MEDIA STUDIES
Let's hope some rival tabloid doesn't hide cameras in the Sunday Mirror editor's flat
STEPHEN GLOVER
Last week Bridget Rowe, editor of the Sunday Mirror, had a walk-on part in this column. This week she is centre stage. Her paper has brought to an end the parliamen- tary career of Piers Merchant as the Tory MP for Beckenham. For the past two Sun- days it has produced evidence which seems to prove beyond all possible doubt that the married Mr Merchant has been having an affair with Anna Cox, an 18-year-old for- mer nightclub hostess.
This was the same Mr Merchant who had vehemently denied any sexual relationship with the same Ms Cox after the Sun ran pictures of the couple in March. The Sun- day Mirror's justification for its story is that Mr Merchant must have lied on the previ- ous occasion. 'He lied to his wife, he lied to his children, he lied to his voters, he lied to his leader,' a headline in the paper informed us. It has published two leaders full of righteous indignation.
On the whole, the decent press has accept- ed the Sunday Mirror's account of its motives. Mr Merchant, in any case, is not a chap to whose defence many people would be inclined to rush. (His wife is a steadfast exception.) The fact remains that to do down another man on the grounds of lying can be a perilous business. One has to be certain one's own conduct is above reproach. The Sunday Mirror's advertisement of itself as an apostle of truth is misleading.
Its readers are probably not aware of the extraordinary lengths to which it went to get this story. A certain Anthony Gilber- thorpe was paid an estimated £25,000 for his help, He let Mr Merchant, supposedly an old friend, use his home in York during the week of the Tory party conference. With Mr Gilberthorpe's co-operation, his flat was fitted with bugs and hidden cam- eras to await Mr Merchant's arrival with Ms Cox. This explains why the Sunday Mir- ror was able to carry intimate details of their liaison. Last Sunday the paper ran on its front page a picture of 'a moving duvet' under which we were invited to believe writhed the impressively athletic figures of the Tory MP and his girl. The paper says it has more revealing photographs.
A man with whom I spoke at the Press Complaints Commission was unsure whether the Sunday Mirror's activities would amount to an invasion of privacy under either the old complaints code or the new one being rewritten following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He sug- gested that the paper would plead public interest, and might get away with it. But is it in the public interest for readers to be treated to page after page of material which was come by through covert surveil- lance of what should be a private act?
Mr Merchant resigned last week — or was required to do so by William Hague. The Sunday Mirror had got his scalp. Yet last Sun- day it ran a further five pages, including the photograph of the 'moving duvet'. Critical private remarks made by Mr Merchant about Mr Hague were repeated. Of what rel- evance were they? More to the point, there were sexual details whose purpose was not to reveal Mr Merchant as a liar — that had been long achieved — but to titillate readers. The gruesome Gilberthorpe was quoted as saying he was 'appalled and embarrassed' to hear the couple making love in his bedroom, as though he was a member of the Mothers' Union who had come across them by chance in the park, rather than the man who had helped set up the operation in his own home.
I wonder what the Sunday Mirror has in store for us this Sunday. If the paper were really only interested in exposing Mr Mer- chant as a liar, it would have already desist- ed. What more can it want now that it has destroyed his career? The answer is that it wants to entertain and titillate its readers with intimate details that were pho- tographed and recorded without his or Ms Cox's consent. If that does not amount to an inexcusable invasion of privacy, I'm not sure what does. And yet Charlie Wilson, managing director of Mirror Group plc and Bridget Rowe's good friend, championed the Sunday Mirror in a nauseous article in Monday's Independent.
Which brings me to that self-proclaimed beacon of all that is good and true — Ms Rowe herself. She stated at the end of BBC 2's Newsnight on Tuesday 14 October that she had always been loyal to her part- ner. She was presumably referring to her husband, who lives in Kent, while Ms Rowe, `No connection with the outfit that did the Queen's Indian trip.' no doubt for reasons of work, is forced to remain for much of the time at a flat in Lon- don. I hope that no trivial incident has slipped her memory. I'm sure she would not like it very much were some rival tabloid to hide cameras and microphones in her flat on the off-chance that she might slip from the pinnacle of truth where she has unwisely placed herself.
My colleague Paul Johnson wrote last week that he expects material which he hopes will open up an important new aspect of the Guardian/Victoria Brittain affair. While we await it, I have a further thought about the ombudsman whom Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, has appointed to look into this case.
In the current issue of the UK Press Gazette, the magazine for journalists, Mr Rusbridger describes how the idea for an ombudsman came to him after a visit he made to the New York Times two years ago, and a more recent conversation he had with the managing editor of the Washington Post. The latter paper has an ombudsman who answers readers' queries and complaints and, where necessary, inserts corrections. Speak- ing of the appointment of his own ombuds- man, the Guardian columnist and former Channel 4 executive John Willis, to look into grave charges against Victoria Brittain, Mr Rusbridger says, 'I can't think of any other paper that would tackle it in this way. I can't think how you could tackle it more openly and more independently.'
I doubt whether Mr Willis can honestly be described as independent. But should an ombudsman even be involved in this case? The Washington Post's ombudsman may exceptionally be asked to look into charges of misconduct involving a journalist, but would have no power to discipline or rebuke the journalist involved. That is a matter for the editor — or, in this case, since the position does not exist in Ameri- ca, the managing or executive editor. As Ms Brittain's employer and keeper of his newspaper's conscience, it would have been better if Mr Rusbridger had presided over a proper investigation. He did so, in his role as editor-in-chief of the Observer, 111 the recent dismissal of Will Self. He is an excellent journalist and, had he devoted the time, could have mastered the facts and drawn his own conclusions about Ms Brit- tain's conduct. Why did he not?
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