18 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Celebrity magazine editors today welcomed the idea of a register under the Press Complaints Commission of privacy-conscious celebrities suggested by Lord Justice Leveson at his inquiry into the UK press.
“It would be a very useful tool for us if they used a body like the PCC to update them on their circumstances”, Lucie Cave , the editor of Heat magazine said.
However, OK! editor Lisa Byrne warned: “Every celebrity might say, ‘No, I don’t want any pictures of my family ever again.’ Then it could cause a problem.”
Cave told the Leveson Inquiry there may be public interest in exposing the hypocritical behaviour of celebrities who are “role models”.
Giving an example of a celebrity who portrayed themselves as a “real family person” and went on to have an affair, Lucie Cave explained: “I think there obviously can sometimes be a public interest argument if a celebrity who is a role model for our readers does something that contradicts how they portray themselves.”
Cave conceded there was a “great difference between public interest and things that are interesting to the public.”
Cave, Byrne and Hello! magazine editor Rosie Nixon were largely in agreement that once a celebrity had sold an aspect of their private life to the press, it did not mean they were now “open season”.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” Cave said, “it doesn’t mean everyone has a right to invade their private life.”
When asked about photos in this week’s issue of Simon Cowell on a yacht, Cave admitted the magazine did not seek his permission before publishing. “We know from Simon Cowell, he kind of enjoys the lifestyle that goes with his celebrity and he’s clearly playing up to the paparazzi,” she said.
Cave told the Inquiry that Heat magazine has received eight PCC complaints in 14 years, and rarely gets complaints from readers.
She also said her magazine’s picture desk would question an agency supplying photographs if it seemed they were taken in questionable circumstances. “Normally it’s glaringly obvious if there’s been an infringement of that celebrity’s privacy and we wouldn’t go anywhere near it.”
Nixon also defended her magazine, saying it “works directly with the stars every step of the way”. She added, “It’s a really honest, trusting, sort of relationship — we ultimately wouldn’t do anything to upset anyone.”
“We’re not in the business of printing salacious gossip,” Nixon said.
Byrne also said that a “a huge percentage” of OK! magazine’s stories came from “working directly with the celebrities”.
The Inquiry continues next week.
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17 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has today made suggestions that a new model may need statutory backing in order to “give some authority to independent regulation”.
The judge made the remarks while discussing today’s Times leader article defending a free press with the paper’s editor James Harding at the Leveson Inquiry.
While in favour of a “sufficiently robust” system, Harding expressed concerns that a “‘Leveson act’ would give politicians the ability to loom over press coverage”, which he said would have a “chilling effect” on press freedom.
“I do not want journalists from The Times, years from now, walking into the offices of politicians and behaving in a certain way,” he added later, reiterating his fear of reporters submitting to political influence.
Leveson was blunt: “Watch my lips”, he told Harding, adding that his mind was not yet made up. He said that the issue of regulation needed to be solved suitably by the press, adding, “it’s got to work for the public as well.”
Leveson also made it abundantly clear more than once today that he was not looking into mandatory prior notification.
Earlier in his testimony, Harding also said his proprietors “never raised a finger” to stop the Murdoch-owned title covering the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the News of the World last summer.
When asked if The Times was slow to cover the phone-hacking scandal perhaps due to external pressures, Harding said that his paper followed up on the Guardian’s original story in summer 2009.
Following last summer’s revelations over the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone, Harding said the Times featured the story “on the front page for about three weeks”, criticising the News of the World and News International.
Harding added: “Looking back I certainly wish we’d got on the story harder, earlier. The reality is that both the police and News International poured cold water on the story.”
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10 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The former editor-in-chief of the Telegraph told the Leveson Inquiry he felt it was his duty, not a choice, to publish the paper’s revelations about MPs’ expenses in 2009.
Will Lewis said it was his “ethical obligation to bring this profound wrongdoing at heart of House of Commons into public domain.”
Lewis said it was a topic that was “laced with risk all round”. Having worked for the Sunday Times when it printed the fake Hitler diaries in 1983, Lewis also said he was concerned the expenses story was a hoax.
He described the steps leading to publication, an initial £10,000 for a sample disc was paid to an intermediary, with a further £140,000 once it was verified that the leaked documents were genuine. Lewis said it was only when Jack Straw had confirmed the details of his expenses that he gave the green light to publish.
Lewis described the role of an editor as risk mitigation. “At the end of the day you have to ask yourself, ‘does it feel right?'” he said, adding that mistakes he had made in his career came about because he had not followed his instincts.
He urged for a greater focus on a more transparent newsroom culture, noting that “sunlight is a fantastic disinfectant.”
The paper’s current editor, Tony Gallagher, also testified today, arguing that the best outcome of the Inquiry would be an arbitration system for resolving legal disputes and complaints. “The chilling effect of libel on small media organisations has to be seen to be believed,” he said.
Earlier in the day Lord Justice Leveson also spoke in favour of a low-cost libel mediation system. He cautioned against government involvement, telling Telegraph Media Group CEO chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, “I would be surprised if government regulation ever even entered my mind.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, with evidence from Associated Newspapers.
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21 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A journalist at the Daily Express who covered the disappearance of Madeleine McCann told the Leveson Inquiry that featuring the story on the front page became the editor’s “obsession”.
Nick Fagge said the tabloid’s then editor — Peter Hill — had decided the case of the toddler, who went missing in Portugal in May 2007, would “sell papers” and featured the story on the front page of the paper regardless of an article’s strength.
“The editor at the time decided it was the only story he was interested in,” Fagge said, adding that he himself was concerned over the direction the coverage was going in.
Kate and Gerry McCann accepted £550,000 in damages and an apology from Express Newspapers in March 2008 for what the publisher admitted were “entirely untrue” and “defamatory” articles. The damages were donated to the fund set up to find the toddler.
Another reporter on the case, David Pilditch, told the Inquiry that “getting to the truth” of the matter was “impossible” because of the laws in Portugal restricting police talking to the press about the case.
“There was no strategy, just confusion all round, when there should have been focus”.
Pilditch and Fagge’s colleague, Padraic Flanagan, told the Inquiry that they were sent to Portugal to “produce stories” and that it would take “quite a brave reporter to call the desk and say ‘I’m not really sure about this, I’m not going to send anything back today’.”
“The questions I asked myself,” he said, “were ‘what can I find today’, ‘what can I offer the newsdesk, how can I keep up with rivals?'”, Flanagan said.
Fagge said, ” I’d be thinking of verifying the story as best I could. I wouldn’t be thinking of a potential libel case.”
With the restrictions in place, Pilditch said his sources included Portuguese newspapers, the McCanns’ spokesman, local crime reporters who had been in contact with the police, and a police translator. He told the Inquiry he was able to develop dialogue with police through these third party sources.
“All I could do was present the information [to the newsdesk] and explain the sources where the information came from,” he said, adding that there was “no way round” the situation.
Counsel to the Inquiry Robert Jay QC ran Pilditch through a series of articles about the McCanns that had his byline. One reported “findings” of Madeleine’s DNA in the family’s hire car, which Jay said was “at best inconclusive”.
He pointed out that the toddler’s DNA was not uncovered in the car, to which Pilditch said, “we know that now, but we didn’t know that then”.
He added, “a problem with a lot of this stuff was the way information was leaking out”, noting it was as though the police were “thinking out loud”.
In an article that opened with “Kate and Gerry McCann are still regarded as the prime suspects in the disappearance of their daughter”, Pilditch claimed it he “didn’t really write the story”, but the piece was bylined with Pilditch and Fagge’s names.
Later, Jay put it to Pilditch that he was “getting all sorts of tittle-tattle form different people when you knew the police couldn’t officially talk”.
He also asked Pilditch if “people like you” thought about the impact of their stories, which “imply that the child has not been abducted but something far more sinister has happened”.
Pilditch denied it was tittle-tattle, telling Jay that the information came from senior detectives on the case.
Lord Justice Leveson said: “it’s all fluff.”
The Inquiry will continue on 9 January.
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