Royal journalist
jailed, editor resigns – UK bugging scandal puts the bite
on UK tabloid tactics
By Mike Jempson Director, The MediaWise Trust
(UK) www.mediawise.org.uk
Visiting Professor in Media Ethics, Lincoln University February 15, 2007
Days after a man convicted of downloading Internet child pornography
was spared a custodial sentence because Britain’s prisons
are over-crowded, the assistant editor of the UK’s largest-selling
Sunday tabloid was jailed for illegally intercepting celebrity
telephone calls.
In January 2007, Clive Goodman, 48, who specializes in gossip
about the royal family for the News of the World, owned by Rupert
Murdoch’s News Group, began his four-month sentence. His
associate, Glen Mulcaire, 35, a private investigator hired by
the newspaper, got 6 months.
Immediately after they were sentenced NoW Editor Andy Coulson
announced that he had tendered his resignation weeks earlier.
Accepting "ultimate responsibility" for the crimes
committed in his paper’s name, Coulson said, “I
feel strongly that when the News of the World calls those in
public life to account on behalf of its readers, it must have
its own house in order."
Goodman and Mulcaire admitted hacking into the calls of members
of the royal household who worked for Prince William, Prince
Harry and the Prince of Wales. Their offence under the Criminal
Law Act of 1977 surfaced when Goodman ran a story containing
information that could only have come from a private conversation
between Tom Bradby, then royal reporter with ITV News, and the
Princes’ staff. Bradby alerted the police.
The case was handled by the anti-terrorist squad who swooped
on the men’s homes and offices. They found a contract
between the NoW and Mulcaire guaranteeing his ‘crisis
management’ company, The Nine Consultancy, almost $245,000
(Canadian) a year. Mulcaire, who also received over $28,000
from Goodman for phone tapping, had been supplying information
to the NoW since 1997. In court, he also admitted to unlawfully
intercepting voicemail messages left by Liberal MP Simon Hughes,
Australian model Elle Macpherson, the publicist Max Clifford,
and several football personalities. Mulcaire used to be a professional
football player.
Goodman’s incarceration is all the more ignominious since
the last journalists to be jailed in Britain, Brendan Mulholland
and Reg Foster, became professional heroes for refusing to reveal
their sources to the Vassall Tribunal in 1963 set up to investigate
a Soviet spy scandal. Goodman has worked at the NoW since the
1980s, and is reputed to have relied on his ‘contacts’
rather than footwork to supply juicy royal stories for the tabloid.
The case has shone a light on long-known but often-denied techniques
used by many newspapers to obtain personal information. In the
15 years since the industry launched the Press Complaints Commission
(PCC), supposedly to demonstrate a willingness to clean up its
act, hundreds, if not thousands, of ordinary people and ‘celebrities’
have had personal details splattered over intrusive and often
inaccurate stories. Many lost relationships, jobs, and even
homes after publication of prurient stories based on illicitly
obtained information from employers, phone companies, banks
or public authorities. None has ever received compensation from
erring newspapers but Mulcaire pocketed four times the national
average wage for supplying information exclusively to just one
newspaper during one year.
His actions are commonplace. In May 2006, Information Commissioner
Richard Thomas claimed to have a list of 305 journalists who
had obtained information by illegal methods. They were customers
of a single private detective (not Mulcaire) who specialized
in delivering details of criminal records, telephone accounts
and other personal information. No prosecutions followed publication
of his report ‘What price privacy?’
Referring to the report at the time Goodman was arrested in
August 2006, an editorial in the Guardian newspaper commented:
‘(T)he PCC has until now remained remarkably incurious
and unwilling to instigate an inquiry of its own, despite the
prima facie evidence against hundreds of journalists.’
The Information Commissioner, by splendid irony a royal appointment,
issued a follow-up report ‘What price privacy now?’
in December 2006, providing more detail, but no names. It found
that journalists had improperly obtained well over 3,000 separate
pieces of personal data. The mid-market tabloid Daily Mail topped
the list with 952 items obtained by 58 of its staff, followed
by two left of centre tabloids, The People (80 items for 50
journalists), and the Daily Mirror (681 for 45 journalists).
Nineteen News of the World staffers purchased 182 items, and
four journalists from The Observer, a revered Sunday broadsheet,
received 103 items.
Apart from reminding editors that such behaviour is a breach
of the industry Code of Practice, the PCC kept its powder dry
until Goodman was locked away and his editor had fallen on his
sword. It has always tended to give the benefit of the doubt
to newspapers when the public complains about underhanded methods
used to manufacture sensational stories and it has been criticised
by journalists, media commentators, and politicians for its
apparent unwillingness to crack down on editors for evident
breaches of their own Code.
Although funded by the industry, the PCC insists that it acts
independently. However, on the very morning in 1996 that the
then PCC Chairman and a senior editor were to be grilled by
a committee of MPs about payments to witnesses, the industry
announced a tightening of its code to outlaw the practice. This
followed a series of notorious revelations, including the discovery
that 19 witnesses in the case against mass murderers Fred and
Rose West were found to have been offered money by newspapers.
On 1 Feb 2007, the PCC Chairman Sir Christopher Meyer, former
British UK ambassador to Washington, announced that he would
write to editors about the “reprehensible” practices
revealed by the Goodman case.
“The public has a right to know that lessons have been
learned from this episode, both at the newspaper and more generally,”
he said in a masterly understatement.
“The Commission will consider these industry responses
with a view to publishing a review of the current situation,
with recommendations for best practice if necessary, in order
to prevent a similar situation arising in the future.”
Note the ‘if necessary’. Goodman’s jailing
and Coulson’s departure are likely to have a more lasting
effect than the half-hearted slap on the wrist issued by the
PCC when it bucks up courage and occasionally finds a newspaper
at fault.
Giving judgement in the case, Mr. Justice Gross described the
men’s behaviour as “sustained criminal conduct”
and said, "this case was not about press freedom; it was
about a grave, inexcusable and illegal invasion of privacy.”
Such behaviour undermines the role and respect that journalists
should garner from the public, and it does nothing to dissuade
politicians currently intent on limiting disclosures to journalists
and the public under the hard-won Freedom of Information Act.
If newspapers can afford massive fees to private investigators,
how will they argue against paying higher charges for FOI requests?
And how should the public now interpret press campaigns to belittle
or repeal the Human Rights Act, which upholds the individual’s
right to privacy?
Perhaps this sorry saga will encourage editors to invest more
in quality investigative journalism and jolt politicians into
asking more pointed questions about the management style and
commercial priorities of the newspaper industry. No one wants
to see the regulator given power to jail or sack editors, but
unless the industry owns up to its failings and gets tougher
on those who let the public down, news media could find pressure
mounting for legislation.
There might be one unexpected happy outcome – an end to
Royal honours ‘for services to journalism’. It would
be far better if the accolade for editors and journalists who
demonstrate that they are willing to put protection of the public
good before their own bank balances came instead from readers
and colleagues.
MIKE JEMPSON is the co-founder
and director of the journalism ethics charity MediaWise. A journalist,
author and trainer with over 35 years experience in print, broadcasting
and public relations, he has delivered training for journalists
and NGOs in over 30 countries on the reporting of children,
suicide, health, human rights and diversity issues. He also
serves on the NUJ Ethics Council and its Professional Training
Committee. He is the longest serving council member of the Campaign
for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Treasurer of the Exiled
Journalists Network, and on the editorial board of the international
journal Ethical Space. In 2006 he was appointed Visiting Professor
in Media Ethics at the University of Lincoln.
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