In one of the largest and most unusual settlements by a news organization, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an apology across the top of its front page and said it agreed to pay Chiquita Brands International Incorporated more than $10 million to avoid being sued for a series of articles that were highly critical of the fruit company’s business. The articles, which appeared in an 18-page special section in May, were partially based on 2,000 internal voicemails that were said to have been obtained from a high-ranking Chiquita executive. But the newspaper, after initially defending its year-long investigation of Chiquita, said yesterday it’s now convinced the voicemails had in fact been stolen from Chiquita and that it had renounced the articles. The Enquirer articles accused Chiquita, formerly known as United Fruit Company, and the world’s biggest banana producer, of a variety of unsavory practices, among them, Chiquita secretly controlling dozens of independent banana companies.