Doonegate: a development

The Press makes a correction in the In Brief section on page three (not online). It reads:

Correction

On May 13 and May 17 The Press published stories about a record of conversation between a reporter and Prime Minister Helen Clark in 2000. The stories quoted a confidential source who said that, in the transcript, Clark urged a reporter "to go back to your source" to confirm what former Police Commissioner Peter Doone said when he was stopped by a police patrol in central Wellington in 1999. The Press now accepts that the transcript does not say "go back to your source". The paper regrets the error.

--Press reporters and agencies

That means that the original story (referenced here as the original is no longer freely accessible) which placed a kibosh on the scandal was false. Although I had expressed my doubts on the story at the time in response to a comment by Jordan Carter, I never imagined that the story would turn out to be just plain wrong. I expect some new rumblings on the affair in the House when it next meets.