Fortunately I do not owe National Newswatch an apology, since I didn't think he torqued the "drop dead" headline.

But the Toronto Star has some explaining to do.

According to the Google cache, this was the headline being used for a story in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty that funding for cities is a provincial, not federal, responsibility:

The link takes you to a story with an entirely different headline:

Harper rejects financial aid for cities

A quick search reveals that the word "dead" does not appear in the story.

Nor, apparently, does an apology to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for misleading Canadians as to what the prime minister said.

I think the Toronto Star owes the prime minister and the readers of the newspaper an explanation.

And while the Toronto Star is at it, maybe it ought to deliver an apology to National Newswatch. He's been taking a lot of heat for simply repeating the headline the Star subsequently decided was not up to their professional standards.

Update: Obviously the Toronto Star regretted the choice of words and changed the online headline. But it was too late for the print version:

Things have gotten some much more complicated since they invented paper. Remember when it was only the internet? Back then, you could more easily cover up mistakes like this. Hopefully the Toronto Star will learn from this and become as adept at delivering accurate and balanced news via print as it is at doing so online.