Something Rotten In British Media

It’s a relief to know that we are not the only country with media problems. Britain has its own share, brewing for a long time. Ideally, the press should give the public the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is not happening in either country, although each is grappling with its own set of issues.

The godi media in India does not purvey facts, or objective opinions to audiences, because TV channels are tied to the government’s apron strings. In the United Kingdom, the power equation is tilted in the opposite direction. The press does a good job of chasing scams in all political parties.

However, the current debate about British print media is important for all of us, because it is about the heart of journalism as a mission and vocation. It raises fundamental questions about how the press should exercise power, and shoulder responsibility, about how freedom of speech must be reconciled with a citizen’s right to privacy.

These matters, which have been simmering for years, have again come to the boil with a landmark judgement of the High Court, awarding damages to a number of claimants (including the high-profile Prince Harry) in a civil suit against the ‘Daily Mirror’ and its associate publications for subjecting them to phone-hacking.

Newspapers and journalists are the bedrock of a democracy. There is a delicate power balance in the three-cornered relationship between newsmakers, readers and the print medium.

Journalists connect with celebrities and public figures, who would like to use them to reach a wider audience. They also mould public opinion and compete for the attention of readers with salacious reports. But, ethical standards are sometimes sacrificed and laws broken while pursuing newsworthy narratives.

It’s the ‘yellow journals’, called the tabloid press in Britain, who skirt the fringes of the profession. They abandon all pretext of decent behaviour, sensitivity and respect for privacy in the race for the latest celebrity scandal. Their Peeping-Tom methods offend the public, but are often not illegal, as those who take them to court discover.

And their tentacles reach everywhere. Even Princess Diana, the darling of the public, could not escape their intrusive ways. Her tragic death during a cruel chase by paparazzi changed nothing. It did not result in criminal proceedings.

Nor even in introspection and increased self-regulation by the British press. The same attitudes to victims continued and methods of collecting stories worsened. Till, they finally crossed the red line and entered the illegal territory of phone-hacking.

It was the ‘Guardian’ that took the lead in investigating the extent of the malaise. The public was outraged to learn that hacking was an accepted news gathering technique in many newspapers, not an occasional aberration of a rogue reporter.

The nexus between the police and newspapers was also exposed. Readers lost all sympathy for the press when they found that the phone of a murdered girl had been hacked by journalists after her death so that her parents were misled into believing that she was still alive. The clamour for reform and regulation was too loud to be ignored.

The resulting uproar led to the abrupt closure of the century-old ‘News of the World’ and the subsequent conviction of two newsmen. Public anger forced a reluctant government to institute a thorough judicial enquiry.

Justice Leveson examined witnesses across the spectrum of interested parties-members of the public, including victims of phone-hacking and similar practices, owners of media outlets, editors and journalists, police officers and private detectives who had been routinely used to collect information by legal and illegal means. As well as four Prime Ministers and several politicians. Its conclusions were damning, its recommendations far reaching.

Yet, real reform and change were avoided. Leveson suggested that the weak Press Complaints Commission be replaced by an independent agency empowered to punish offenders. Submission to its dictates would be voluntary and there would be legal and financial incentives relating to libel and breach of privilege for those who accepted its rulings.

But, the British press leaned on political leaders to water down the proposals. What eventually emerged was a pale version of the original.

No external regulatory body, but a feeble Independent Press Standards Organisation, which does not satisfy the conditions laid down by Leveson (except for broadcast and social media, which are regulated by Ofcom in the UK).

The decision was kicked down the road with a feeble promise of a Leveson 2, which was later shelved in the midst of Brexit, and Covid. The latest High Court finding is clear proof that little has changed over the last decade.

In a judgement that is almost 400 pages long, Justice Fancourt has called out editors, journalists and others who have violated the law in incidents dating back several years. And the issue has once again become a hot potato that must be handled before the election which is expected next year.

The problem is not with tabloids alone. Hoary media institutions like the ‘BBC’ had lost their sheen, long before Leveson arrived on the scene, when the public learned how Princess Diana had been tricked by a forged document into speaking frankly about her deteriorating relationship with Charles, by Martin Bashir on the Panorama program.

Trust in the press hit a new low when an independent enquiry disclosed how higher ups at the ‘BBC’ closed ranks, hid the truth and even promoted the offender after Diana's brother Lord Spencer took up the matter.

Now, Justice Fancourt has explained in great detail why he is convinced that phone-hacking and similar illegal practices were habitual and widespread in the ‘Daily Mirror’ group. He has named persons in top management who were aware of the practice and said that hacking continued even during the Leveson enquiry when some of them were testifying (lying?) under oath before the Commission.

These findings have also come at a very fraught moment in the relationship between the Windsors and the press. Prince Harry is the first royal to have actually sought a legal remedy against the press in more than a century.

In today’s media-conscious times, members of the ruling family in Britain are both celebrities as well as constitutional figures. As the Helen Mirren starrer ‘The Queen’ showed so well, the Windsors have, after Diana’s death, been converted to the belief that the loyalty of their subjects should be won through managed publicity.

Participation in official ceremonies and performance of royal duties must be supplemented with frequent favourable press reports. Prince Harry is already being reviled for revealing in his controversial book ‘Spare’, that there is an unspoken pact between the Windsors and the media, by which direct heirs to the throne are shielded from adverse publicity in return for leaks about dispensable royals (like Harry himself).

Now that Justice Fancourt has independently confirmed that Harry was illegally stalked and hounded throughout his teens, media groups that actively promote Harry-and-Meghan bashing look like bullies in a school compound ganging up against someone who might reveal their own crimes.

During this process, the line between tabloids and the mainstream press is also blurred. The British conservative weekly, the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language, the ‘Spectator’, of which I have been a long-time subscriber, has, over the last three years, only found room for a single piece in favour of the Sussexes. That too was hidden away among scores of critical pieces-some issues of the magazine even contain two or three attacks on the junior royal couple.

This distinctly biassed reporting raises an important question: can the public count on the press to pass on the truth, when it is itself in the dock. Like all professionals, journalists too present a united front when common interests are affected.

It is not surprising that the Leveson proceedings were viewed by the media with suspicion and alarm. Many newspersons refused to openly admit what must have been widely known, because they fear ham-handed regulation, which will cripple them in today’s insanely competitive media world.

Members of the mainstream press are just as threatened by the thought of regulation as their offending tabloid colleagues. Kudos to the team at ‘The Guardian’, which exposed the rampant phone-hacking in the newspaper world. Even so, the newspaper baulked at the idea of a free-wheeling press regulator.

A decade after the Leveson report, British media have not got their act together to propose a self-regulating mechanism that will reassure and satisfy the public. Government intervention may therefore become inevitable.

The Fancourt findings are not the last word on the subject. Many commentators have already pointed out that the preponderance of proof required for winning a civil suit is not the same as proof beyond reasonable doubt which needs to be established in criminal cases.

But, Prince Harry and other phone-hacking victims are determined to push for action against other major newspaper groups, which could result in substantial damage payments and affect the solvency of these chains. The smell of reform is in the air. For everybody’s sake, it should come without damage to press freedom. As well as enhance the credibility and reputation of the British print media.

Cover Photograph courtesy The Public Domain Review.