Hacking and entrapment – unsolved mysteries, possible retribution
Raymond Snoddy says “the Press is drinking at the Last Chance Saloon”…again and the industry had better pay attention.
Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, is not exactly a household name. If you listen carefully enough you will hear him pop up from time-to-time on the Today programme discussing the state of the world economy.
But this week he has had the courage to cross Southwark Bridge to lambast most of the newspaper industry, the Press Complaints Commission and even the Metropolitan Police for not taking the phone hacking scandal seriously enough.
The FT editor was also correct in his Hugh Cudlipp memorial lecture at the London College of Communications to attack the Daily Telegraph for “entrapment” journalism over the events that unfolded in Business Secretary Vince Cable’s constituency surgery.
On both issues clear questions of journalistic morality and ethics are involved.
With dear old Vince we have all had our laugh. An old fool falling for the blandishments of young female reporters and boasting of his power and what he intended to do to Rupert Murdoch.
There has been a lot less discussion about the methodology of how that story was obtained. As Barber argued the Daily Telegraph bought stolen computer records in the MPs expenses scandal and it was massively in the public interest for the paper to do so.
There was no other way that such full disclosure of MP’s behaviour could have been revealed.
There is much weaker justification for the activities of the Telegraph’s 3am girls. Claims for the sanctity of the surgery confessional have been perhaps a little overblown.
But the PCC code under which all journalists are supposed to operate is clear on the circumstances in which subterfuge and “clandestine devices” can be used. It is generally justified “only in the public interest and then only when the material cannot be obtained by other means.”
The only relevant clause which might save the Telegraph is the exception to the general rule that allows subterfuge to prevent the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation.
The key point will turn on whether or not this was simply a fishing expedition – let’s go and see what Cable could be enticed into saying about the Coalition.
If there was evidence that Cable had been expressing anti-Murdoch sentiments and therefore was demonstrating that he was unfit to take the Murdoch-BSkyB decision, subterfuge would have been justified to stand up the story. That seems unlikely.
Mere fishing expeditions pollute public discourse and discussion.
The PCC now has an opportunity to prove that it is not “supine or worse” as Barber alleged, although in the context of phone tapping scandal the Commission should rule that “entrapment” of politicians or anyone else when there is no hint or rumour of previous misbehaviour is unacceptable.
The phone hacking scandal is of a different order of magnitude and really is a matter for the police rather than the PCC.
The behaviour is not just against the PCC code but against the law, even though some tricky definitions are involved.
Under PCC rules if a complainant decides to go to law the Commission does not and cannot get involved. And most of those who believe their phones have been tapped have being suing in the hope of getting compensation.
The phone-tapping allegations amount to the perfect storm for Rupert Murdoch, just as he is trying to prove he is the ideal man to own all of BSkyB, this comes along.
Hardly anybody in the industry believed the initial “rogue reporter” cover story. And there has always been surprise that an editor would have so little apparent curiosity in where particular stories story came from. Yet Andy Coulson has always denied any knowledge of the phone tapping.
The only thing that will work for Murdoch now is the fullest investigation into illicit phone – tapping throughout his News International empire complete with full disclosure of the results.
Someone fairly senior must have been signing, or authorising cheques for large sums of money.
If the past is any indication then a fairly senior, but not too senior, head will have to roll.
In the end the scandal is going to cost Murdoch an enormous sum of money as more and more celebs jump on the gravy train.
There has also been an allegation – denied – of a phone tapping incident at the Daily Mirror.
The entire industry has got to get behind a common pledge that such illegal behaviour really is unacceptable and will never happen again in future.
As Barber argues, the newspaper industry, with the exception of the Guardian, has not taken the issue seriously or tried to establish the truth. It was left to the New York Times, no friend of Murdoch, to lead the way.
The other abiding mystery is why the Metropolitan Police has been so reluctant to turn over more than a few small pebbles.
Was News International’s closeness to government and senior politicians a factor? Even the closeness between journalists and their police contacts?
A former senior News of the World executive talked this week of the days before mobile phones when he remembers signing large cheques for payment to police.
Last year News International admitted to a Parliamentary committee that police officers were indeed paid for information.
Barber is also right to warn that MPs, having been turned over and ridiculed by a rampant press over their expenses are in a mood for “retribution” unless the newspaper industry puts its house in order very rapidly.
The result could very easily be statutory regulation of the press, including privacy legislation.
At a recent interview at the London School of Economics Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt gave a veiled warning to Express owner Richard Desmond for pulling out of the PCC system.
Desmond, said Hunt, was playing a dangerous game. The Government was committed to self-regulation but that could change if the system broke down.
And that was just about pulling out of the PCC not about phone hacking or the “entrapment” of ministers.
As David Mellor once warned famously when he was minister for fun: “the Press is drinking at the Last Chance Saloon.”
It is again and the industry had better pay attention.