Thursday, May 19, 2016 

The artist subsequently known as PJS.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the continued failure of the tabloids, News UK in particular, to get the injunction preventing them from making public the identity of the person known only as PJS lifted.  They must have thought it was a sure thing; how could the supreme court possibly disagree that the identity of PJS had become so well known, thanks to the name being all across social media, published in the National Enquirer, the Sunday Mail, numerous blogs etc, that it would be an absurdity not to let the Sun on Sunday print all the juicy details on the threesome?

Never underestimate the potential for judges to go against accepted wisdom (judgement PDF), especially when they notice something that's passed everyone else by.  IPSO's code of practice, Lord Mance notes, states that an "exceptional public interest would need to be demonstrated to over-ride the normally paramount interests of children under 16".  You could of course argue that consenting adults should consider the potential consequences for their children of extra-marital activities, regardless of the agreement of both partners, not least because of the obvious potential for it to cause difficulties down the line.  This is not by any means though a justification for a story that all the justices agree has no public interest defence whatsoever to be published.

Indeed, I would argue that it's possible in this case to respect the arguments of both Lord Mance for the majority in over-turning the Court of Appeal ruling that the injunction should be set aside, and Lord Toulson in his lone dissension.  It's hard not to respect a judge who risks incurring the wrath of Paul Dacre by directly referencing the paper claiming the law to be an ass due to the publication of PJS's identity elsewhere; if that is the price of applying the law, Mance writes, it is one which must be paid.  The court is well aware of the lesson which King Canute gave his courtiers, Mance goes on, in answer to the claims that injunctions in the age of the internet are defunct, with the Lord later quoting a previous ruling by Justice Eady "that wall-to-wall excoriation in national newspapers, whether tabloid or ‘broadsheet’, is likely to be significantly more intrusive and distressing for those concerned than the availability of information on the Internet or in foreign journals to those, however many, who take the trouble to look it up".  I would argue that distinction still holds up today, if barely: there is a huge difference between a story appearing on multiple newspaper front pages, available for anyone to see at petrol stations, supermarkets, newsagents etc, whereas online it is still possible to avoid such stories altogether if you so wish.

Lord Toulson disagrees, writing that the "court must live in the world as it is and not as it would like it to be", and also that "in this case I have reached a clear view that the story’s confidentiality has become so porous that the idea of it still remaining secret in a meaningful sense is illusory".  Toulson does not "underestimate the acute unpleasantness for PJS of the story being splashed, but I doubt very much in the long run whether it will be more enduring than the unpleasantness of what has been happening and will inevitably continue to
happen.  The story is not going away".

It most certainly isn't.  The only reason that the papers have been full of stories for the last couple of weeks about a certain Downton Abbey actor are due to a certain injunction still being in place from years ago.  One way or the other, the British media will get a story they want to be out in the open out in the open.  They might not make any money out of it, quite the contrary in the case of the Sun, with its legal fees likely to be astronomical, but for those who want to know they'll probably be able to find out.  If the case going to trial, with PJS and YMA likely to win, gives them satisfaction and protects their children, then great.  More likely however is that Carter-Fuck will go on getting richer while the kiddiwinks will find out one of their parents is partial to threesomes regardless.

All the same, coming in the same week as the IPSO decision that the Sun blatantly breached the editors' code of practice over the QUEEN BACK BREXIT bullshit, with the paper throwing its toys out of the pram in response, saying yes, the headline was a complete lie, but the one underneath "qualified" it, and the Queen isn't above politics anyway because she called the Chinese rude, for those of us whom enjoy schadenfreude, it's been a fine time.  Long may it continue.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

5/19/2016 09:27:00 pm | |

Thursday, April 14, 2016 

Still got the Whittingdale blues.

Just in case the whole Whittingdale thing wasn't silly enough, here comes Nichi Hodgson in the Graun denouncing the culture secretary for in her view throwing Olivia King to the wolves:
But being scared for your own reputation shouldn’t be reason enough for you to sully somebody else’s. By stating over and over again that he had not known his former lover was a sex worker, and that he had ended the relationship immediately upon finding out, Whittingdale has thrown her to the red-top wolves, making sure to thoroughly shame her in the process. Unfortunately, Whittingdale seems blind to the fact that it’s not only his former partner he’s distanced himself from, it’s his own spine as well.
 Except Whittingdale hasn't stated anything over and over again. The only comment he has made was the statement released on Tuesday night.  When doorstepped yesterday morning he referred the reporters to the statement and said he wouldn't be saying anything further.  Hodgson does at least accept that if Whittingdale, as he says, was unaware of his partner's work then he
might have felt a justifiable sense of betrayal. But the fact that Whittingdale was so quick to drop her when the tabloid press revealed her identity to him, and is now so keen to stress that immediacy in his defence, doesn’t come across as the reaction of a hurt yet honourable man.
I'm probably one of the least qualified people to pass judgement on relationships, but keeping something like the fact you're a sex worker from a prospective long-term partner (if again that's what Whittingdale was looking for; we're all making huge assumptions here) must surely be considered a deal breaker, especially if active deceit was involved.  We can all comment on prudishness, shaming and hypocrisy, only to come to very different conclusions when it involves us personally.  It's similar to pornography; we might have no problem with consuming it, regard it as the canary in the free speech mine, but plenty would at the same time not want friends or relatives to be playing a starring role in it.  Such are our hang-ups.

In any case, the genuinely guilty of prudery here are barely so much as mentioned by Hodgson.  Yes, Whittingdale could well of said yes, I dated a sex worker, who wants to fucking touch me, only he's no doubt embarrassed by the whole affair also.  No one has disputed his statement as yet, more than suggesting that he was in the dark and ended the relationship because he felt he had been lied to.

Should we be making judgements on this as a whole in any case?  Just as with the other privacy story of the week, it's disingenuous to claim it isn't about that but in fact this for the reason there would be no story whatsoever had the tabloids not decided politician dates dominatrix was worth investigating, even if they didn't end up publishing it.  The irony here is the people who have truly shamed King are those who otherwise claim to be against press intrusion, or normally critical when sex scandals are played out by those whose natural habitat is the gutter.  There is a case for asking why it wasn't published, but it's been hijacked by those whose cause as Ian Dunt has said has degenerated far from where it started off.

All in all, a thoroughly depressing week.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/14/2016 05:48:00 pm | |

Wednesday, April 13, 2016 

The Whittingdale blues.

Absolutely nothing about the John Whittingdale/dominatrix story seems to make sense.

Let's then take it one step at a time.  If we're to believe Whittingdale's statement from last night, he had no idea that Olivia King was an escort, let alone the proud keeper of a dungeon.  When he did become aware of that fact, he ended the relationship.  No one seems to be as yet disputing it or claiming Whittingdale to be telling lies, so presumably the culture secretary's claim that he met his girlfriend of a few months on Match.com is accurate.

Now, unless I was reading something into the original Byline piece that simply wasn't there, as my take from it was that Whittingdale knew she was an escort and presumably was paying for her to accompany him to events, this is even less of a story than it first appeared.  Even if Nick Mutch is not explicit in saying that was the case, he definitely does claim that "Whittingdale's relationships with prostitutes are said to be well known in the London underworld".  He also quotes an unnamed senior Labour MP as having seen Whittingdale in the Houses of Parliament with a prostitute, although he wasn't sure if she was King or not.

Next, we have the James Cusick piece from Sunday.  This has since been described by another writer on openDemocracy, where the piece has also been hosted, as offering "little to substantiate" a cover-up, while David Elstein points out a number of flaws in Cusick's reasoning.  All of the investigations Cusick details apart from the Independent's took place while the relationship was on-going, before Whittingdale became culture secretary, although he was chair of the influential media committee.  Cusick claims that the Mirror may have dropped its investigation because Whittingdale could have launched a new inquiry into phone-hacking at the newspaper group, although does so in a half-hearted manner.  Similarly, without detailing how, Cusick implies that a similar investigation at the Mail on Sunday was dropped because Whittingdale was "viewed as an asset" by the Mail group.  Finally, Cusick details how things went with the Independent's own belated investigation, attempting to widen out the justification for a rather basic salacious story to claims about expenses not being paid, then to possible hypocrisy charges over Whittingdale's membership of the Cornerstone group.  Again, it ended with the editor shutting it down without apparent explanation.

To some, that four separate newspaper groups all failed to bring the story to print is indicative of a cover-up.  It's also certainly true that equally lacking stories about the private lives of politicians have been printed of late, including Brooks Newmark flopping the old johnson out of his pyjamas for an undercover hack, and the unforgettable Lord Sewel, in red bra, snorting cocaine off the breast of the sex worker who stitched him up.  A far more prosaic explanation is that even by the standards of those two stories, Whittingdale's adventures in online dating were much less exciting.  He's divorced, he didn't know King was a dominatrix in her spare time, and the only evidence they had were some very unrevealing photographs.  Why would the papers other than Independent drop the story on the basis Whittingdale could be useful to them in the future when they couldn't be certain of his career trajectory?  The Mirror phone hacking explanation also doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

This isn't to take the claims of former and current hacks at first sight.  As Francis Wheen quoted by Anorak has it, both the bizarre arguments being put forward by Hacked Off representatives that this was someone whose privacy should have been invaded, and the claims from the Thurlbecks and Wallises of this world are unbelievable.  Clearly the story was of interest to the tabloids, and the Independent; they just in the end decided it couldn't stand up.  I don't think Leveson is of any relevance here at all; the decision was simply made that MP unwittingly dates sex worker is a bit sad rather than scandalous.  You can see this in the way the Indie flailed around desperately for any justification long after the fact, as I described is always the way yesterday.  First you get the story, then you make something up to claim it's in the public interest.  Like Flying Rodent, I think this story would have been more in the public interest than the case the tabloids are up in arms about, but that's barely.  The reason why there's such a disparity is obvious, also: pop star up to shameless sexual antics sells papers; MP gets todger out on Twitter wins awards, if that.

Likewise, the cries from Labour that Whittingdale should stand aside from his role in directing legislation concerning regulation of the press due to his conflict of interest don't now really apply when, err, any conflict is out in the open.  The sword of damocles Chris Bryant lyrically brought up, even if we accept it was a thing despite there being no evidence, is now gone thanks to the exposing of the story.  As Roy Greenslade and others have argued, there does seem to be a lot of overstating of Whittingdale's role.  Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act shouldn't be imposed for the reason that it is grossly unfair, nor has there ever been a realistic suggestion it was going to be brought in; similarly, there is no appetite whatsoever among the Tories as a whole for staging the second part of the Leveson inquiry.  It's hardly just Whittingdale.  The same goes for bias against the BBC: the Tories don't like Auntie, simple as.  Whoever ends up being culture secretary you can guarantee will be just as critical as Whittingdale has been.

I can then understand why people think something stinks, agree this will certainly be something to bring up the next time a politician is caught with their pants down by a newspaper justifying their expose as in the public interest, and still think that on this occasion at least some are looking just that little bit too hard.  Which includes the BBC, Private Eye, et al, who now the story is out there are justified to ask the questions they have.  I also agree with Anna Raccoon when she writes on how Olivia King has every right to be thoroughly cheesed off with the press a whole.

Is that OK with everyone?

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

4/13/2016 06:23:00 pm | |

Tuesday, April 12, 2016 

Orwell, as ever, had it right.

We all know the famous Orwell line, don't we?  "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people who is banging whom".  Good ol' Eric Blair was thinking of the scandal involving the 3rd Duke of Massingberd, who was discovered in flagrante with a scullery maid called Bill, a dog called God and the young MP for Buckingham, Doris Bonkers.  Massingberd had succeeded in cowing most of the press through a combination of legal threats and blackmail, involving a recruited squad of bootblacks offering complimentary happy endings, only for an irrepressible young upstart from Australia called Wurzel to expose all concerned in his short-lived penny sheet the Fucks of the World.  Wurzel was sent to the Scrubs for 2 years for breaching the Obscene Publications Act, but Fleet Street was never the same again.

It's the humbuggery of it all that gets you more than anything.  The case of PJS and YMA has allowed the press to reprise their previous howls of rage from a few years ago over the brief super-injunction craze, despite the vast majority of such orders not being super injunctions as super injunctions prevented even the fact the order was in place from being reported.  It is after all remarkably easy to pose as a free speech martyr when your version of freedom of expression extends only as far as shag 'n tell and every so often running a borderline racist comment piece.  Say what you like about Charlie Hebdo, but no one is ever going to shoot up the offices of the Sun.

At least the Sun is entitled to feel pissed off its exclusive has been given out free to everyone.  What really grinds the gears is the "oh, we couldn't care less about all the sordid details, who did what to whom, but this is far more important than that" crowd.  No it isn't.   If you really couldn't care less about the sex lives of consenting adults, regardless of status, then you wouldn't be touching this "story" whatsoever.  No one involved prior to AB and CD going to the Sun was unhappy with what went on; they suddenly decided for whatever reason to get some cash out of it.  Only then are the angles on hypocrisy looked for, justifications however lacking or laughable clutched at.

At very best, there is the possibility the argument that persuaded the appeal court judges to grant the injunction, that the effect the revelation would have on the young children of PJS and YMA would be unfair on them, could be used by far greater scoundrels in the future to prevent disclosure of their wrongdoing.  That's all it is though, a possibility.  All the previous caterwauling over injunctions a few years back due to the danger to free speech failed to materialise.  Judges stopped granting them; celebrities stopped seeking them.  Why would anyone seek a gagging order that had the opposite effect?

So it is now with PJS and YMA, fairly or not.  They had an open relationship while supposedly giving the impression of being a committed, monogamous couple.  That turns out to have been enough for their slightly unorthodox sex life to be exposed, as it has been, if not by the English and Welsh press.  To regard this as some great crime against the right of the tabloids to make money you have to either be unbearably pompous, or part of an industry that defines the public's right to know on exactly such a pecuniary basis.

It would be easier to take also if say the rest of the media had rallied round when the Guardian was being threatened by the government with prior restraint over the Snowden leaks.  Instead the likes of the Mail took the side of the government and the securocrats.  GCHQ coming round and smashing the hard drive with the documents on is obviously one thing, while the danger posed by "unelected" judges deciding what YOU can and can't know about the disgusting proclivities of those who can afford to project an image is quite another.

Which leaves pretty much only the "absurdity" that it's just newspapers and England and Wales based media that can't name those involved.  Not that this stops them from running otherwise non-stories about them, say, or dropping the broadest of hints, or telling everyone precisely which sites are naming them.  When tabloids start playing the victim, the game ought to be up.  Rather sad when it's left to err, Holly Willoughby, to cut through the bullshit.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/12/2016 09:28:00 pm | |

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 

No sympathy for the devil.

There's only one question editors should ask themselves when offered photographs of a famous figure who has just been told the most shattering news: how would I like to be splashed across the next morning's papers, grief etched across my face, in what ought to be regardless of it happening in a public place, an intensely private moment?

If they would truly answer that reporting the level of grief outweighs the considerations of not intruding into it, something that the PCC code makes clear should always be approached sensitively, then they should make that case themselves. More likely is as is so often the case, should any paper even dream of reporting on the private life of a fellow editor, there would soon be phone calls a plenty and threats flying, with both sides usually backing down. Hence why the tabloids didn't report on Rebekah Wade (as was) splitting up with Ross Kemp, let alone the employment tribunal finding that Andy Coulson bullied and unfairly dismissed Matt Driscoll from the News of the World.

However Paul Dacre and the editors at the Mirror and Star defended it to themselves, they must have seen just how distasteful it was to fill all but their entire front pages with the image of Mick Jagger in such obvious distress. The Sun, perhaps stung by the criticism it received following the death of Reeva Steenkamp, having decided an image of the model appearing to undo her bikini top was the best way to illustrate the news, opted for a far smaller inset of the image used by the others, still obviously objectionable but not on the same scale as using it to fill the page.

It does of course raises questions about what now is beyond the pale. The extremely long lens shots of the People's Kate sunbathing topless were, but the Sun decided Harry buck-ass naked in a hotel wasn't.  The tabloids had an attack of the vapours when an Italian documentary used the images of Princess Diana lying mortally injured in the back of the Mercedes, despite having arguably contributed to the crash, yet don't think an ashed faced rock star learning of a personal tragedy deserves the same protection. This isn't about Leveson, as you shouldn't need a judge to tell you to feel the most basic compassion and human empathy. It's about a tabloid press that has never set itself a boundary it hasn't subsequently broken.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

3/18/2014 09:25:00 pm | |

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 

The wacky French and their wacky views on privacy.

When it comes to schadenfreude on the part of the media, it doesn't get much more pathetic than their collective opinion on France. You don't have to be aware of the Sun's headline "ZE FROGS ARE FILTHY: OFFICIAL" to know the press doesn't much care for our friends on the continent. They are, variously, dirty, weak, lazy, vain, self-regarding, womanisers, rude and good at pretty much nothing except surrendering. At the same time and contradictorily we naturally envy their very joie de vivre, their almost blasé attitude towards sex, and some even on the right grudgingly admire the bloodymindedness of their unions and farmers in sticking two fingers up to both governments and the EU.

Much as I tend to think in my more misanthropic moments that Britain is a beautiful country spoiled only by the natives, so those in the media who adore and might even have a holiday home in France itself think the same about the French. Their view of the nation and the stereotypes in which they so often paint the country, with the French then responding in kind about us "ros bifs", is especially refracted through the prism of our press versus theirs. On our side we have a boisterous, indefatigable, completely uninhibited media, which even now sees the sale of millions of copies of newsprint every day, whereas they have a cerebral, intelligent and generally respectful industry, which is precisely why in their view it sells a fraction of copies ours does.

More to the point, this apparent deference towards and respect for the privacy of even the most public figures makes a mockery of the very spirit of the free press. While the whole rest of the world is talking about president Francois Hollande and his apparent affair with Julie Gayet, a liaison which came as such a shock to Hollande's partner Valerie Trierweiler that she has been admitted to hospital, the French press limited themselves to asking about the alleged relationship in an extremely roundabout way, questioning Hollande over whether Trierweiler was still first lady, or if his security might have been loosened by the trysts. Hollande, politely as possible, insisted that private matters should remain just that.

Bashing the French and their odd little ways is of course tremendous fun. We would never allow our top politicians for instance to conduct affairs and then respect their calls for privacy, or indeed do the same when it comes to the royal family. From Fergie toe-sucking to Squidgygate, they've all been caught at it and exposed in the press. Curiously though, you don't tend to read much about the infidelities of Prince Philip himself, which seems distinctly odd. Still, the exception that proves the rule, right?

I mean, the media would never believe lies on the scale of those told by Mitterand, for instance. We draw the line surely at pursuing our representatives to the point of forcing them to resign over a blowjob, but otherwise we like to know who's shagging whom. It wouldn't take, say, the autobiography of a former minister to expose her relationship with a prime minister, for instance. Nor would suggestions that the breakdown of the marriage between a media baron and his younger wife might be linked to another former prime minister be quickly stamped on and not heard about again.  Our media is so dog eat dog in fact that even affairs between journalists themselves are reported on, especially when one of those involved was married to a soap star.  As for the exposing of those who've abused their celebrity, the record of the press is second to none, as we've seen over the past couple of years.

The fact is our media only exposes those it decides to, and even then only makes a song and dance about certain individuals, generally because they've either refused to go along with the narrative they're told to or have dared to involve their lawyers. It doesn't help that every editor seems to imagine that this latest example of infidelity by a politician could be a modern version of the Profumo affair, forgetting that one man died and another felt he had to pay penance for the rest of his days as a result of his shortlived relationship with a call girl. It also feels distinctly odd for the British media as a whole to feel so superior so soon after Leveson, when it was the very pursuit of such mundane details about celebrities and politicians that brought it so low.  Anyone would think some are trying to compensate for an ongoing trial which continues in the background.

Moreover, we're closer to the French position on privacy than the tabloids would like as it is. They might think indiscretions still sell papers, but it tends not to make us think any less of someone unless the details are especially sordid. And why should it? We only ought to know about an affair if it's affecting a politician so severely that their work has been significantly impaired. Only David Blunkett comes to mind as this being true of in recent years, while arguably Francois Hollande's alleged affair would also meet this criteria due to how it's impacted on Trierweiler. Vicky Pryce can also attest that seeking revenge via even as august an organ as the Sunday Times can go horribly wrong, not least when those you trusted turn over their source material with barely a fight.  It might also be worth remembering journalists and politicians consistently come bottom of trust surveys.  Could there possibly be a link?

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

1/15/2014 10:10:00 pm | |

Friday, May 20, 2011 

A new starting point on injunctions.

It would certainly be nice if following today's excellent report by the committee on super-injunctions (PDF), the media finally drop the entirely misleading claim that injunctions which anonymise the claimant(s) are anything approaching the equivalent of the orders sought by Trafigura and John Terry, both of which were subsequently overturned. As they point out, as far as they're aware only two "super-injunctions" have been issued post-Terry, the first of which involving Howard Donald of Take That was set aside on appeal, while the second was only in place for seven days to prevent the alleged blackmailer from being able to get their information out before they could be held in contempt of court for doing so.

As was expected, there's very little in the report to cheer the tabloids hoping for some sort of admission that the current situation is unsustainable and that parliament should legislate to decide where the balance between privacy and freedom of expression should generally lie. Interestingly, the one potential sop to the more concerned sections of the media which has been reported, that super-injunctions were once granted far too readily or too often doesn't itself seem to appear in the report, suggesting this was intimated by Lord Neuberger or Lord Judge at the press conference.

The recommendations the report does make are sensible and should be easy to put in place. It's long been absurd that no proper records have been kept of just how many such injunctions have been issued, making it incredibly difficult to ascertain whether there really has been a massive growth in the number of gagging orders applied for. Collecting the data and issuing an annual report will help to dispel claims that "justice" is increasingly being carried out in secret. Similarly, standardising the procedure to be followed when a "interim non-disclosure order" is sought in the future should help streamline the process, as well as ensure that third parties, almost always media organisations, know about the hearing and have a chance to challenge it from the outset.

The one potential difficulty with the latter is that, as we've seen, certain sections of the media cannot necessarily be trusted to keep the details of the cases secret after they've been gagged, let alone before the injunction has even been issued. This is admittedly not helped when judges are making such difficult borderline decisions, like that involving Fred Goodwin, where the line between the public's right to know he was having an affair at the time of the banking crisis with the possible knock-on effect it may have had on his work and his right to privacy is so narrow and fraught. Justice must be open and seen to be done, but it doesn't have to involve kowtowing to a press that continues to want to impose its own unbelievably hypocritical version of morality on a nation for the sake of their sales. We have long deserved a better debate on all of this, and today's report will hopefully provide a new starting point.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

5/20/2011 02:05:00 pm | |

Monday, May 16, 2011 

Anything else going on apart from...?

"It's been a week where you sit there thinking, is there anything else going on in this country apart from a bunch of z-list celebrities having sex with each other?"

So asked Ian Hislop, in what was to be the last episode of Have I Got News for You to feature Angus Deayton as host. It was also the same week in which Ulrika Jonsson said that she had been sexually assaulted by a well-known television presenter, who was inadvertently named by Matthew Wright shortly afterwards. The past week has seen a very similar situation, albeit it slightly hampered by how we're not supposed to know who some of those z-list celebrities are.

If nothing else, you have to hand it to the tabloid press: it often accuses the supposedly more serious-minded broadcasters and papers of hypocrisy on the grounds that they more or less duplicate their coverage, albeit under the guise of poking fun or discussing the potential implications for press freedom. There's been no such back-biting this time, for the reason that they've been amazingly successful in turning what have been only the latest incremental development in privacy principles into an issue of freedom of speech so vital that the prime minister has intervened on more than one occasion to declare his unease. Under the banner of "super-injunctions", almost none of which the recently issued orders have actually been, they've campaigned vigorously for their right to print more or less what they like about prominent individuals and what they might have been up to, invoking morality, censorship, democracy and almost anything else they think might win more supporters to their cause. Helped along by social networks and the difficulty of removing information once it's out in the wild on the internet, as well as a growing feeling, especially among those who live their lives online and hide very little about themselves from anyone who cares enough to look, almost no actual attention has been paid to the details of the cases themselves, the way the tabloids have personally fought the injunctions, or indeed to just how open they've been about why they really want to return the the height of "bonk" journalism as practised back in the late 80s.

Indeed, just how limited the general debate has been was showcased on Newsnight on Friday, where Hugh Grant and Charlotte Harris faced off against Helen Wood and Fraser Nelson. Grant, fresh from bugging a News of the World journalist, came across exactly you suspect as the tabloids would like: outraged that anyone should know absolutely anything about him without his express permission. Much as I find the argument that if you don't want to end up on the front page of a newspaper you shouldn't sleep with prostitutes to be self-serving in the extreme, Grant did his best to prove it, arrogant throughout while attempting at times to play the victim, demanding Nelson to condemn certain practices which he had never condoned. Charlotte Harris, who must be much more convincing in court than she has been in any of her innumerable television appearances, gave her questionable and limited legal analysis, while Fraser Nelson, who despite always looking incredibly pleased with himself seemed to be ignorant of many of the details of the recent cases. Then there was Wood, called on just twice during the entire programme, who looked distinctly uncomfortable throughout.

She wasn't helped by a quite incredible second report from Kate Williams, which happily alleged that injunctions were returning us to the Victorian era where rich men could do as they please and the women were left voiceless, as it galloped through over a century of sexual history in a couple of minutes. Solipsistic doesn't quite adequately describe it, and poor old Helen was so confused that she clearly hadn't quite grasped what the sexual revolution was when asked whether it had worked for her. Considering she was on Newsnight talking about working as a high class escort, and indeed has been paid a considerable sum having sold her story vis-a-vis Wayne Rooney, even if she can't identify another "high profile" male she performed sex acts on, it's hardly resulted in her penury and exclusion from society, referred to as a tart and hooker in the same press she made a deal with or not.

Just how potentially misled we've been by the self-serving reports in the tabloids, gobbled up and regurgitated whole by the rest of the media is demonstrated by the interim judgement in the case involving Imogen Thomas and the anonymous, although widely named footballer. Contrary to Thomas's (literal) sob story of how her name's been run through the mud despite not ever wanting to sell her story, Mr Justice Eady relates the footballer's side of events. According to him, the whole thing appears to have been a set-up between her and the Sun, where she demanded to meet the player on two separate occasions at different hotels, both times asking for money with the obvious implicit threat being that otherwise she'd sell her story. Each time it seems the paper was waiting to take pictures of their arrivals: if the player paid up, then she got her money and the paper still had the story with no evidence that Thomas herself had been involved; if he didn't, then she would presumably have been reimbursed by the Sun. The footballer additionally says that rather than the six-month long relationship Thomas claims, they had only met three times between September and December last year. While that hasn't been contradicted by Thomas's representatives, she did later deny that she'd either asked for money or had "caused" the Sun's initial report last month.

While Eady is only presenting the case as it currently stands before any trial, the footballer's side of the story is all too plausible. It also fits with the pattern that rather than most of the injunctions being issued after individuals getting wind of a story or being contacted prior to publication, there is often also an element of blackmail involved, as there was in the controversial ruling where Eady issued a contra mundum injunction, as well as in that involving Zac Goldsmith. Eady, clearly at pains, goes on to point out despite much of the comment that the current process has been built around two major rulings by the House of the Lords, with four even more recent cases where the Lords refused permission to appeal (paragraph 21). Moreover, as he writes, in cases where blackmail is either alleged or where it looks to have conceivably been involved, anonymity has been previously given as a "matter of public policy". It's only now, when all the details have not even begun to be made public that this has been questioned.

Damningly, as Eady goes on, the Sun's representatives didn't even attempt to argue that any story would be in the public interest. Instead they simply claimed that Thomas's rights to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights were being denied by the footballer's "reasonable expectation of privacy". Worth quoting in full are the two final paragraphs of his ruling:

On the evidence before me, as at 14 and 20 April, I formed the view that the Claimant would be "likely" to obtain a permanent injunction at trial, if the matter goes that far. As I have said, it remains uncontradicted. The information is such that he is still entitled to a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and no countervailing argument has been advanced to suggest that the Article 10 rights of the Defendants, or indeed of anyone else, should prevail. There is certainly no suggestion of any legitimate public interest in publishing such material.

Moreover, in so far as Ms Thomas wishes to exercise her Article 10 right by selling her life story, she is entitled to do so, but only subject to the qualification that she is not thereby relieved of any obligation of confidence she may owe, or free to intrude upon the privacy rights of others: see e.g. McKennitt v Ash, cited above, at [28]-[32] and [50]-[51]. In so far as there are any conflicts of evidence or of recollection between her and the Claimant, it will be for the court to resolve them at the appropriate time. I will discuss with counsel whether it would be appropriate to order a speedy trial for that purpose.

This more than rebuts Thomas's claim afterward that she was being denied the opportunity to defend herself: if she wishes at length to contradict the footballer's version of events, then she can and hopefully will, albeit without naming him.

If this latest ruling were the exception to the rule, then the campaign waged over the past few weeks would be worthy of support. As previously argued, some injunctions have been questionable in their sweeping nature, but far too often as the Guardian pointed out they've been confused with our libel laws, which are currently under review. Despite having emitted such sound and fury, in many of the cases the tabloids don't even pretend that the public interest will be genuinely served by their serving up of the celebrity shags of the week; instead they make the highly dubious argument that it's such sensationalism and gossip that has enabled them to provide other journalism and campaigns which have benefited the wider public. Deprived of them, they'd wither on the vine and die, especially now as the internet has so eaten into their market.

Even in this time of declining circulations, the Mail sells over 2 million copies a day while the Sun clocks in at just under 3 million. Neither have suffered the massive falls of their competitors, and both will continue to be printed for a long time to come. They might fear the effect of kiss 'n' tells being completely choked off, yet even under the most extreme reading of Eady's latest ruling it seems laughable that every z-list celeb will be lining up for an injunction to cover up their dalliances. As morally (and hypocritically) outraged as the tabloid editors and long-time hacks undoubtedly are by the turn of events, it's cover as much over the phone-hacking scandal as it is an attempt to provoke David Cameron into doing something about it. What's more, the ultimate victory has been in making everyone delve into this world of who's shagging who, to make those of us who'd rather just let them get on with it have to dive into the depths of the "privacy" debate. Where Orwell once wrote of the decline of the English murder, so too they want to forestall the decline of the English affair, and they'll try everything in their power to do so.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

5/16/2011 11:59:00 pm | |

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 

Injunction hysteria and the failure of Max Mosley.

It's difficult to shake the feeling that this week's latest outburst of injunction outrage on the behalf of the tabloids and certain sections of what was once the broadsheet press wasn't so much to do with the mysterious InjunctionSuper tweeter (twatterer?), although they provided the excuse to clear the front pages, and much more to do with the fear that Max Mosley would triumph with his case at the European Court of Human Rights. Having so firmly established that philanderers and blackguards are effectively subverting democracy itself by stopping the popular press from reporting on their exploits, had Mosley won we would now be drowning in a veritable sea of anti-European, anti-liberal, anti-'uman rites venom, the death knell of the British media as we currently know it all having been all but sounded by an unelected elite sitting in judgement from afar.

Happily, and just to confound the caricature of the judges in Strasbourg as often depicted as interfering, foreign lunatics and incompetents, they quite rightly decided that Mosley's Article 8 rights had not been breached by this country lacking a mechanism through which newspapers must inform prior to publication those individuals they plan to run an expose or similar about. This wasn't because in Mosley's personal case there hadn't been a quite despicable breach of privacy, it was more that the circumstances were something approaching unique. As Justice Eady made clear in his ruling back in 2008, the supposed "Nazi element" of Mosley's spanking orgy was a construct aimed at giving the story a public interest defence, even while he accepted that the paper's editor and Neville Thurlbeck thought there was such a flavour, not least because they saw what they wanted to see. Had the paper simply gone with the spanking story and informed Mosley prior to going to press, an injunction would almost certainly have been granted had he taken legal action. Relying instead as the paper did on the story being totally in the public interest as it exposed the son of the fascist leader Oswald Mosley involved in sadomasochism with Nazi overtones, the ECHR's reasoning is that even if there had been a stricture where the press have to inform those they intend to write about he would have been unlikely to fall under its terms.

The Guardian, which while not exactly rallying to the side of the tabloids has been quietly concerned over the recent supposed spike in injunctions, made a third-party submission to the court which made the obvious argument against just such a requirement as Mosley was asking for: that rather than covering only cases where personal privacy was involved, it would apply across the board. While it's mainly standard journalistic practice to inform individuals or companies that they're about to have a report on them published, not least to give them an opportunity to comment, the Trafigura scandal makes plain just how some will seek to have the most destructive, illegal behaviour swept under the carpet. The ECHR in its conclusion made clear that what Mosley was asking for has the potential to have a "chilling effect" on the right to freedom of expression. Along with doubts over just how effective it would be and how such a "public interest" mechanism would work, there was really no other option than for the court to make clear Article 8 does not demand a legally binding pre-notification requirement.

There is no doubting however just how successful the tabloids have been in turning their woes into a matter of seeming immediate national importance. Away from the very few number of cases where the granting of an injunction has been questionable, or where the terms have been arguably far too broad, most have just been typical tabloid tales where the person involved is as much being humiliated and embarrassed because of their fame rather than down to the heinousness of their actions.

Take for example the supposed "world famous" actor, who if he is who we're led to believe I had never heard of before (he's not Ewan McGregor, despite initial rumours) and his dalliance with Helen Wood, the sex worker who did a number on Wayne Rooney. One of his pleasures apparently, again for the reason that we don't unequivocally know, involved a dildo being "used" on him. Such a detail, while not exactly out of the ordinary, is the kind of fact that people remember and snigger about. It is the sort of thing that leads to children and relations being bullied and similarly humiliated. This person is not any kind of direct role model to children, as the tabloids claim footballers and other prominent stars are, nor does he make money out of selling his image as such. He's simply a man who because of his acting work is considered fair game and is grist to the mill. As prostitution itself is not illegal (soliciting is) he's committed no crime other than one of stupidity. There is no public interest in him being exposed in such a way, yet we apparently "know" about it regardless of the injunction.

Let's not pretend either that Twitter, blogging, social networking or the internet on their own make such injunctions and potentially a privacy law untenable and unenforceable, as has been claimed. The rumours about the applicants all have to begin somewhere, and it's more than fair to say that the newspapers themselves have been getting incredibly close to breaching them on their own, dropping almost excessive hints in some cases. Private Eye, which always faces both ways when it comes to the tabloids and their obsession with the sex lives of the rich and the famous ran a "lookalike" in its last issue in which Wayne Rooney was compared with the man alluded to above. Elsewhere it all but named the footballer involved with Imogen Thomas, while reiterating how the papers had covered the injunction involving the TV man who had an affair with a co-star, described more than once as "shameless".

What is apparent is that even if they end up not being able to publish a story which might shift a few extra papers, the tabloids seem to be determined that it gets out there somehow. As some predict, this latest outbreak of belly-aching about how unfair it is not to be able to ruin lives will probably peter out. No one seriously expects the government, even this one, to legislate, not least because it would have to almost certainly draw up some privacy protections which the tabloids would complain bitterly about even while removing the wider threat to their profit model. Judges will continue to cop the flak for making nuanced decisions which politicians are too cowardly to get involved with. Who though could possibly blame them when we have such a wonderful, law-abiding media?

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

5/10/2011 11:59:00 pm | |

Thursday, April 21, 2011 

Playing the victim in the privacy wars.

Whenever the tabloids start to play the victim, it ought to be apparent that there's something far more vital at stake than the freedom of the press: that other enduring freedom, to make money out of the misery of other people. If you've been cynical enough to think there might be something else afoot that's encouraged the so-called popular press to spend much of this week complaining bitterly about how they're not being allowed to continue to focus on shag 'n' tell journalism to the detriment of everything else, then you'd be right. Even if the phone-hacking scandal hasn't (yet) touched any other newspaper than the ever egregious News of the Screws, they know full well that the longer it rumbles on the more likely the same celebrities and politicos now demanding recompense from Murdoch's minions will turn their attention onto them. Why else after all would they have done so much to either ignore or play down the NotW's sad troubles with the Metropolitan police if they didn't themselves know there would be be similar discoveries if their own email records were exposed to the same intimate attention? It certainly isn't the old Fleet Street spirit of solidarity, of dog not eating dog, which has always been something of a myth.

Anything then to deflect from how so much of tabloid journalism is currently under scrutiny. Politically wise or not, considering the potential for revenge to be taken in the most damaging of ways, Ed Miliband's call for an independent review of the Press Complaints Commission and newspaper practices once the police investigation into the Screws has finished was both brave and welcome. It must have also been alarming to tabloid editors and their owners, not so much because they fear such an inquiry taking place, something doubtful to happen when the levels of mutual sycophancy between themselves and David Cameron are still high, more because it's a sign of just how precarious their craft is becoming that any front line politician feels bold enough to call for something they would have usually not touched with the proverbial ten-foot barge pole.

The resurrection of the issue of super-injunctions for mostly specious reasons should be reasonably apparent due to how the cases the tabloids are complaining about are err, not super-injunctions, otherwise they wouldn't be able to complain about them at all, as they're meant to ban the press from even mentioning they've been gagged. Instead the courts have recently favoured the slightly subtler form of injunction which allows the media to make clear that they've been stopped from printing a story, and even to go into some of the relevant details which could potentially identify those involved. Hence we know a married footballer has stopped the press from splashing on his affair with the fragrant Imogen Thomas, a former Big Brother contestant who's made her living since appearing on the show by exposing her plastic breasts for money, while a "world famous" actor who paid for some sort of sexual activity with the equally lovely Helen Wood, an escort universally known in the gutter press as ROONEY TART/HOOKER for her past dalliance with the Manchester United striker has also been saved from the ignominy of having his poor taste in sex workers revealed.

Justifications for informing the world that famous people tend to be just as human as the rest of us range from the moralistic, such as Paul Dacre's notable attack on Mr Justice Eady for stopping newspapers reporting on the "unimaginable depravity" of the likes of Max Mosley, to how it enables superstars to continue to present themselves as role models to the young while profiting from it through marketing deals, all the way along to the usual press freedom arguments. Others still are now pointing to how unfair it is on the women involved that they can't either protect themselves or sell their stories, as if the likes of Imogen Thomas or Wood are somehow damaged further having usually informed the media in the first place. Excepting Wood, it also ignores their own responsibility for involvement in the affair, even if their identities don't always stay hidden. In a recent case the News of the World had intended to claim that a television presenter had been sacked after the fellow host she had conducted an affair with had requested the break up of their partnership, only for her to support the seeking of the injunction.

It would be much easier to respect the principle of "publish and be damned" if the stories the media does manage to get into the papers were reported accurately. Not content with the already sensational likes of Mosley conducting spanking sessions with dominatrices, the Screws had to sex it up further (arguably to give it something resembling a public interest defence) to Mosley having a Nazi orgy. The John Terry saga of last year took on a rather different air when the quietly determined Vanessa Perroncel managed to extract apologies from both Sunday newspapers involved, more than suggesting that the claims of an affair between the two were inaccurate. Terry has since been restored to the England captaincy, the role he lost after the tabloids called for him to lose it following his "infidelity".

This isn't to suggest there aren't potential problems ahead should the law be more contentiously interpreted by judges. A judgement published yesterday by Justice Eady seems to go a step further than anything so far: in a case he describes as an example of "straightforward and blatant blackmail", he imposed a contra mundum injunction, forbidding not just the national but worldwide media from identifying those involved. These have only formerly been issued in cases where those seeking them were not just at risk of having their right to privacy under the European Convention of Human Rights breached, but their article 2 and 3 rights also; John Venables and Robert Thompson, the killers of James Bulger had their new identities protected in such a way, as did Mary Bell. Regardless of the solid medical evidence suggesting the health, including the mental health of those involved has been affected, this could well be a step too far: it's one thing to protect those who have committed terrible crimes as children from being hounded for the rest of their lives or even killed by banning the publication of their whereabouts and names; it's quite another to do so over a case which involves "intimate photographs and other information". Moreover, it's bound to lay down the gauntlet to media outlets overseas who've graciously respected the past rulings who will be far less likely to do so when the stakes are nowhere near as high; and after all, what exactly can they be threatened with which might make them think twice before doing so?

Despite David Cameron today voicing his "unease" over the recent injunctions, it's still manifest that judges are not making the law, merely interpreting it as best they can and following rulings which have set precedents, usually delivered either by the highest court here or by the ECHR. It's also clear that politicians still seem unlikely to be willing to get involved in something which will mean them rather than judges deciding on how to balance the competing rights of privacy and freedom of the press, whether or not they have the tabloids screaming at them to do something or not: in this instance there seems to be too much to lose either way. Having spent so long complaining about vested interests and their role in British life, it's would be nice if the tabloids recognised theirs in preferring exposure over privacy. It's only when it comes to their own newsrooms that they opt for the latter.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/21/2011 09:48:00 pm | |

Tuesday, February 01, 2011 

Scum-watch: A charter for bullshit.

It's a relatively rare occurrence for any newspaper to move its main editorial, the thundering voice of its authority, onto its front page. Those who've mercifully missed seeing today's Sun might well then be surprised to learn that it chose today to do just that, even if it wasn't the paper's main story. Has the paper weighed in on the turmoil in Egypt, calling on the hated Hosni Mubarak to go, Rupert Murdoch being a long noted advocate of freedom and democracy? Or has it instead passed comment on a topic much closer to the paper's heart, the latest profligacy and avarice being displayed by some of the nation's football clubs?

The answer is neither of these things. No, something much more important is occupying the attention of the Sun's leader writer, and that is of course something affecting the Sun itself first and foremost. Yesterday the Court of Appeal ruled that a sportsman granted an injunction preventing the publication of allegations against him could remain anonymous while the outline of what he was accused of, without naming those involved, could be reported. This overturned a ruling that had previously reached the opposite conclusion: that the sportsman could be named but the allegations against him could not.

For those of you still awake, fascinated as you doubtless are by the legal ramifications of yet another asinine legal battle between a footballer accused of cheating and a tabloid barred from splashing on the juicy detail, it's understandable why the Sun and tabloids in general are so angered by the ruling, especially as it looks as if it could become key in the emerging case law surrounding super injunctions and the balancing of articles 8 (right to privacy and family life) and 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the Human Rights Act against one another, although not for the reasons the Sun disingenuously expounds, which we'll come to. While the name of someone alleged to have done something wrong can sell newspapers or bring in hits, even if what he or she's accused of isn't allowed to be discussed, that's not so much the case where the details can be alluded to in outline but the name itself has to stay secret. Anyone can have had an affair or slept around while in an apparently happy relationship, and many do; it's only when the names come out that anyone really becomes interested, or at least pruriently interested, which is essential to understanding the entire thing.

The real reason why the tabloids were opposed since the outset to the insertion of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law was that Article 8 had the potential to undermine a substantial part of their business model: the exposure of petty philandering and kiss 'n' tells. And so it hasn't really come to pass. As the last few years has shown, just as some celebrities and sports personalities have been able to stop the tabloids from splashing on their sexual escapades, others have not been so lucky. The Sun's attempt to frame this latest ruling as a "major blow to freedom of speech" is nonsense: it changes nothing on the actual score of the press being stopped from reporting on infidelity in general.

Instead it pounces on one of the very particular details to this latest case. JIH, as we can only refer to him, had already been caught with his trousers down once by the press, with the story appearing without him becoming aware of it beforehand or being warned by the newspaper. He did however get wind that another woman he is alleged to have had an affair with, referred to in the ruling as "ZZ", was about to sell her story to the News of the World, prompting him to take out an injunction. It's worth noting that this entire series of appeals concerning what could and could not be reported about the injunction stems from the initial agreement reached between JIH and News Group Newspapers (the parent company of the Sun and News of the World) which was in fact more restrictive than either that reached by the High Court or the Appeal Court yesterday, as neither the details nor JIH's name could be published. It was the High Court judge who felt he couldn't agree with that, as it took no account of the rights of the public. Unless that was a ploy on the part of NGN's lawyers, they were prepared to deny the public any right to know, something they're now pretending is what they've cared about all along.

In his judgement, the master of the rolls Lord Neuberger decided that the fact JIH had previously been exposed was crucial to the case, for the reasons he sets out:

In this case, I consider that the crucial factor is the previous story about JIH's alleged liaison with YY, which had already been published, without JIH's prior knowledge or permission. That earlier story involved a very similar allegation about JIH to that which NGN was proposing to publish as a result of ZZ's allegations. If we permitted JIH's identity to be revealed without permitting the nature of the information of which he is seeking to restrain to be published, then it would nonetheless be relatively easy for the media and members of the public to deduce the nature of that information: it would be a classic, if not very difficult, jigsaw exercise. It is true that the very fact that this decision means that we are revealing that JIH is a person about whose alleged sexual activity a previous story has been published, and that this will immediately narrow the field for those seeking to identify him, but, in my view, that point is of limited force: there have been quite a few stories of this nature relating to different well known people published in the printed and electronic media in the past two or three years.

This is definitely the case: while there's been the usual speculation you'd expect, no one seems to definitively know who JIH is despite the fact that he's been exposed before narrows it down slightly. Clutching at straws as ever, the Sun has turned this round, both in its article and leader to suggest that this in effect creates a "cheater's charter", whereby those previously ratted out or shown up have more protection than those who haven't. As Edward Craven points out in a excellent analysis of the ruling, this isn't necessarily true:

However the “efflorescence of anonymity orders” (to use the words of Lord Rodger) and the fundamentally fact-sensitive nature of the issue make further litigation inevitable. This is a contentious and rapidly evolving area of the law where important matters of principle frequently collide. Judges, journalists and lawyers should therefore expect further debate and discussion in the coming months.

Moreover, the Sun's claim in the article that the public are being prevented from receiving information that is true is also dubious to put it mildly. While it doesn't seem the case that JIH has attempted to sue regarding the first reports of his infidelity, he wasn't given any opportunity to respond to the allegations prior to their publication. That he did take one out when he became of the second set more than suggests that he contests their veracity.

The language used in the Sun's leader (reproduced in full at the end of this post) is incredibly hyperbolic even by the standards of tabloid editorials dealing with privacy. The ruling stands "morality on its head", "licences depravity" and through the culture of secrecy it promotes "undermines public life by allowing vice and hypocrisy to flourish". While it reminds of Paul Dacre's verdict on Max Mosley's spanking sessions, which he decided constituted "unimaginable depravity", the only real public interest defence which the Sun can point to is that the "public [have a] right to know the truth about celebrities who hide shameful secrets behind a hypocritical veneer of respectability." The problem is that even as the public continues to consume such tales of depravity and vice, they no longer seem to care about those involved unless it breaks a specific subset of laws. A case in point is Wayne Rooney, who last year was not only exposed for a second time as cheating on his wife with a prostitute, but who also shortly afterwards got a huge pay increase after he threatened to leave Manchester United. He might have been criticised in the short term, but the club's fans still chant his name with the same passion as they always have.

The Sun's argument would also have more force if those the tabloids have previously exposed had definitively been involved in such behaviour. Last year, months after John Terry lost the captaincy of England over his apparent affair with the girlfriend of a team-mate, a number of papers quietly apologised to Vanessa Peroncell over their coverage, more than suggesting that the allegations were in fact far from the truth. Similarly, its claims that it creates two-tier justice is laughable: exactly how many of those without fame or fortune are exposed in the national press over their sexual exploits, without first making themselves known in some way to the media? The resort to the slippery slope argument, that tomorrow it could be a cheating politician who attempts to protect the public becoming aware of their antics is also clutching at straws: not only as affairs in politics have long ago became "private matters" until they start affecting the way ministers do their jobs, but because those in government have never before resorted to the law to prevent such revelations, and show no indication of doing so now. What it comes down to beneath all the bluster is, as it always has been, pure financial self-interest, and the irony is that as personal privacy in the digital age becomes ever more confused and broken down, that has never been more apparent.

*The Sun's leader in full follows:

THE more a cheating celebrity drops his trousers, the more the law will cover up for him.

That is the disgraceful outcome of yesterday's Appeal Court ruling allowing a well-known sportsman accused of cheating on his partner with two different women to keep his identity secret.

This "Cheats' Charter" is a terrible blow to the public's right to know the truth about celebrities who hide shameful secrets behind a hypocritical veneer of respectability.

Showbiz personalities, sports stars and politicians now have an incentive to carry on betraying their partners - because the more they do it, the more courts protect their identities.

It also creates two-tier justice. If you can afford top lawyers you can buy secrecy denied to others.

Yesterday was the day Britain became a judicial banana republic.

The nation that created the rule of law bent its knee to a sportsman who fornicates his way through life like a dung hill rooster.

This wrong ruling stands morality on its head. It licences depravity.

Along with the rise of the superinjunction, this is another alarming step towards secret justice.

Superinjunctions are court orders sought by the rich and famous to gag newspapers. They are so strict papers cannot even tell their readers a superinjunction has been granted.

This culture of secrecy undermines public life by allowing vice and hypocrisy to flourish while papers are powerless to expose it.

It speaks volumes that Westminster stands by as Press freedom is eroded.

European privacy rulings, used abroad to provide cover for corrupt public figures, are being brought in through the back door.

Today it is a cheating sports star hiding behind anonymity. Tomorrow it could be a cheating politician.

It is vital for democracy we know the names of those who go to court to have newspapers silenced.

Once a nation starts down the road to secret justice, there is no telling where it will end.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

2/01/2011 11:27:00 pm | |

Thursday, February 18, 2010 

A questionable, but ultimately correct decision.

There was almost never any danger of the Press Complaints Commission deciding that Jan Moir's piece of heartless, discriminatory grief intrusion breached their code of practice. The very first thing that mitigated against it was the fact it was a straight-up comment piece, rather than an actual piece of news which took it upon itself to offer an opinion as well, and the PCC has in the past been loth to decide what columnists can and cannot offer as their view, regardless of whether or not their article is factually inaccurate.

There have been a few recent cases where there has been a retraction, such as when Amanda Platell claimed that the tragic death of Rachel Ward was a direct result of equality and blamed her friends for not going home with her, resulting in the Mail "noting" the father of one of her friends' concerns and removing her article from the website, but with no actual apology forthcoming. There was also the attempts by one persistent individual who complained to the PCC about the ludicrous claim by Carole Malone in a column in the News of the World that immigrants were being given free cars, which Tabloid Watch documented, finally resulting in the paper printing this incredibly terse statement:

"On July 26, our columnist Carole Malone claimed illegal immigrants receive "free cars". We now accept illegal immigrants do not receive such a benefit and apologise for the error".

Something that was definitely worth all the effort involved. Both of these though are examples where either what the columnist had wrote was patently false, or where the newspaper decided not to put up any fight, with the complaint coming quite some time after the original article was published. The Mail knew what a potential precedent the Moir article could set if it decided not to defend itself; as the PCC's lengthy adjudication sets out, it offers no apology whatsoever and defends every aspect of Moir's comment, as was its right. It is also though another indication of just how far removed the world of tabloid newspapers is from that on which they comment: they seem to inhabit a completely different moral sphere when it's them expressing their opinions on someone; when either rivals do it, in the case of "Sachsgate", or when a footballer supposedly brings his entire country into disrepute, then it's perfectly legitimate for them to act as judge, jury and executioner.

If any ruling had set this complaint up to fail, then it was a recent one involving that distinguished inventor of political blogging, Iain Dale, which the adjudication indeed references. In this instance, Dale was for once on the side of the angels, complaining about an almost overt piece of homophobia which appeared in the Ephraim Hardcastle diary column in, naturally, the Mail:

The piece reported that the complainant was on the shortlist of people applying to be the Conservative candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Bracknell. It described him as ‘overtly gay', and referred to an interview he had given to Pink News in which he encouraged its readers to attend the open primary, saying it was ‘charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause'.

Dale felt, quite reasonably, that this breached clause 12 on discrimination. The PCC however has other ideas:

For instance, the newspaper had used no pejorative synonym for the word ‘homosexual' to describe the complainant: this would certainly have been a breach of the Code. Neither had the complainant been outed as gay by the column - which would also have been a breach - as he had frequently and publicly referred to his sexual orientation. Rather, the complaint seemed to be that describing him as ‘overtly gay' at the same time as saying it was ‘charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause' was spiteful to the point of homophobia. This was a more subtle and subjective charge against the newspaper.

In other words, in order to breach clause 12, you essentially have to call a gay person either a faggot, a poof, although considering how relatively soft that term is that might not even not, or a bent cocksucker. Jan Moir was far more subtle, if just as knuckle-headed: Gately was the "Posh Spice of Boyzone", he "couldn't carry a tune in a Louis Vuittion trunk" and "the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see". In line with the PCC's view of how Dale was described, it found:

it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article. The columnist had not used pejorative synonyms for the word "homosexual" at any point.

What then about accuracy, also complained about by Gately's partner? How could Moir possibly have not breached Clause 1 with her claims that:

The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

Despite these assertions, Moir had also covered herself. She also wrote that:

All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances.
and

A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.

Despite therefore successfully contradicting herself, considering the post-mortem found that it was indeed a natural death, this was all she needed to do. Hence the commission found:

In the Commission's view, it was important to recognise that the article had clearly referred to the official verdict on the cause of death that was available at the time ("all the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances"; "acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs"). It was against this context that the columnist had stated her views on the matter. In her opinion, the events leading up to the death were "sleazy" and showed a glimpse of "a very different and more dangerous lifestyle"; it was also her view that Mr Gately's death was "lonely". The complainant may have disagreed with these claims, and many readers had objected to them, but the Commission felt that these individual judgments did not constitute assertions of fact.

Andrew Cowles also complained under clause 5, intrusion into grief, which although the most obvious and most despicable thing about Moir's piece, was also the least likely point on which the PCC was likely to intervene. It would be ridiculous for a regulator to decide when and when not someone can say something that might cause suffering or pain; instead it ought to be apparent to both the writer and the newspaper itself that doing so when grief is likely to be so raw is far more likely to be intrusive and felt to be unacceptable. To do so the day before the funeral, and less than a week after the death was crude, cruel, unkind and downright ignorant, just as much as Moir's actual article was. For the Mail to so often invoke morality when it clearly cannot even understand such basic human emotions or simple matters of taste, or rather does but nonetheless feels no wider responsibility when it attacks individuals in such a way just shows up its values for what they truly are.

Moir's article, as alluded to above, was actually far cleverer than the views it expressed. It hedged its bets; it covered itself; and most of all, it hid behind innuendo rather than outright accusation. All of this ensured that it didn't breach the PCC's code, whilst also distinguishing it as far worse than just the ravings of a bar-room bigot. It's not a completely apposite comparison, but it reminds me somewhat of Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech; not in the actual outrageousness of the views expressed, in which Powell's were far worse, but because of how Powell hid behind the supposed opinions of others throughout. Moir didn't hide behind the ignorance of others, she instead attempted to hide her own by not being prepared to wrote what she really thought. These are the actions of a coward, not a writer. The tagline on her column, which asks whether you're thinking what she's thinking, is doubly apt, appealing to the lowest common denominator whilst also portraying herself as an ordinary reader holding forth over the topics of the day, something which couldn't be further from the truth.

Despite all this however, I actually agree with the overall conclusion of the PCC. It should not be the job of a regulator to decide what a commentator can and cannot say, as long they do not directly breach the rules on accuracy, as Moir just managed not to. As the Graun's C.P. Scott had it, comment is free, but facts are sacred, or as the PCC say:

Individuals have the right to express honestly-held opinions, and newspapers have the right to publish them, provided the terms of the Code are not otherwise breached.

Moir instead, and the Mail as well, can be held to account in other ways. It's fair to say that Moir is never going to live her column down, and her reputation has been permanently sullied. The Mail has been shown up for the hypocrisy sheet which it is, governed only by what it think will sell rather than what its thundering leader columns and editor actually say it stands for. Finally, despite the sneering of the Mail, it's also shown that Twitter and Facebook can as much be forces for good as they can for bad and general frivolity. Never before have newspapers been held up to such scrutiny as by actual individuals who do have a voice, even if only to those who tend to share their opinions, and this is only going to increase. Will the paper think before publishing something like Moir's column again? Probably not, considering the values by which the Mail lives by, but when it does, and it will, the storm will only likely be even more fierce.

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

2/18/2010 09:43:00 pm | |

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates