was fabricated in whole. But the particular article of July 10, 1973 has an importance beyond the editorial judgment exhibited by Foreign Editor Louis Heren and his associates. It illustrates, or so it seems to me, the kind of double standard that is so often applied by press and by politicians not only in African affairs but in foreign affairs generally.