09 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Th editor of the Sun has called for a “level playing field” between the press and the internet at the Leveson Inquiry today.
Dominic Mohan, who joined the paper in 1996 and has been its editor since 2009, said the combination of an over-regulated press with an unregulated internet was a “very, very worrying thought”.
Mohan said that at the moment, “it feels like every story has to be considered in terms of the Bribery Act, privacy, the PCC.” He added that statutory regulation filled him with “fear” and revealed that he had had discussions with a senior executive at the paper over appointing an ombudsman to deal with readers’ complaints. He said it could be “useful in terms of self-regulation”.
Mohan said the Inquiry itself may have made him more cautious about publishing certain stories. He reiterated that he had “seen mistakes made” at the tabloid and was keen to learn from them. He said his staff will be advised on language use regarding issues such as HIV/AIDS, gypsies and travellers later this year.
He added that, since the Press Complain Commission’s adjudication on a story by the Sun about singer Charlotte Church‘s pregnancy — published before Mohan became editor — he has “not run stories on females under 12 weeks pregnant”.
A new system on paying sources requiring four signatures from managers was instituted in September 2011, which Mohan called “sensible” and “good governance” following the closure of the News of the World after phone hacking revelations.
Earlier in the day, The Sun’s head of legal called prior notification “absolutely correct journalism”, adding that it can go some way in avoiding libel by informing “the other side” of a story before publication.
Justin Walford told the Leveson Inquiry he could not recall an occasion when it was in the public interest to not inform someone of a story involving them.
Ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley, who sued the News of the World for breach of privacy in 2008, has also championed the cause. Yet he lost his bid impose a legal duty of prior notification last May, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling that such a system would have a ”chilling effect” on the press.
Walford described his own role at the tabloid as “risk assessment”, noting that he would deal with legal issues in the following day’s paper, but that it was the editor who would make the ultimate decision of whether running a certain story would be worth the risk.
The hearing continues tomorrow, with evidence from editors of the FT, the Independent and the Telegraph.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
09 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
The Sun’s royal editor has revealed that over half of the paparazzi photos of royals that the paper receives are not published because of ethical considerations.
Duncan Larcombe told the Leveson Inquiry that this was due to concerns over breaches of privacy and the Press Complains Commission code, he rejected any suggestion that Clarence House put the newspaper under pressure not to run certain photographs.
He told the Inquiry that the Sun turned down photos of the royals stolen from Pippa Middleton’s car in 2009, the tipsters asked for £25,000 for the images.
Distancing himself from former editor Kelvin Mackenzie’s “lob it in” approach, Larcombe said that “it doesn’t work like that on royal stories” or on Fleet Street. He said it was particularly important to “get it 100 per cent right” with such stories.
However he admitted that the internet was “the elephant in the room”, many photos rejected by mainstream outlets finding their way online.
Larcombe added that every member of the public was a “potential paparazzo” in the age of camera phones, claiming that Prince Harry had little privacy unless he was “hiding in one of his castles”.
The Sun’s picture editor John Edwards told the Inquiry that more photos were now coming in from members of the public, though the majority of the 15-20,000 images the paper is offered per week still come from agencies.
Discussing pictures of a heavily pregnant Lily Allen shopping in London, Edwards said they were not published after a request from the singer’s agent’s request, despite Allen appearing happy to be shot in the photos. He added that there were celebrities that the paper would be reluctant to use photos of, such as Sienna Miller, due to their past experiences with the paparazzi.
When asked about the intense press coverage of the McCanns, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May 2007, Edwards said he had “tremendous sympathy” for the couple, who returned to a media scrum outside their home in Leicestershire after Madeleine’s disappearance.
“We got it spot on in Portugal, but may not have been so good when it came back to Leicestershire,” Edwards said.
21 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A former financial reporter at the Daily Mirror has told the Leveson Inquiry that phone hacking seemed to happen daily at the paper, and was “openly discussed”.
James Hipwell, who wrote the City Slickers column for the paper from 1998 before being jailed in 2006 for writing about firms he owned shares in, stood by his witness statement in which he said phone hacking was a “bog-standard journalistic tool”. He told the Inquiry the practice was openly discussed by the showbiz desk, recounting that the team had deleted a message from a celebrity’s voicemail to stop the rival paper, the Sun, intercepting and getting the story.
“It didn’t seem to me to be an ethical way to behave, but it seemed a generally accepted method to get a story,” Hipwell said.
He said he did not report the practice to former editor Piers Morgan because it seemed that it was “entirely accepted” by senior editors on the paper.” He said that, while he did not see hacking talked about in front of genuine management of the company, he witnessed it being discussed with senior editorial managers.
Hipwell also said he witnessed a colleague hacking into Morgan’s phone in early 2000, although he said he did not think it elicited any useful information.
Morgan told the Inquiry yesterday he had “no reason to believe” the practice was occurring at the tabloid while he was editor from 1995 to 2004.
In a witness statement to the Inquiry, Morgan said Hipwell’s claims were the “unsubstantiated allegations of a liar and convicted criminal.”
Hipwell said he could not prove Morgan knew about the practice, but added that “looking at his style of editorship, I would say it was unlikely he didn’t know it was going on.”
He said Morgan was the tabloid’s “beating heart” and “dear leader”. He described how Morgan would go up behind reporters and look at what they were writing on screen, and would re-write headlines and copy late at night after publication.
“The newspaper was built around the cult of Piers,” Hipwell said, noting that as editor he did his job “very well”.
Yesterday Morgan told the Inquiry editors only knew 5% of what their reporters were doing, and that he only “very occasionally” asked reporters about the sources of their stories.
Yet, Hipwell said, “nothing really happened on that [showbiz] desk without Piers knowing about it.”
Hipwell also contradicted Morgan’s statement that the PCC code was on the wall of Mirror newsroom. He told the Inquiry he was never briefed about the code or journalistic ethics, and that he did not see any visible signs of ethical leadership from the paper’s senior managers.
He said corporate governance was not a term used in the newspaper office.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
19 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A former News of the World sports reporter who received a bullying compensation settlement worth almost £800,000 has said his choice to take on his bosses “finished” his career.
Matt Driscoll, who was diagnosed with severe depression in 2006, told the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon he could not “imagine any editor wanting to snap me up tomorrow.”
“I am the guy who has taken on the bosses,” he said.
Driscoll worked on the paper’s sports desk from 1997 to 2007, when he was sacked. An employment tribunal found in 2009 that the paper had discriminated against him on grounds of his disability and that the editor had presided over a culture of bullying at the redtop. He was awarded £792,736 in compensation.
He said his illness was “entirely” due to the treatment of the News of the World, and noted his doctor had advised he “distance” himself from the paper. Driscoll described receiving daily calls from the paper and being told his pay would be stalled if he sought advice from an independent doctor rather than a company nurse.
Driscoll had received a tip that Arsenal football club would play in a claret-coloured strip, though the team dismissed the claim. Some months later the story appeared in the Sun. “I received a phone call from my sports editor to say ‘we’re dead’,” Driscoll said.
He said “power corrupts” some editors, with their egos allowed to “run wild” and that some had “lost touch with reality”.
“Editors were under even more pressure than proprietors to make sure their readership stayed at a certain level,” he added. “That pressure passed down.”
Of journalism, he said, “you work at a certain level of stress but you are almost at saturation point.”
He said he had no direct involvement with phone hacking, but added that “it was known throughout the whole of Fleet Street that news reporters or feature writers could obtain mobile phone messages.”
He said any suggestion of stories being fabricated at the paper were “absolutely crazy”, claiming the litigation costs would be too high to risk.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow, and will include evidence from Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror and the News of the World, who’ll be appearing via satellite; the paper’s former TV editor Sharron Marshall; Farrer & Co partner Julian Pike, and Steve Turner, who represented Matt Driscoll during his tribunal.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson.
