I am sometimes criticised for failing to hold The Guardian to account in the same way that I do other papers.

The truth is that I rarely have reason to complain about this newspaper. But today I'm afraid I must do so.

Last Friday, The Guardian ran a story headlined Republicans blamed for shooting of west Belfast man. It concerned the killing of Christopher (Christy) Mackin, who was shot dead in Belfast's city centre the night before.

The story, written by the paper's Irish correspondent, Henry McDonald, stated that "Republican paramilitaries" had been responsible for the "paramilitary-style assassination."

Leaving aside the wrong use of the term "assassination", it cited "Republican sources" as saying it "was likely that a republican organisation had targeted Mackin over allegations he had been dealing drugs."

However, the police issued a statement denying any paramilitary link. Detective Chief Inspector John McVea of the PSNI said: "We are not looking at paramilitary involvement. We arrested a man and woman in Belfast this morning." That statement was carried on the BBC website.

A man of 40 and a woman of 35 were later charged with murder and are due to appear in court today, as the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Until the two were charged I could have written more about the incident but I can say with confidence that another story in the Belfast Telegraph and a Facebook page both underlined that the killing was totally unrelated to paramilitaries.

What concerns me about The Guardian story was the message that it sends. I am not in any doubt about the threat posed by republican dissidents.

But it is clear that this small group feeds off any publicity that implies it is larger and more active than is really the case.

The net effect of the headline and story is to bolster the "prowess" of a group that wishes to pursue a murderous armed campaign.

There is a second, slightly more sinister, message too. The use of the word "republican" in such a context tends to taint the republican movement as a whole, meaning Sinn Fein.

Reporting in Northern Ireland remains a sensitive matter and this inaccurate report, sadly, was anything but sensitive.