Saturday, 14 January 2012

2222 Leveson 12 In absentia Dacre

On this this third weekend of the New Year 2012 I set myself a task which would have taken several days and then would have been far from complete at the level which I would normally require of myself. The task was cover every witness at the Leveson Inquiry on the first four days since the Christmas and New Year recess, and this included all those who submitted statements but were not called to given oral evidence because the Inquiry team considered that had nothing to add through questioning. This is not to imply that the evidence was of less significance in terms of the criteria.

However wanting to attend to other matters it was not until mid afternoon Saturday that I got underway and it quickly became apparent that it would take me weeks to cover the evidence of the four days so I can only do what I have done to-date and cover aspects which interested me as important.

There was one crucial absence that of the already legendary “Fleet Street” character and power man, Paul Dacre the editor of the Daily Mail and which I shall henceforth refer to as the Daily Malice following the malicious ascribing by a business rival, also a proprietor. Much of the rest of the evidence submitted by the Daily Mail company team focussed on the use of Mendacious to describe the testimony of Hugh Grant on the first day of the inquiry and which Lord Leveson defined as an accusation of deliberate lying to the Inquiry and which as Mr Sherborne, representing the victims, underlined, the Company has so far failed to provide any evidence to substantiate, and in one respect has failed to provide any direct evidence using the house lawyer to relay second and third hand evidence for which the Counsel for the Inquiry took responsibility arguing unconvincingly that he wished to save the inquiry time.

I have previously described the Counsel as slippery and on this occasion it is fair comment to say that he was therefore was responsible for sending the defence case sliding towards a precipice of no return. Mr Dacre was said to be away to be away for the month and will appear on February 6th. It will be interesting to learn when his absence was planned and if he the proposed direct witnesses are ale to retrieve the position.

Lord Leveson opened the first session on January 9th reminding the representatives of the various newspapers that he continued to be focussed on receiving their views on a number of key issues,

The first is the subject of anonymous evidence which the Lord Justice revealed has been challenged and was the subject of a hearing in the High Court on Friday. The challenge was made by the Daily Mail group (surprise surprise) and supported by the Daily Telegraph.

The inquiry has wanted to hear from journalists, particularly current journalists, about the existence of illegal or inappropriate practices in order to place what happened at the News of the World in perspective and to establish if the practices had been as widespread as some have suggested arising from informal conversations within the business and profession of journalism. About twenty journalists have submitted written evidence on this basis and are due to be heard on from January 25th. Those making the application argue that anonymous testimony even if individuals and their papers are identified will damage the reputation and businesses of everyone involved. For the Inquiry it was pointed out that the Inquiry has already heard from one witness on similar lines to that proposed for the journalists and no one complained at the time. A ruling on the High Court application is expected before this date. I suggest that the papers and their circulation will be damaged, but that this is not an argument for preventing the witnesses from being heard.
The second issue is whether there is a difference or should be a difference between the ethical standards and newsdesk culture between types of publication, broadsheet and the tabloid and red top, broadsheet, tabloid, red top and magazines. There is also the dimension of the online news and gossip reporting by those professionally engaged and the amateur blogger and social media contributor. My comment is that there is no justification for having a different system or standards although the culture, function and business models are evidently different.

The third issue involves protection and safeguards for journalists exercising moral choices which I suggest should be no different from any other professional or worker.

The fourth is the question of oversight and governance along with the test of public benefit; the evidence to date is that their has been limited and ineffective oversight and governance and I disagree with Lord Leveson I see no problem about licensing and a statutory framework which should include penalties up the withdrawal of licence for serious persistent breaches as well as a professional standards structure with the power to disbar individuals from paid employment in the profession.

The fifth is pre publication notification together with some arbitration system which would be significantly cheaper that the current situation to resolve issues of privacy and libel. While prepublication should be the standard with perhaps an independent arbitrator to determine exceptional circumstances I remain in favour of a two level system which will enable ordinary complainants about privacy and libel to see redress as well as enabling other to use the full force of the civil law and seek punitive damages in appropriate instances.

How to ensure everyone participates in any new system and whether the issue of state regulation/involvement and self regulation is a binary choice. It is evident that if publishers are licensed then participation would be a condition of the licence and that that the new arrangement should have a legislative framework but then leave the operation to those who won and staff the publication together with an appropriate balance of outside interests as applies to other professional bodies.

The other issue yet to be considered is that of competition plurality. I will shed no tears if some publications cease.

I shall attempt to bear these issues in mind and reach more considered conclusions after all the evidence has been submitted.

There were two other issues raised by Lord Leveson meriting attention. The Metropolitan Police had issued a statement indicating that they had no evidence to indicate that voices messages on the phone of Millie Dowler were deleted by someone from or on behalf of the News of the World. Mr Mulcaire has consistently stated he did not do so. The disclosure had the impact of reporters visiting the lawyer who obtained an alleged £3 million payout from the Murdoch’s suggesting the money should be returned and some suggesting that the whole basis of holding the inquiry had been undermined. Lord Leveson made it plain that whatever the outcome of this current investigation into this aspect there were more than adequate grounds for the inquiry in relation to the other matters already raised.

The Guardian Newspaper and Counsel for the Inquiry immediately challenged the statement made by the Metropolitan Police mentioning that their evidence included information relating to Surrey Police. It appears that statements by the Metropolitan Police and the Guardian Newspaper are in hand and being examined in relation to establishing a basis for inclusion in the inquiry process without affecting ongoing police and potentially criminal investigation, charges and court proceedings.

Neville Thurbeck the former News of the World staff man writing in his blog stated that Mr Jay, Counsel for the Inquiry Lord Leveson had said that the News of the World was nothing but smut when he introduced himself prior to giving evidence Mr Jay explained that he and his inquiry colleagues met all the witness before their testimony in order to alert them to the subject he would be raising especially those which he had been asked to raise on behalf of the Core Participants.

My Jay explained that towards the end of his briefing he advised Mr Thurlbeck that he would raise the story of Mr and Mrs Firth which was a story which he described as being one of smut, He reported that Mr Thurlbeck had become agitated and stated in strong terms that he did not wish to questioned about this story for which he had been exonerated at the time. Mr Jay said that the pointed he eanted Mr Thurbeck to address was that the story appeared to have no Public Interest. Mr Jay pointed out that had he questioned Mr Thurlbeck at the Inquiry in public he would have used the term smut. The inquiry Team was considering whether further evidence on the story was required as a consequence of Mr Thurlbeck’s decisions and actions. Given that Mr Thurlbeck knew only too well what he was doing I suggest that his Blog was intentionally and wilfully malicious. An attempt to suggest to his readers that Mr Jay was biased towards the News of the World in particular and against tabloids in general, Mr Jay added that the Solicitor to the Inquiry who was sin attendance has made a statement to like effect which would also be published on the Inquiry site. The Firths are the couple who ran a Naturist bed and breakfast establishment. Their case was also touched on in the evidence of Mr Burden of Fake Sheiks and Royal Trappings. His account of indicates the behaviour of Neville Thurlbeck and the News of World compared to that of the Firths. Lord Leveson said he had decided not to call the couple to give evidence because of the lapse of time but he had advised Mr Thurlbeck that by refusing to giving evidence it raised the public interest to greater value. If I had to judge the integrity of Mr Thurlbeck against that of Mr and Mrs Firth on the basis of he evidence to hand then the decision would be an easy one.

Lord Leveson also mentioned that he did see the media cutting service reports on each day’s hearings including the comments of magazines such as Private Eye. He said that he was presently minded to treat these comments and reports as official evidence to the inquiry on practices and culture of the press. He particularly noted that attack was often used as the best line of defence and he referred to this aspect when considering the Daily Malice attack on Hugh Grant within hours of his evidence to the inquiry. He reminded that it was of critical importance that they should not lose sight of the context of the entire picture. In other words if they in general or individuals in particular wanted to play games, particularly dirty games, then they might have got away it because of their previous power and influence with politicians and the police in the past, but far from getting away with it now, such efforts would prove counter productive and damaging to the cause they were arguing.

Having made this introduction the first witness was Kelvin Calder McKenzie who I describe as a dangerous man, dangerous in the intended positive sense of understated cleverness as his evidence revealed. Mr Jay commenced by drawing attended that Mr McKenzie had not attached a statement of truth to his evidence. He first concentrated on the statement that that he did not spend much time pondering the ethics of how a story was gained or over worry about whether to publish or not, “If we believed the story to be true and we felt the sun readers should know the facts, we published it and left it to them to decide if we had done the right thing. Mr Jay continued that at the seminar in relation to the Elton John case which had led to the paper paying compensation arising from litigation he had also made a similar statement that if the story sounded right, it was probably right and therefore “we would lob it in“.

Mr McKenzie then explained that there was a profound difference between chuck it in for example and lob it in which according to dictionary meant a slow arc which he meant they did think about and cover the required processes( by the various codes). He said he had not been trying to make a humorous point, and in his response he drew attention that the law made mistakes sometimes major mistakes involving miscarriages of justice and that his approach has been bullish akin to the First Amendment to the US constitution and that since his time as Editor of the Sun he felt his colleagues had become more cautious in the changing world. I did not think his statement to the seminar or his evidence as funny but proactive and provocative, challenging, clever attempting to undermine the need for the Inquiry and for change.

My Jay pressed the issue of ethics suggesting he might prefer to substitute appropriate standards or right conduct but Mr McKenzie persisted that it was difficult to use any term in journalism which could cover all and every situation, a theme which others were follow during the rest of the week.

A major photography department manager defined what was acceptable in terms of pubic and private as had being defined by legal precedent. An individual when on their doorstep or within the curtelege of their property was not entitled to be photographed without permission but once they entered upon the pavement say into a vehicle to be driven off at speed, a photograph was legitimate, Another example given was a personality who entered a store. He had allowed photos of the individual entering the store but not once inside, but other newspapers had included those taken within the store. Thus the issue is not one of is it ethical or is it right but is in within the law or existing code of practice or not. On the final day this week a proprietor asked Mr Jay to explain what was meant by ethics to him because everyone appeared to have their own view of what was right and what was not.

I may surprise by saying that I have some sympathy what I would describe as a Private Eye iconoclastic perspective on the world. Politicians including cabinet member politicians were very willing to continue to use tax payer’s money to supplement their income for year upon year until there was public exposure, the behaviour of bankers resulted in millions experiencing a significant loss in living standards, with millions losing their mean of livelihoods and thousands the homes while millions of young people despite hard working at school and university cannot find work of any kind, yet those responsible pay themselves bigger and bigger salaries and bonuses while politicians stand by saying one thing and showing themselves incapable of doing anything about the situation. The very legal process being used to determine the future of the print media can be argue to be out of touch with the lifestyle and interests of the average citizen and has been shown to be flawed over the ages. It could be argued that Mr McKenzie and Paul Desmond are honest and realistic men unlike some of their accusers and those who also gave evidence over the week, who some will say are hypocrites or have behaved in the manner reported of Pontius Pilate. However their arguments and position would lead to a return to capital punishment, flogging, public executions, giving the public what it wants.

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