23 Apr 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Sky news’s John Ryley today apologised to the Leveson Inquiry for mistakenly claiming the station had never intercepted communications.
At the end of a one-and-a-half hour questioning by junior counsel David Barr, Ryley, head of news at the station, said that a letter submitted to the Inquiry by Sky News denying intercepts had solely been concerned with phone-hacking. Last month, the station admitted to hacking emails in two investigations relating to “canoe man” John Darwin and fugitive couple Martin and Lianne Smith.
Separately today, broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced it would be investigating Sky News’s email hacking.
Ryley said Sky News would in future “pretty much rule out” unlawful behaviour by journalists, but added that any requests to carry out subterfuge would be recorded in writing.
Lord Justice Leveson had earlier reminded Ryley that while communications interception may have been carried out in the name of public interest, no prima facie public interest defence existed in the Computer Misuse Act.
The hearings continue this afternoon, with media owners represented by Evgeny Lebedev for Independent newspapers and Aidan Barclay for the Telegraph group.
Follow Index’s live coverage of the Leveson Inquiry at @IndexLeveson
22 Aug 11 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Hackers launched a sustained attack against pro-democracy website Viet Tan on 13 August in a denial-of-service (DDoS) operation. Of the 77,000 IP addresses employed, 73 per cent originated from Vietnam. The Hanoi government’s firewall on www.viettan.org was lifted so that the network relying on computers from the country could take down the site. Viet Tan has been constantly blocked by Vietnamese censors, with web users in the country requiring proxies or other circumvention tools to access the site.
12 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
South Korea‘s government will go ahead with plans to scrap the current real-name system for internet users in the wake of the country’s worst online security breach. Last month, personal information including names, mobile phone numbers and email addresses of about 35 million users of the country’s popular internet and social media sites Nate and Cyworld was stolen in a hacking attack. The real-name system, introduced in 2007, requires people to use their real names and resident registration numbers when making online postings on websites with more than 100,000 visitors per day.
05 Aug 11 | Uncategorized
The Daily Mail’s new review of editorial controls and procedures is one of several now under way as the British press prepares to face the probing of Lord Leveson’s inquiry into phone hacking and related matters. Every newspaper will need to show the inquiry that it has responded to the public crisis of confidence in press standards.
There is little detail on what the Mail proposes, and there is no hint of a historical investigation into newsgathering methods at the Mail, though we can be sure that the Mail has already put a great deal of work into preparing for Leveson’s scrutiny. (It knows, for example, that it will have to explain its extensive use of private investigator Steve Whittamore, as revealed in the Information Commissioner’s report What Price Privacy Now? [pdf])
So what can a review of editorial controls and procedures do that might affect the Mail’s standards and impress the inquiry? Here are three suggestions.
First, it could examine standards of attribution. When somebody is quoted in the Daily Mail, what measures has the paper taken to ensure that the quotation is accurate and fair? Has the interview been recorded and the recording preserved? If not why not, and is there a good written note instead? If the quote is second-hand, has its authenticity been checked? If a quotation is used in a story without specific attribution, is there a good reason? Has it been satisfactorily explained to the reader why the speaker could not be identified in such a way that he or she might ultimately be traced? Does the relevant news editor know the speaker’s identity?
These simple if often tedious steps are marks of conscientious news reporting in the modern, accountable world. They make news credible and they make reporters virtuous. There is no reason why a well-resourced newspaper like the Mail could not establish and enforce clear rules along these lines, and such rules would undoubtedly impress the Leveson inquiry.
Second, the review could look at lines of command. When a reporter files a story, how much responsibility does the editor on the desk take for its content? Is there systematic fact-checking? If not, is the reporter questioned about the content to ensure it is accurate and fair? Where appropriate, is the reporter challenged about the methods used to gain the information, to ensure they conform with relevant codes of practice? And is it always clear to all parties which news editor is taking the appropriate responsibility?
Again, many journalists will find this tiresome and onerous, but they owe it to their readers and to the people they are writing about to make every reasonable effort to get things right, and to have measures and pressures in place to check. A culture of ‘don’t ask; don’t tell‘ is likely to flow from the absence of such checks, and inevitably leads to low standards.
Third, there is accountability. When something goes wrong, is there a satisfactory process to establish (for example, relying on the structures and rules above) how it went wrong and where the fault lay? Is there a clear understanding of who is responsible for what, right up through the system? And if there is, are there appropriate disciplinary procedures and are they used?
All very bureaucratic, no doubt, but again journalists — and particularly, it has to be said, journalists on the Daily Mail — need to remember that these are standards their paper demands of people in every other walk of life, from social workers, teachers and nurses to politicians, bankers and the people who run the railways and airlines.
Yes, journalism is usually done in a hurry and yes, it can be untidy and unpopular and it will sometimes get things wrong, but those are reasons to do everything possible to get things right. They are not reasons to opt out of a culture of responsibility that the most of the rest of society already accepts.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart.
