Journalism: The case for the defence…

By: Gary Quinn, Head of Media, Tangerine PR, Manchester

The editors of the Sun, Express, Telegraph, Financial Times and Star all went on trial last week – or at least that’s how it felt.

The Leveson inquiry, as I have said rather vocally before, is trial of journalism as opposed to trial by journalism. And this week saw some of its biggest hitters hauled before the redoubtable Robert Jay QC, the lead counsel for the inquiry.

I have been dipping in and out of the live stream since the hearing began last month, and even managed to catch my old boss, Chris Johnson of Mercury Press, as the warm-up act for Piers Morgan.

For a media geek and former newspaper man like myself of course it is interesting to see so many leading industry figures speak about modern day newspapers, and what it is that makes them tick as editors or as section heads.

But I couldn’t help but wonder if the whole Leveson Inquiry isn’t simply a very public act of self-flagellation foisted upon the media by the vengeful political class in response to the MPs expenses debacle.

What member of the public, with absolutely no connection to the media, cares how the Sun’s Bizarre Editor, Gordon Smart, runs his department or wrestles with issues of privacy on a day-to-day basis? Never mind what a dinosaur like Kelvin MacKenzie has to say about ethics and the press – lest we forget it is twenty years since he last edited a national newspaper.

So why was he there? What can somebody like MacKenzie really add to an inquiry about modern media ethics and practices? Naff all, that’s what. But he always provides good copy and he’ll play to the gallery, just like that other over-sized five-year-old Jeremy Clarkson. Two men cut from the same emotionally stunted cloth.

So Leveson called MacKenzie just to add a splash of colour to proceedings, and he duly obliged, boasting about how he never thought about ethics and simply “lobbed” stories into the paper if they “sounded right”.

Utter tosh from a bygone era. And that’s where he belongs.

My point is that I don’t see how much Leveson is really going to learn about modern day journalism via this sterile inquiry set-up, far better if he and his team were to spend six months embedded in the newsrooms of the nationals.

That way they would learn everything they would need to know about how modern day newspapers are run. His team would see the reality of life at the coal face of British journalism, how stories are written, pages designed and editions put to bed.

Of course I know nobody in the industry would like to be watched in this manner but increased regulation of the media is set to be the ultimate outcome of this inquiry, so isn’t it best that they get it right, rather than some dodgy updated version dreamt up in the sterile environment of the inquiry room.

Leveson and his team are clearly able people but I believe you cannot possible legislate for an industry without getting under its skin. And forcing a succession of editors into the witness box will certainly never achieve this.

Seeing them in action, however, will give you an entirely different perspective. The perspective that doesn’t involve phone hacking or blagging or any of the other “dark arts” we now hear so much about.

Let’s take just a few of the biggest stories to be published when I worked at the Daily Mirror and examine how they came to light. The first was the exposure of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott as an adulterer who had an affair with his secretary.

Did the Mirror hack his phone or perhaps his email? Nope.

And just for the record, I never came across either practice in my four years there on the features desk. But back to Prescott and his secretary. Did the story come from a leak deep inside Downing Street that wanted to discredit the Deputy PM? Not that either.

Instead the source was a lorry driver lover who simply rang up to say he had evidence that his girlfriend was having an affair with John Prescott. The call was taken by a graduate trainee who had enough journalistic nous to keep the guy talking and quickly build up and rapport.

It turns out he’d called the Sun beforehand but they’d put the phone down thinking he was a bit of a nutter, spouting nonsense about John Prescott.

But the Mirror trainee wasn’t letting it go and within hours he was sitting in the caller’s front room with all the evidence needed – including some very memorable images - to extract a full and frank confession from the Deputy PM.

Then there was the startling ‘Cocaine Kate’ story that exposed model Kate Moss as a cocaine user alongside her then partner, singer Peter Doherty. Again this had nothing to do with phone hacking or blagging but came about because of concerns within her inner circle about the direction her life was taking.

The contact formed an excellent relationship with the Mirror reporter and over time agreed to help facilitate the exposure that they believed would help Moss curtail the lifestyle they feared could lead to her demise as one of the world’s top models.

The resulting story caused ripples around the world, and remains an iconic Mirror front page.

Both world exclusives shared one thing in common, namely that they were possible mostly thanks to good old fashioned and dogged nurturing of contacts by journalists. In the case of John Prescott the trainee bonded with the spurned lover over their support for Man Utd, while the Moss exposé was cultivated over many months.

But of course the general public have no access to this type of information and my point is that they won’t discover it during the Leveson Inquiry. And neither, of course, will Lord Leveson.

Putting journalism on trial is not the answer, understanding how it practices and the challenges it faces, is far more likely to lead to legislation or regulation that will enhance, rather than hinder, our press.

And this is why I believe embedding Lord Leveson and his team in newsrooms is the answer; only within those hollowed places can they ever truly understand newspapers and accurately make recommendations for their future.

And if we must have a public inquiry why not haul the bloody bankers who took us to the edge of financial ruin into the witness box? Isn’t it time they faced the public – who bailed them out – to answer questions about their actions that have had such catastrophic affects?

Self-flagellating bankers? Now who could resist that…?