9 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
Political blogger Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes took the stand at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, and made numerous allegations relating to phone hacking. Appearing before the court, Staines, who is well known for his website’s “tittle tattle, gossip and rumour”, accused politicians, journalists and editors alike.
Staines told the court that two journalists had confirmed to him that Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver had authorised phone hacking and blagging, and went on to accuse Telegraph journalist Gordon Rayner of using private investigator Steve Whittamore. The blogger said that the journalist’s name appeared 335 times in Operation Motorman files, and 185 of those appearances were in relation to alleged illegal transactions.
The allegations continued, as Staines described selling a series of photographs to the News of the World of Chris Myers, special advisor to Foreign Secretary William Hague, in a gay bar, following his publication of a story on Hague sharing a hotel room with Myers. Staines said the pictures, which were sold for £20,000 but were never published, were bought to take them off the market.
Describing “lobby terms”, a term applied to off the record information divulged to journalists by politicians, Staines said that it went “beyond off the record” and often resulted in “journalists complicit in politicians’ lying.” Staines added: “Journalists shouldn’t accept anonymous briefings, because most of the time it is used to besmirch other politicians, without them getting their fingerprints on it”
With regards to the attacks from the press on people such as Chris Jefferies and Kate and Jerry McCann, the blogger said:
“I think ultimately, the McCanns and Chris Jefferies have been able to get reparations through the courts. Stopping these abuses from happening means you’ll lose the freedom of the press.”
Staines added: “Phone hacking is against the law and criminal sanctions are available to deal with that. We don’t need press reform to deal with that.”
In reference to his Irish citizenship, the blogger also said: “What I think you’re missing is that I’m a citizen of a free republic and, since 1922, I don’t have to pay attention to what a British judge orders me to do.”
Martin Moore from the Media Standards Trust and Will Moy from Full Fact also appeared before the court.
In a lively and entertaining submission, the pair, who gave their evidence together, discussed PCC data and gave their suggestions for regulation of the press.
Moore explained that most often problems with dealing with complaints do not stem from the PCC, but from news organisations dragging their feet: “through all my experience the PCC secretariat have been very helpful and done the best they can. In many cases the problem is with the newspaper outlet, not the PCC.”
Moy suggested that regulation was necessary to “counteract market failures” and added that publishing accurately was “a matter of basic civic responsibility.”
Moy added: “If a newspaper has been told that there is a serious problem with a headline, if a complainant goes away, it doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away. A regulator would pursue the problem, a complaints handler pursues the complaint.”
Helen Belcher, who appeared on behalf of TransMediaWatch described the issues surrounding media coverage of trans people to the court.
“Most trans people now, when they’re the subject of an article they deem worthy of a complaint, don’t bother, becausd the PCC has received a number of complaints and it appears that nothing ever changes as a result of those complaints.”
She explained that the use of the single word “tran” caused great distress to a number of trans people: “The word ‘tran’ dehumanises an individual. Trans people are not solely trans, they have other interests they do other things. They have different categories, and to constantly reduce trans people to one category dehumanises them.”
Belcher described the routine misgendering of trans people within the media, and the use of intrusive “before and after” photographs which are “incredibly offensive” to the subjects. She said: “It’s routine. It happens today in the press, despite the editors’ protestations that everything is sorted out.”
Editor in Chief of online newspaper Huffington Post, Carla Buzasi explained the importance of consulting digital media on the Leveson inquiry, describing it as “the future of the media in this country.”
The editor suggested that some news organisations were not interested in being a part of the PCC because they did not “hold it in high regard,” and suggested that a future regulator would need to be sufficiently respected that it would be “foolish” not to be a part of it.
Buzasi said that no phone hacking, blagging or subterfuge took place at the Huffington Post.
Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions also appeared, and advised that a policy specifically for journalists, on what a prosecution will consider when investigating a journalist in doing their work as a journalist will make things clearer. Starmer advised that an interim policy would be drawn up in a matter of weeks.
Pam Surphlis of Support after Murder and Manslaughter in Northern Ireland (SAMM NI) gave evidence to the court via video link.
Surphlis explained that SAMM NI was set up after she read “salacious gossip” about the death of her father. The group went on to conduct a study into the relationship between journalists and the victims’ families; and effects of press coverage on the victims’ families. The study found that journalists were “intrusive and insensitive in their approach.”
She added that the PCC code relating to dealing with deaths is not “user-friendly.”
Surphlis said she was grateful to the inquiry for enabling SAMM NI to have a voice that someone is prepared to listen to.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
7 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The editor of the Times has admitted to the Leveson Inquiry that a reporter at his paper used email hacking to reveal the identity of anonymous police blogger, NightJack, in a 2009 story.
James Harding was discussing an incident which former Times reporter Patrick Foster had identified the blogger as Richard Horton by gaining access to anonymous email account run by Horton.
Harding, recalled to give further evidence, said he had “learnt a great deal more” about the circumstances surrounding the event since his last appearance at the Inquiry a month ago.
He revealed that he and senior management figures at the Times only became aware of the email hacking after Mr Justice Eady had begun hearing the case at the High Court — to overturn the injunction Mr Horton took to protect his identity — but before a judgment was made.
The inquiry heard that the paper’s lawyer, Alastair Brett, “tore a strip off Foster” when he learned of the email hacking, telling him that “if he wants to pursue this story he has to do it by proper journalistic endeavour”.
Emails shown to the Inquiry today reveal that Foster asked his then news editor, Martin Barrow, to “leave a little space between the dirty deed and publishing”.
In another email from Foster to the Brett, the reporter said he could build his story with publicly-available information. This, Brett replied, may be the “golden bullet”.
Harding said he took the view that the story was in the public interest, though stressed it did not warrant Foster’s unauthorised access to the email account.
“I squarely do not approve of what has happened”, he said.
“If Mr Foster had come to me and said he had done this,” Harding said, “I would have taken the disciplinary action and I would have told him to abandon the story.”
“I sorely regret the intrusion into Richard Horton’s email account by a journalist in our newsroom. On behalf of the newspaper, I apologise”, he told the Inquiry. Harding also said he has written to Mr Justice Eady to apologise that the full details surrounding the story were not disclosed to the court in 2009.
Horton, who won the Orwell prize for his blog describing a PC’s life, closed down his site and removed its content.
Email hacking constitutes a breach of the Computer Misuse Act, for which there is no public interest defence. Foster was given a written warning for professional misconduct over the incident.
Also recalled today was Sun editor Dominic Mohan, who was quizzed about his paper’s page 3 feature, which since late 1970 has printed photos of topless women.
Mohan called the feature an “innocuous British institution” that celebrates natural beauty and represents youth and freshness. He said the feature does not contain models who had had plastic surgery, and that the women photographed were healthy and “good role models”.
Last month the Inquiry heard from a selection of women’s groups who discussed the sexualisation of women in media. Anna Van Heeswijk, of pressure group Object, said page 3 existed “for the sole purpose” of women being sex objects. She also pushed for “consistent” regulation of print media, arguing that the press should abide by the taste and decency watershed that determines what can be broadcast on television before 9pm.
Mohan also refuted claims the paper was sexist, arguing that it had campaigned for a range of women’s issues, such as speaking out against domestic violence in 2003 and raising awareness of cervical cancer screening following the death of reality TV star Jade Goody in 2009.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow and will include evidence from Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer; Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust and political blogger Guido Fawkes.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
7 Feb 2012 | Uncategorized
While the Leveson Inquiry rumbled on today, rulings with huge consequences for the British press were handed down by the European Court of Human Rights.
Axel Springer v Germany and Hannover v Germany were both cases which tested the tension between the right to free speech and the right to privacy.
Von Hannover (in fact, this was Von Hannover v Germany no 2) was very important. The judgment concerned the definitions of public sphere, private life and public figure.
Since the 1990s, Caroline Von Hannover (daughter of the late King Ranier of Monaco and Grace Kelly) had sought to control publication of photographs of her in the German celebrity press.
To cut a long story very short, a 2004 judgment in Caroline Von Hannover v Germany 1 by the European Court found that photographs of the princess had indeed breached her article 8 right to privacy.
The judgment today concerned photographs of Caroline and her husband on a skiing holiday in Moritz, accompanied by an article on Prince Rainier’s health. Importantly, the court ruled that both that the prince’s health was an “event of contemporary society” and that Caroline and her husband were beyond doubt public figures.
The importance of the earlier Von Hannover rulings cannot be understated. In an interview with Index on Censorship last year, Mr Justice Eady, who deals with a large amount of privacy cases in the High Court, explained:
“As a rule courts must apply the test in the Princess Caroline case, von Hannover v Germany, decided by the human rights court in 2004: the decisive factor is whether the publication contributes to ‘a debate of general interest to society’.”
Mr Justice Eady and his colleagues will now have a different ruling to look to; one which places free expression ahead of privacy.
7 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The former chair of the Press Complaints Commission has said she regrets the 2009 PCC report into phone hacking that concluded there was no evidence to suggest the practice was widespread or that the PCC had been misled in its 2007 inquiry of the activity.
Baroness Peta Buscombe told the Leveson Inquiry she was “never comfortable” putting her name to the report, which claimed that the Guardian’s coverage of phone hacking “did not quite live up to the dramatic billing they were initially given”.
The report has since been formally withdrawn by the PCC.
Buscombe, who resigned as chairman of the PCC last October amid growing criticism, said she equally regretted being “clearly misled” by News International and what editors had told her, adding later that she had been “lied to” over the phone hacking.
But she was quick to say that the self-regulation body needed to be seen as acting. “What could we do? (…) If we’d have done nothing we’d have been called useless,” she said. “It was rather one of those ‘you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t’,” she added later. “It was very very difficult.”
She said people were “misconstructing” the role of the PCC, noting that the body did not have investigatory powers to summon editors to give evidence under oath. She argued that broadcast regulator Ofcom cannot “deal with crime, nor should it”.
She added that the rest of the world “would kill” for the British press’s system of self-regulation, though conceded that the rebuilding of trust was a “problem” and a “tough call” for Lord Justice Leveson.
Buscombe also argued that the major issue was newsroom culture, putting it to the Inquiry: “Can you have a system that changes the culture within news organisations?”
Meanwhile Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has been recalled to face further questioning, after he accused actor Hugh Grant and the Hacked Off campaign of trying to “hijack” the Inquiry.
Dacre made the remarks in his evidence yesterday in response to Grant’s testimony last November, during which he described a 2007 story in the Mail on Sunday that claimed his relationship with Jemima Khan was on the rocks due to his late night calls with a “plummy-voiced” studio executive.
Grant said the only way the paper could have sourced the story was through accessing his voicemail, and that he “would love to hear what their source was if it wasn’t phone hacking”.
Associated Newspaper responded in a statement that the actor had made “mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media”, which Dacre said he would withdraw if “Mr Grant withdraws his that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were involved in phone hacking.”
Leveson said that he would need to speak to Dacre for around 30 minutes this week about the issue.
Dacre stressed yesterday that he knew of no cases of phone hacking at Associated’s titles.
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