The report by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, revealing the payments to a private detective by newspapers and magazines, is truly fascinating. What catches the eye is the enormous number of times the detective, Stephen Whittamore, was called on for his services. Some 305 journalists from 17 papers and magazines asked him to provide 3,905 separate pieces of information. The Daily Mail alone paid for 982 items of data through 62 different journalists. And all this from one detective only. This is intrusive reporting through the chequebook and, frankly, it stinks.
If there is a public interest reason for obtaining private information, then that's fine. But the public service content of most of the papers involved - The People, News of the World, Sunday Mirror, and the Daily Sport (!) - is so sparse it's obvious that there wasn't the least justification for such intrusions. Certainly, the celebrity magazines listed in Thomas's report - Best and Closer - contain only material that, while interesting to the public, is of no public benefit.
The practice has been so widespread, including The Observer as well as the usual tabloid suspects, that we are unlikely to read much more about this report. But the contents of Thomas's document, What Price Privacy Now?, are shocking in their implications. Look at the kind of information that was obtained in this furtive, black market trade - the discovery of addresses through car index numbers, mobile phone numbers, bank and health records. Rarely, if ever, will such information have been necessary to carry out a proper newspaper investigation about a matter of genuine public concern
And I'm not much taken with the response from Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday (275 pieces of data by 35 journalists) that it was an "utterly meaningless" exercise by the information commissioner, a mere snapshot. It exposes a disgraceful practice. The fact that journalists have not been prosecuted is irrelevant. It simply means that they got away with it, not that they are innocent. Well done, Mr Thomas. Now I await a statement on the report from the Press Complaints Commission.
