The Age forced to apologise over George Pell death call

The Age has been forced to apologise to Cardinal George Pell after its Facebook page urged his death.

The Age newspaper has apologised after its Facebook page yesterday urged the death of Cardinal George Pell.

The Age newspaper was forced to apologise yesterday to Australia’s most powerful Catholic after its Facebook page urged the death of Cardinal George Pell.

For about an hour yesterday the Melbourne newspaper’s Facebook page carried the words: “Die Pell.’’

The Age’s editor-in-chief Andrew Holden apologised, blaming an unknown hacker.

The paper’s Facebook page later contained a prominent retrac­tion but an ugly and defam­atory debate continued on the page about the merits of apologising for the offensive remark.

The retraction read: “The Age would like to apologise to readers and Cardinal George Pell for an offensive remark posted on our Facebook page this morning. The post was deleted as soon as staff became aware of the problem.’’ One reader declared: “Why would you apologise to a scheming dirty Catholic priest?’’ Other highly defamatory posts remained on The Age’s Facebook site until well into the afternoon.

Mr Holden told Fairfax Radio he would be astonished if a staff member of his had posted the anti-Pell comment. “At this stage I assume it’s a hacker, but I don’t know absolutely,’’ he added.

Yesterday’s gaffe is the latest in a growing list of mistakes by the paper. It recently ran a front-page photo of an innocent teenager, wrongly claiming he was a would-be terrorist involved in a violent attack on police.

In March, The Age published an front-page apology to Abu Bakar Alam, 19, after identifying him in September as Numan Haider, the knife-wielding man who attacked police and was then fatally shot.