BT loses £700,000 contract for a second time

Updated BT has incredibly lost a second £700,000 contract for telephone services in under a week. Last Thursday, the Press Association revealed that the Great Satan of Broadband had lost a contract with the Samaritans because 20 per cent of callers were getting engaged tones.

No, seriously. People calling the Samaritans were getting engaged tones. This wasn't an ideal situation, so the helpline charity turned to BT rival Cable & Wireless, who not only offered a far superior deal but also halved the cost of running the system to £350,000 a year.

It this wasn't bad enough, The Mirror revealed in an "exclusive" yesterday that BT had lost another £700,000 contract. This one was with the Samaritans - apparently, 20 per cent of callers were getting engaged tones, so it has turned to Cable & Wireless... Hang on, haven't we heard this before?

Yes, folks, in the remarkable world of newspapers it would appear that as long as a story hasn't actually been printed then it can still be an exclusive five days later. Which also begs the question: if Internet news publications can be disregarded, why are newspapers dedicating more and more space to cover Internet topics?

Reminds us of when The Daily Mail decided it could print our story almost untouched without a mention of where it came from. Mind you, that all turned out to be a misunderstanding.

We may have let The Mirror get away with it if it had used the correct tabloid headline: "BT keeps Samaritan callers hanging on the telephone".

Update

It has also come to our notice that fellow national newspaper The Indepedent also ran the story the same day as PA. So the Mirror's "exclusive" is even more tenuous. Tut tut. ®