06 July 2017
Phone-hacking, the future of the media
And why Hacked Off should Back Off
by R.D. Shackleton
As I’m going to write about phone-hacking, I had better, in the interests of full disclosure, mention that I was caught up in the Metropolitan police investigation. Not as a phone-hacker, you’ll understand. But as one of the thousands of people from all walks of life whose numbers were snagged in the Met’s Operation Weeting inquiry into the tabloid press (on which more later).
If you think the phone hacking controversy was largely done and dusted with the publication of the Leveson report – you’re wrong. We’re going to hear a lot more about it. In part, this is because of Culture Secretary Karen Bradley being “minded” to refer Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox’s £11.7bn bid for full control of Sky to the Competition and Markets Authority. The flash point for some is that Ms Bradley’s referral (assuming there are no unexpected eleventh hour remedies) was only on the grounds of “plurality” – in other words whether a Fox-Sky colossus would have too much sway over the UK news agenda. The Murdochs , however, got a (mainly) clean bill of health on the hurdles for bid clearance regarding their commitment to editorial standards.
So Mr Murdoch and his top brass have been rehabilitated, it would seem, since they made an earlier bid back in 2011. The offer for BSkyB, as it was then, by News Corporation was abandoned because of the public opprobrium unleashed by the original phone-hacking scandals. It was a sorry saga, resulting in the closure of the News of The World title and a mortifying public grilling for Mr Murdoch by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
All this soft-soaping of the Murdochs has enraged those, including the Labour front bench, who still feel that the Government has dragged its feet on all its promises to bring the press to heel. The Fox-Sky merger after all would represent a huge part of the UK’s media infrastructure. It would rank only behind the BBC and ITV in terms of viewers for its news output. But unlike these broadcasters, the reach of its content would be extended through its newspapers and on-line media.
Given the merger’s significance, is there not a case to defer making any decision about a competition referral until we are in possession of all the facts about phone hacking and other tabloid misbehaviour? And how can we be confident that all the evidence is in the public domain when the second part of Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry on the culture, practices and ethics of the press appears to have been abandoned by the Government – along with the contentious plans to persuade the media to submit to a state-controlled regulator? That’s the argument put forward by Hacked Off, the pressure group for those impacted by phone hacking which has now become a rallying point for anybody with a gripe about an independent press. Celebrities targeted by phone hackers such as Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley were among the founders. It now boasts an impressive lobbying machine, and claims up to 175,000 members.
You can’t argue with Hacked Off’s aims: to campaign for a free and accountable press, with every safeguard against press bullying and the abuse of media power. But the way they want to achieve this should worry anybody with an interest in sustaining its vibrant and broadly independent character.
Going ahead with Leveson 2 is misguided and unnecessary. All the background to the original phone-hacking scandal was covered in the original Leveson report; the issues, moreover have been addressed in a Select Committee investigation and the Metropolitan Police’s own Operation Weeting. The legal process continues, with more reporters alleged to have been involved in phone-hacking facing civil action this autumn. Is it not time to leave this to the courts? More widely, the uncertainty caused by an extension of Leveson would perpetuate the uncertainty surrounding the media sector, not to mention the unfair potential disruption to public market transactions – such as Fox/Sky.
But Hacked Off want this publicity to help achieve one of their most important aims. To force the government to back down on its manifesto pledge to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, legislation brought in after the Leveson report which was never brought into force and would, in effect, force the media to submit to state-controlled regulation. Section 40 is dangerous because it would hobble the ability of the British press to carry out responsible investigative journalism. Any media organisation preferring to stick with the industry’s preferred regulator – the Independent Press Standards Organisation – rather than move to a state-approved body, would become potentially liable for costs on libel and privacy cases of both sides of a court action – even for cases they win. But it is not just money at stake. In a rare display of unity, the British press objects to state-control as a matter of principle. Their public positions are so entrenched, that it seems inconceivable that any major organisation will back down. The May government recognised the impasse when it backed down on Section 40 before the election.
But these are unstable times. And with the Fox bid renewing the phone-hacking controversy there can be no certainty that the diminished Conservative government is going to risk political capital trying to push through a Section 40 repeal. Hacked Off can sense its opportunity.
This remains a live issue. As does Operation Weeting for many involved, like myself, who never heard anything more about the investigation into alleged hacking of our mobile numbers. My involvement goes back to 2012 when I and several colleagues received a letter from our telecom supplier telling us that between 2005-2006 our company mobiles may have been compromised and providing a number for the Operation Weeting team to provide more information.
We made that call. And within days – I trust this was pure coincidence – I received a late night call from a Mail on Sunday reporter who said that the paper had received information that the phones of certain financial PR firms had been hacked and that they were about to do a number about the security of bids and deals we had been involved in all those years ago. (For the record, we investigated as far as possible, changed our phones, brought in specialist IT experts and I remain as confident as I can be that no sensitive information was impacted.)
Such calls typically come late on a Friday. Just enough time to be shown to provide an opportunity for a fair response. In these circumstances, declining to respond simply gives the media carte blanche to write what it likes. I needed a short factual response, emphasising how this related to historic events and a bit of off-the-record guidance. Less can be very much more in this kind of situation. The resulting lead story in the business section “phone hackers target bosses in City PR firm” was fair – more or less. In a kind of back-handed way it sort of bigged us up.
But life moves on. And we’re due to hear a lot more about phone-hacking. It’s time now, though, for Hacked Off to Back Off.
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