A Dispute4Anterview
Everyone who cares for decent journalistic standards —which the establishment of a Press Council might -or might not serve to elevate, or at least maintain—will be grateful to Lady Violet Bonham Carter (who was a member of the Royal Commission on the Press) for calling public attention to what she describes as a flagrant violation of the ethics of journalism. On July 16th the Daily. Express pub- lished on its front page, under the heading " Mrs. Maclean Tells Why I'm Quitting," what purported to be an interview (" At her home at Tatsfield last night she said :") with the wife of one of the diplomats who disappeared last year, attributing to her a number of statements which she flatly denies ever having made. What happened, according to Lady Violet, is that the Express rang up Mrs. Maclean, who replied simply that she had nothing to say; someone who was with her when the telephone-call came through confirms this in a signed statement. (The fact that the alleged interview was by telephone is worth emphasising in view of the passage " Mrs. Maclean smiled. 'I would rather not answer.' ") The state- ments attributed to Mrs. Maclean are too long to quote here. They are so specific that the 'theory that they were simply invented is hard to entertain. Yet the Express has offered no explanation at all, though Lady Violet's charges appeared in The Times last Monday. Has there been plain lying or has there not ? There may• be more light on that by next week.
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