The news that the Daily Mail has pulled its claims concerning George Clooney’s future mother-in-law holds a valuable lesson for content-marketers: check your facts. This imperative is easy to ignore precisely because it is so fundamental to many professions, not just journalism or the wider sphere of publishing.

In this editorial on the spat, Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford first sets out the Mail’s claims: that George Clooney’s future mother-in-law is a member of a religious sect and has been expressing doubts about her daughter’s proposed marriage to the Hollywood superstar. Since publishing its story, the Mail has been forced to apologise to Clooney and co. Yet what Ponsford finds so staggering is the mismatch between the Mail’s resources and the journalistic outcome in this case.

He writes: ‘Mail Online deals with a huge amount of copy, but it also has a huge number of staff. It is difficult to understand how the world’s largest newspaper website could let something like this slip through.’

However, as content-marketers we shouldn’t be fooled by the resource argument. The rush to publish might seem overwhelming at times, yet for most companies it’s better not to publish at all than publish without having checked your facts.

In a statement the Mail Online said: ‘We accept Mr Clooney’s assurance that the story is inaccurate.

‘We have removed the article from our website and will be contacting Mr Clooney’s representatives to discuss giving him the opportunity to set the record straight.’

Not quite a grovelling apology, but at least humble.