The press
Old editorial Adam
Paul Johnson
Fleet Street has always constituted a con- vincing argument for the doctrine of Original Sin. It means well. Nearly all its editors have genuine ideals. Most of the time they stick to such codes as they have. But 'the smell of the print-ink, the roar of the readers' are like Eve's apple. If the temptation is strong enough, they will Man, succumb. They are unredeemed 'Ian, and if they did not give way occa- sionally they would not be editors, merely newspaper executives'. The Press Council, like the old general councils of the church, tries periodically to curb the Unregenerate Editor. Then along comes a really sensa- tional murder, and he sins again. The Press Council began by condemning as immoral the practice of financially rewarding criminals for the disclosure of their nefarious practices'. After the Moors Murders, it extended the ban to payments to anyone 'known or reasonably expected to be a witness in criminal proceedings'. Now the Yorkshire Ripper case has led it to a further extension: newspapers should not Pay 'directly or indirectly' any 'persons associated with the criminal', whom it defines as 'family, friends, neighbours and c°11eagues'. It is right that the Press Council should be angry and be seen to be angry. Its long report on the Ripper case does it credit. As always, in a really appalling and protracted murder case, the press as a whole behaved badly and a few newspapers scandalously. :n addition, one or two editors were ex- tremely shifty (and foolishly so) in their ciealings with the Council. Obviously, in ad- dition to censoring some papers and criticis- Ing others, the Council felt it had to do something. But its new extension of the rules about chequebook journalism has been ill-received in Fleet Street. What the Press Council, reflecting public 0litrage, wants to prevent is anyone making money out of the commission of crime. But it is not likely to succeed in this object. After all, the police habitually pay in- formers. They sometimes offer immunity to criminals who give evidence. Some coun- tries have specific laws for this purpose. In this grey ethical area, the public interest is the overriding consideration. Newspapers who pay criminal informants can legitimately cite the public interest. The Press Council rightly observes that the public interest is not the same as 'of interest to the public'. But these are subjective categories all the same. In an ingenious defence of Fleet Street, Stewart Steven, editor of the Mail on Sunday, cites the case of Albert Speer, who after his release from Spandau made a fortune from his war memoirs (serialised in many papers, in- cluding the Sunday Times). Members of Steven's family were murdered by the Nazis and at first he was outraged. Later he came to recognise that to silence Speer 'would be to deny us our history'. I agree with Steven that what Speer had to tell was most il- luminating; certainly of 'interest to the public', and in my view it was 'in the public interest' that he should be paid for telling it. But a lot of people did and do take the op- posite view. Who is to decide what the public interest is?
Again, if a former traitor came to a newspaper and offered it, in return for money, the final documentary proof about the whole Philby-Roger Hollis-Blunt business, should it not agree to pay up? The truth might not be in the public interest as conceived in Whitehall and even Westminster. But Fleet Street would cer- tainly judge it in the public interest to tell the facts at last, and so might the public itself. Or again, if an accessory in the at- tempted murder of the Pope were to offer a newspaper (as could well happen soon) decisive evidence of the involvement of the Bulgarian and Soviet secret services, it would presumably be wrong not to buy it and print it. In view of the arms negotia- tions and the possibility of a summit, the State Department and the Foreign Office might think such a purchase not in the public interest. They might even be right. But no true newspaperman would agree; nor would the public.
The Press Council would argue, of course, that it is in practice possible to draw a distinction between 'public' and 'private' crimes. What it wants is to remove the cash nexus from press coverage of murder in- vestigations and trials. In that case should it not stop everyone from telling their tale for cash? At present, even under the new exten- sion to the Press Council ban, the press can still buy stories from the relatives of a vic- tim, though they are now forbidden to pay the relatives of the murderer. Yet the latter are often also the innocent victims of a huge catastrophe which suddenly invades, and sometimes ruins, their lives. Both the family of one of the Ripper's victims, and the Rip- per's own family, claimed that the press turned them into prisoners in their own homes.
It seems to me that, in the Ripper case, the real issue was not so much chequebook journalism — for comparatively little money actually changed hands — as press harassment. In this country journalists practise, and editors connive at or en- courage, a degree of harassment amounting almost to terrorism. Moreover, this kind of behaviour occurs not just in sensational murder cases but in many other types of news story. Members of the Royal Family are subjected to this technique, often on a truly sadistic scale, and despite the protec- tion they enjoy. Those without such protec- tion, who happen (often through no fault of their own) to become the sudden focus of Fleet Street interest, are sometimes devastated. As The Times feelingly observ- ed last week: 'Nobody who has been at the mercy of the pack will forget such an ex- perience'. It is far and away the worst aspect of Fleet Street behaviour and much more common than chequebook jour- nalism.
The Press Council rightly condemns the pack-hunting in the Ripper case. But Fleet Street will take no notice. I have for long argued that we need a real Privacy Law in this country, which might put an end to harassment and other intrusive practices. But in the meantime I agree with the Guar- dian, that it is up to the newspaper publishers to study the Ripper report and act on it. So long as Fleet Street competi- tion is intense (and may it remain so), Original Sin will manifest itself among editors from time to time. It is for the pro- prietors to agree among themselves which journalistic practices are taboo competition and then instruct their editors accordingly. In practical terms, one meeting between Lord Rothermere, Rupert Murdoch, Lord Matthews and the IPC bosses would be enough, if the will were there. This is an issue on which the proprietors can and should exert their authority to the full.
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