How a crisis in the British press is reported is often the best way of judging how the industry hopes to deal with it. And Saturday’s coverage of Prince Harry’s £140,600 in damages after winning his phone hacking case suggests business as usual. This is not only disappointing for all of us who believe in the power of British journalism, but disastrous for the industry itself.
All but one national newspaper either left the story off its front page altogether, or offered the view that, while Harry might have scored a partial victory against Mirror Group Newspapers, he was still a liar, according to Piers Morgan, the former editor criticised in the judgment.
Only the Guardian, the paper that first revealed the illegal and unethical practice 12 years ago, devoted its front page to this “win” for Harry. The Independent turned a high court hearing into a two-sides argument with: “Harry’s phone was hacked… but Morgan denies all knowledge.” The Sun’s headline “Unbelievable” referred not to the scandal at all but to the teenager found in France, while the paper at the heart of the latest ruling, the Mirror, splashed with the axing of a sports quiz.
The Mail splashed on shopping while a report on page 4 focused on how “partial” the victory was, alongside the whole of Morgan’s astonishing rebuttal. The Telegraph used a front-page picture of Morgan and a caption that focused on the TV presenter’s view that he was being implicated in a dastardly plot by the prince to bring down the monarchy.
The coverage pretty much aligns with how the press dealt with the scandal in the first place; blaming a rogue reporter, then a rogue newspaper, then, after the News of the World was closed and criminal charges brought, blaming the one newspaper group. Rupert Murdoch’s News Group has spent hundreds of millions of pounds in the past decade since making out-of-court settlements with those who allege they have been hacked. It also appointed two of the former Mirror editors mentioned in the ruling, including Morgan, to work for its TV station.
It is hard not to agree with most editors that shopping, missing people and TV entertainment are more popular choices for readers than a long-running scandal which proves what many of them suspect anyway – journalists are sometimes venal, lazy and happy to use any short cut available to get a good story.
The history of the scandal since – the Leveson inquiry, the fact that many of those implicated continued to enjoy high-profile jobs – suggests that the press wants nothing more than to simply ignore, hide or deny the story. The problem is that with more than 100 claimants still involved in wider hacking litigation, including against the Daily Mail, a newspaper that has vigorously protested its innocence, this scandal is unlikely to go away soon. And by the time it does, the reputation of a trade that is already lower than that of the politicians now urged to curb it, will be entirely trashed.
To date, much of the coverage that exists seeks to shame and damn the complainants themselves. A troubled, supremely rich prince is an easy target. In an astonishing statement by a man just found by a high court judge to have at least known about hacking, Morgan denied an allegation that had not been made – that he himself had hacked phones – and called Harry someone who “wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him around his California-tanned face”. It was almost Trumpian in its suggestion that even a high court judgment years in the making is fake news. Morgan, whose own often still impressive journalism was itself shortlisted for an award last week, may not have taken the high ground yet presumably feels he has been vindicated by the coverage of this statement.
Despite his dead mother and the fact that he was a teenager when his phone was hacked, Harry is widely reviled. Earlier last week, the organiser of a huge event to laud the best of British journalism reminisced on stage about his run-ins with the “ginger whinger”.
No one’s behaviour is beyond reproach of course but it will be harder for the press to sneer at Baroness Lawrence, a woman who has spent three decades fighting for justice against the racist killers of her son. Next year, she is due to appear in court after alleging unlawful information gathering by newspapers, including those owned by Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail.
No matter the outrage and shoulder shrugging, this verdict is a moment of crisis and it deserves proper consideration, not just more mud slinging from those increasingly drowning in the swamp of public opinion.
But what happens next? Hacked Off, the campaign group that has done much to keep this story alive, believes state regulation and rule of law is the only answer. Yet this argument still feels circular.
British journalism, scurrilous, cut-throat and combative as it is, is also the best means society has of holding the powerful to account, and regulation beyond existing laws that are simply not upheld does not feel the right answer. The industry itself needs leaders prepared to make a united stand, to confess to the wrongdoing and misdeeds of the past and to move forward. Instead of bleating on about self-regulation and organising ever larger money-making awards, the societies that claim to act for British journalism should come together and accept the findings against them and try to salvage their reputations.
Hacking campaigners and others who see no real ethical distinction in the news provided by the legacy media and that produced by AI-powered robots online, will disagree with this. Yet despite its terrible faults and flaws, journalism is still the best way to prevent the abuse of power. After all, it was journalism itself that uncovered the hacking scandal, not a police service set to “carefully consider” Friday’s judgment, nor politicians who rely on newspaper coverage to get elected.
Self-regulation may have failed so far but learning from one’s mistakes never does. To anyone who believes this is hopelessly optimistic, just imagine the past decade if the press had widely admitted that its use of a new and exciting technology was often wrong and harmful in 2011. That rather than being used for proper, public service journalism, it was used to snoop on teenage affairs and family spats.
Phone hacking continues to be a stain on the press at a time when truth and trust are bigger and bigger issues. After all the ethical use of new technologies is hardly going to go away. If the media doesn’t face up to its flaws and then act, it will do a good job of destroying itself.
• Jane Martinson is Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism at City, University of London
