A former Sunday Mirror journalist who turned himself in over phone hacking has described a bullying culture at the red-top.
In an interview with Press Gazette, Graham Johnson said he experienced a bullying and hostile environment at the Sunday Mirror when he worked there.
“When I was working in tabloids they were driven by bullies ... Nobody could speak about this horror which occurred in tabloid newsrooms,” he said.
“Also they were corporate bullies because they used this weird form of corporate passive aggressiveness to make you know that if you fuck up, or if you don’t deliver, or if your face doesn’t start to fit, then we’re going to give you a hard time and get you out.”
Johnson said he believed he was subjected to bullying and that “they tried to get me out for four years”.
He worked at the Sunday Mirror between 1997 and 2006, spending six years as investigations editor. He had previously worked at the News of the World.
In March 2013, the day after police arrested a number of journalists working for the Sunday Mirror, Johnson contacted police to confess to a “short and intense” period of phone hacking lasting three to seven days in 2001. In December he became the first journalist to plead guilty to phone hacking while at Trinity Mirror, receiving a two-month suspended sentence.
Johnson also told Press Gazette he was angry that the newspapers he worked at were predominantly run by “posh people”.
“When I was at the Sunday Mirror from 2001 it was like the Eton Rifles … They all speak to each other in this corporate, middle-class language, which they all understand and feel comfortable with. But they haven’t got any stories.”
Trinity Mirror declined to comment.
