28 MAY 1977, Page 3

Black Mail

The behaviour of the Daily Mail over the Leyland affair is as gross a piece of scurrility and incompetence that British journalism has seen for a long time. To say mat it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake, is a, !most an understatement, as Messrs English and arrnsworth will be well able to confirm in the lAnnnediate future: the repercussions may affect Associated Newspapers' plan to buy the Evening Standard. But when everyone has finished their e..ondemnation of the Mail, when its rivals have finished their understandable gloating, it may be Possible to stand back and see a graver and more aepressing spectacle even than the Mail's folly. That spectacle is of course the throng of politicians and Public figures calling for the chastisement and the control of the Press. Mr Callaghan has heavyhandedly announced announced that he will, if necessary, extend the McGregor CommissiOn's terms of reference to include the Mail-Leyland affair. The Commission may be happy to do so: it has already shown ominous s igns of hostility to 'press irresponsibility' by appear' ;ug to take seriously Sir Harold Wilson's paranoid d elusions, Relations between politicians and the Press are already in a peculiarly delicate state. p But it does not — should not — need to be said that a press which is dependent on State sympathy is not a ress worth having. Politicians, and businessmen, , always be to some extent hostile to a Press which so doing its job. As Northcliffe said, 'If it annoys arnleone it's news; the rest is publicity.' If Ministers e in a position to make their displeasure felt ,nneretelY whenever they are annoyed, Press r r eedorn will effectively have disappeared. ni In any case, the British Press is already fettered in E,,anY respect compared to its counterparts in Western ;_ur°Pe and the United States. This week three young Journalists have appeared in court under the wretched

Section II of the Official Secrets Act which, it was forlornly hoped, was to be repealed. The recent actions by Sir James Goldsmith against Private Eye do not suggest that the resources of the law are limited for those who have been wronged at the hands of newspapers. Indeed Lord Ryder has the remedy to hand for the damage he has suffered, and has grasped it.

The Daily Mail has shown what can happen when a newspaper behaves wholly irresponsibly, ignoring the simplest rules and conventions of reporting — accepting a childish forgery at face value when blinded by lust for a scoop, deliberately avoiding the merest formalities of checking a story with those whom it immediately affects. The Mail has done, in its irresponsibility, severe damageto British Leyland and connected interests. But in the end the worst harm it may have done will be to itself and to the rest of the news media. For if there is one thing worse than an utterly irresponsible Press it is an utterly 'responsible' one. 'Responsible' means responsible to those in authority, who wish their ends to be served by communicators, and whose demands for the enforcement of 'truth' are inevitably subjective.

The best guarantee, in an open society, that truth will prevail, is the highest degree of freedom of speech. Not only is freedom of expression the only crucial and ultimate freedom we possess; it is also the best policy, as indeed the unmasking of the Leyland forgery shows. It will be a black day for England when all her Press is as scurrilous and malicious as the Daily Mail on its latest showing, as frivolous and 'irresponsible' as Private Eye at its worst. Much blacker though when we have a Press as thorough-goingly 'responsible' as Eastern Europe enjoys. Those who clamour for nothing but the truth in their papers should remember that the Russian for 'truth' is Pravda.