Instead, there is a much abbreviated version of the story at 'Christian porter sacked by hospital after argument over a crucifix in a prayer room'. Note the 'multi-faith' bit isn't there any more, scare quotes or no.
A copy of the older version is available here. It should go without saying that I don't endorse the wingnut forum it's on and I'm only linking for the purposes of showing the original article, but I'm saying it anyway.
I didn't quote all the relevant bits in my last post, so here are the important bits of the story that have been dropped.
After pointing out that the porter was released by the police without charge after being questioned over an alleged aggravated assault, the original version had this:
He denies the allegations and must wait to see if police take any action.And the last line of the original said:
He said he was unable to comment on his sacking as the police probe and his plans to appeal were ongoing.
Police said a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision over any further action.These references have gone. Of course, removing these makes it look as though the assault allegation has been dismissed and it's all over, when it isn't. It makes the porter look more reasonable.
This has also been dropped in the new version:
The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.A guy who goes into the chapel six times a day to check if the cross has been covered up sounds just a tad less well adjusted than someone who just happened into the room and noticed it was covered.
The changes could be because the original article seems to be directly lifted from this one in the Manchester Evening News 'Hospital porter fired in crucifix row', but whatever the reason, the result is an even more one sided version of events that even further downplays the porter's alleged actions and paints him in a far more favourable light.
Contrast the paper's treatment of this story with the one I covered in 'Who always starts the race row?', 'The Mail, balance?' and 'Chuck Berry?', in which the paper reported that a 10 year old boy had been attacked by a Slovakian woman with a metal bar after throwing a berry at her, despite other reports pointing out that the police had said there was no evidence that a metal bar had been used, and that the berry throwing incident had come the day before and involved a different woman, whom he also allegedly punched.
Why is this one treated differently? You'd get a much better tabloidy headline out of 'Hospital porter sacked after 'aggravated assault' on patients', if not better.
Of course, the trouble is if the paper had reported things that way around, the Christian would look like the religious nutter and the Muslims would have looked like victims. Can't have that, can we? Have to make it look as though the alleged assailant was in fact a victim if the actual victims are Muslim. Or the wrong sort of foreign.
Nice one, the Daily Mail!
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