The Herald explains...

On 18/04/2008, at 12:54 PM, darren.bevan@... wrote:

Good afternoon Philip
Thanks for your query.
I can assure you it was a genuine mistake in the processing area and we are sorry about it.
It was actually a technical error and I will explain how that happens. We moderate all comments and a large number of words are highlighted automatically when they come in in case the comments around them could be defamatory etc such as racist terms. The word lesbian is one of them highlighted as we have a number of comments through claiming a certain high profile person is gay and that person has warned that they would take legal action is that statement is ever published as she says it is not true.
So your use of the word lesbian was highlighted but also accidentally omitted.
Our original story on Ms Tocker which triggered the comment thread on Ms Tocker made it clear Mahinarangi was a proud member of the gay community.
I can assure you there was no intention to omit that fact and on our busiest day of the year (also handling hundreds of tribute comments on the school trip tragedy) the technical change got the better of us.
Again our apologies.
Regards
Darren Bevan
Online Content Moderator
APN Online