AND ANOTHER THING
Mrs Robin Cook, Miss Wendie Deng and the Prince of Darkness
PAUL JOHNSON
Perhaps the publication by Rupert Mur- doch's Sunday Times of Mrs Robin Cook's memoirs, revealing details of the Foreign Secretary's private life, will finally persuade Labour's parliamentary majority to do something to bring the media back under the law. When Tony Blair formed his gov- ernment, I pointed out to him that the media was the equivalent in the 1990s of the out-of-control unions of the 1970s. The unions had destroyed the Wilson, Heath and Callaghan governments and would have gone on eroding the constitution had not Margaret Thatcher tamed them, once and for all. Now, I said, the media was doing the same thing: 'It has effectively destroyed the Major government, and will destroy yours too.' Blair laughed: 'The media is something we have to live with' was his confident reply. When I put the same point to Peter Man- delson, I got a similar answer. There was no possibility of Parliament legislating to curb the press, he said, and anyway such a mea- sure would not work. Having heard exactly the same things said about the unions, when we were campaigning for the abolition of their legal privileges in the 1970s, I was con- tent to wait for events to do their work. And that is what is now happening. The national newspapers have emerged from the Last Chance Saloon, drunk with power and spoiling for a fight. Will MPs have the courage to give it to them? What may steel the politicians' resolve is the obvious double standard that operates, under which proprietors and editors, but nobody else, are protected from intrusion. While Robin Cook is being crucified over his divorce, the most interesting divorce ease of the decade — Murdoch's own has gone unreported, except in the brief, sanitised terms laid down by the tycoon himself. His wife is keeping quiet because she stands an excellent chance, under Cali- fornian law, of getting half his entire empire. But what of his Chinese mistress, Wendie Deng, living in what his papers would call a 'love nest' in New York? She is Young, pretty and determined, and her desire to play a major role in Murdoch's world media empire is causing great uneasi- ness among his children. But to read about n, you have to turn to Le Monde, which is not a party to the mutual non-aggression pact of the British press. Le Monde put this fascinating story on its front page. Not a word appeared in the Times, or anywhere else in Britain so far as I know. Now don't misunderstand me: I don't want Murdoch's private life invaded either. But the privi- leged protection he insists on for himself ought to be accorded, as of legal right, to Robin Cook and everyone else.
The corruption of the press operates according to a media Gresham's Law: bad coverage drives out good. The intrusive methods of the gutter tabloids have been adopted by the up-market tabloids and, increasingly, by the broadsheets. The Times and Guardian have long been lost causes, and now even the Telegraph papers are beginning to publish 'confessional' material. A malodorous wet-rot is spreading upwards from the sewer. And all this repellent stuff is eating up the column inches available for serious news. Indeed, the old distinction between popular and quality papers has gone. Recently we have had the unedifying spectacle of Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, rolling in the gutter with Piers Morgan, editor of the Mirror (and formerly of the News of the World), each trying to gouge the other's eyes out over who got the Mandelson 'leak' first, and each accusing the other of lying. What are humble reporters supposed to do, given such 'lead- ership'? There are not all that many uncor- rupted people left in the national press, and they feel increasingly helpless. Standards have been falling for decades, but recently the decline has been precipitous.
Last year, I gave talks to the senior pupils of two admirable schools, the boys of Ampleforth in Yorkshire, and the girls of Godolphin & Latymer in London, and on both occasions I begged these eager young- sters — so much more sophisticated and better informed that I was at their age not to take up careers in journalism. I told them that if they went onto newspapers, national ones anyway, their chances of escaping moral corruption were remote. I don't wish to have to give this advice to the young, and that is perhaps my biggest single reason for demanding a legal reform of the media. I have written more articles on this subject than I have on any other, and my campaign has brought me retaliation, including of course invasion of my private life, as was to be expected. But I am not going to be scared off. And I now have hopes that, the Tories having funked the issue, Labour may take it up.
The time has passed when the media can get away with a simple law protecting the privacy of the individual from intrusion (with a public interest defence). A broader statute is required, one which would deal with at least two other areas: the use of technology and codes of conduct. The law should oblige media outlets to keep inven- tories of all reporting tools, such as tape recorders and cameras, and make the use of instruments not so inventoried unlawful. Each use of them, and the purpose, would have to be logged with authorising signa- tures by a senior executive of the organisa- tion. Second, media outlets would be obliged by law to adopt a comprehensive code of conduct along the lines of that now covering ministers and MPs. Breaches of the code would thus become professional offences, and in certain cases criminal ones. An independent statutory body, appointed and paid for by the public — as opposed to the farcical Press Complaints Commission — would enforce the codes, monitor inven- tories and supervise the operation of priva- cy guarantees. The press would howl, and have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the thieves' kitchen it has created for itself, just as the unions did with the Thatcher reforms. But all decent journalists would welcome them, and they would be quickly accepted once they became the law of the land. How many now want to unscramble the union reforms? It would be the same with the Abuses of the Media Act.
Various inventions have appeared in the media about Peter Mandelson's future plans. In fact he has no future plans as yet. But I have a suggestion for him. He should take up the cause of media reform, per- suade an MP who comes high in the Private Members' ballot to do likewise, and steer it through Parliament. I cannot imagine any more valuable public service he could per- form, or one more likely to re-establish his political reputation. He should remember, as should all MPs, that with few exceptions journalists are cowards — as are trade unionists — and all that is required to bring them under the law again is guts.
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