The trial of Huhne has been a media story all along

In the scrum of attention that has surrounded the trial and imprisonment of Chris Huhne, slightly less attention has been given to the fact that this has been a media story throughout and there are even lessons in crisis management for the PR industry, says Raymond Snoddy. We also now know that it was a story that might never even have seen the light of day…

Even in prison there is no escape from The Sun for Chris Huhne, the former MP for Eastleigh. First it was the headline ‘HUHNE MP to HMP’, followed by exclusive front page news of a prison officer’s prank tannoy call to breakfast: “Order! Order! The Right Honourable Member for Wandsworth. Come to the Office.”

The arguments will continue for some time on whether it was fair – or not – for Huhne and his former wife Vicky Pryce to each get eight months in prison for an offence which hundreds of thousands of motorists have probably committed.

The argument can be a short one. The courts rightly take a serious view of anyone trying to pervert the course of justice. They also take an even dimmer view of the related crime of perjury, as the former MPs Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer found out to their costs. Leave aside the personal Greek tragedy for all of those involved, something that has been more than adequately covered in an absolute deluge of print and broadcasting in recent weeks.

Slightly less attention has been given to the fact that this has been a media story throughout and there are even lessons in crisis management for the PR industry. We now know that it was a story that might never have seen the light of day.

Neville Thurlbeck, the News of the World journalist who exposed Lord Archer and could face jail himself if found guilty of phone hacking charges, uncovered the affair between Huhne and Carina Trimingham.

This week Thurlbeck revealed that the News of the World editor Colin Myler spiked the story on the grounds that Huhne, as a mere Liberal Democrat MP, was simply not famous enough to justify running the story. It was only when in May 2010 Chris Huhne became Climate Secretary in the Coalition Government that he was considered important enough to expose – and the affair was still going on.

On such nuanced judgments on fame, importance and justification do reputations ultimately depend. Exposure, and the marriage was over, and the tragedy was up and running out of control, and apparently beyond the ability of any of the key participants to stop.

We also now know that apart from buying novels by Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens and Hilary Mantel, Chris Huhne prepared for prison by setting up interviews with media outlets he clearly thought would be relatively sympathetic – Channel 4 News, the Guardian and The Times.

He wanted one last shot at damage limitation, an opportunity to apologise to everyone involved for what he had done and to explain his guilty plea. He had wanted, he explained, to avoid making things worse by perjuring himself and putting his family through even more anguish. It was also a plea for future understanding in the hope of the new post-prison career he plans to establish.

Huhne was dignified before the robust questioning of Channel 4’s political editor Gary Gibbon, who reminded him had he had once looked Gibbon in the eye and said there was nothing to the story. Huhne conceded he had “lied and lied again” and that part of it had been about saving his career.

But at least he had shown a trace of humour. When he had been asked by the cameraman, in the usual sound check, what he had had for breakfast, Huhne replied: “Porridge.”

Gibbon concluded he must have been coated at birth by the sort of stuff they put on space shuttle tiles.

The relationships involved in the Guardian interview are particularly interesting. The interview was with the paper’s political editor Patrick Wintour and here again Huhne was suitably contrite. By chance the two are old friends from Oxford days and indeed Huhne was best man at Wintour’s second marriage to Rachael Sylvester, The Times columnist. Sylvester concluded in The Times, without indicating her links with Huhne, that locking up the pair in our expensive, overcrowded prisons served no useful purpose.

The biggest question revolves around the role of the relationship between The Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott and Vicky Pryce – the relationship that ultimately helped bring the story out into the open and led to the gates of Holloway Prison for the Greek economist.

There is little doubt that Pryce was a willing participant in the tango out of a desire for revenge and few journalists would have turned down the opportunity to get such a story – one that won Oakeshott a press award.

But what responsibilities does a journalist have in such a situation. Should you warn the informant clearly and openly what the consequences would be if their identity ever came out. Are there any circumstances in which any journalist would decide this particular game is not worth the candle? Probably not.

But above all else what guarantees are given about protecting sources not just by the journalist themselves but by their newspapers or news organisation?

In the past journalists and editors have gone to jail rather than reveal sources and that determination and indeed, integrity, underlie any serious piece of investigative journalism involving informants and whistle-blowers. Nick Cohen, the Guardian investigative journalist, has described in The Spectator the extent to which Oakeshott and The Sunday Times went to protect their source. According to Cohen the authorities obtained a court order for the newspaper to produce material to the police. And the Sunday Times appealed.

But the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC has noted that the Sunday Times “subsequently consented to producing the material in question just before the appeal was due to be heard, on 20 January this year.”

Cohen notes: “Journalists once went to prison rather than reveal a source. Now they can’t even go to an appeal court. Instead, Oakeshott’s source is in jail.”

The Guardian journalist asked friends of Pryce to ask whether the Sunday Times had sought permission from her before the information was handed to detectives. The answer came back that they had not.

Long after Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce have been released from prison for good behaviour and getting on with their lives journalism and PR courses will still be debating the rights and wrongs of the media’s role in such a deeply personal tragedy.