Murdoch company to pay damages over remarks

LONDON: Rupert Murdoch-owned Nationwide News Pty Ltd has apologized and agreed to pay damages after one of its journalists wrote an article in which an English Muslim cricketer was subject to offensive remarks.

The England and Wales Cricket Board said Friday that Sydney, Australia-based Nationwide News will pay ``significant damages and costs as well as offering an unreserved apology for offensive remarks.''

In a piece about the alleged time-wasting that helped England escape with a draw in last month's first Ashes test, Australian journalist David Penberthy said that a friend had sent him an SMS text message abusing Bilal Shafayat.

Penberthy was incensed that 12th man Shafayat twice came on to the field to apparently supply a batsman with spare gloves, holding up play with Australia on the verge of bowling out its opponents.

Writing for The Punch Web site, Penberthy included what he said was a friend's reference to the bearded player.

The Web site deleted the article after a request by Shafayat, who will donate the damages he is due to charity.

Penberthy, a former editor of Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper, said he never meant to cause offense.

``The decision to publish this private SMS was of itself the truly stupid aspect of the article,'' Penberthy said in a post on The Punch Web site and distributed by the ECB. ``I was going to apologize at the time and shut the piece but I didn't for two reasons.

``The first was that I didn't want to be accused of trying to whip the issue up to drive traffic to the Web site. And given that life doesn't come with a reverse button, I thought that shutting the piece was a convenient out and that I should just wear it.''

Sydney-based Nationwide News is a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp.