Kelner stands by his decision

So how Independent is the Independent?

Earlier in the week it carried a front page lead giving 10 myths about the EU treaty.In a earlier post on Eu coverage,I said that the Indpendent had on that day bucked the trend on EU coverage

I was wrong as it turns out that the 10 points were lifted from a government document as disclosed in the Spectator on Thursday

Helen O'Brien writes that

They looked curiously familiar to me. And then I figured out why. The piece is an almost word-for-word reprint of a Foreign Office briefing note – but without any attribution that that is the source.

adding

Times are hard at the Indie, but this is ridiculous. For an “internationalist” paper they have made some other rather odd decisions in recent times – like not having a full time Brussels correspondent anymore. The paper seems to have decided that it loves the EU, but wouldn’t want to spoil the romance by finding out anything nasty about it.

I see that Simon Kelner is defending his decision,speaking to Media Guardian he says

I am completely unapologetic about our attempt to explode the myths that have been allowed to develop in what has been an extremely one-sided debate
What we printed was a collection of facts, which our political editor independently verified.The source doesn't really make a material difference. What matters is whether those facts are accurate or not. And no one, as far as I can see, is doubting the truth of what we printed.