Tuesday 5 July 2011

Something we never thought possible: a new low for the British press

British journalism appears to be entering a defining moment in its history as progressively more lurid revelations about journalists hacking individuals’ phones come to light. The most disgraceful story yet surfaced yesterday; that teenage murder victim Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by a PI working for the News of the World. As if this behaviour were not reprehensible enough, said investigator is also alleged to have deleted messages from Milly’s voicemail once he had listened to them, thus preventing it from becoming full and allowing more messages to accumulate. The upshot of this was that the girl’s parents believed their daughter was still alive due to the fact that her phone was in constant use.

This could be seen as something of a low point for our society; MPs and Peers alike are correctly calling for a full public enquiry into the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed our embattled news agencies. Press freedom is clearly a cornerstone of any creditable democracy; it is a key tool in holding the Executive to account. However, the reckless breaches of personal privacy and integrity that have been displayed by the News of the World in this fiasco have marked the transition to a world where the media feel they are above the law.

But how to hold them to account? The problems here are twofold. Firstly it will be difficult to prosecute the holding company, News International, directly for these alleged crimes. Corporate criminal liability is hard to prove, and requires the prosecutor to show a causal link between a “directing mind” within the company and the crime in order for the firm itself to be held criminally liable. This means that it’s more likely they will go after the individuals who authorised or carried out the hacking, and I feel this is a slightly unsatisfactory outcome when there looks to have been a malignant culture of phone hacking throughout the whole organisation.

Secondly, there are questions as to how fair any trial resulting from the police investigations will be. As this scandal is now dominating the front pages thanks to the latest developments (and is likely to for a few days), public anger will soon be at boiling point. Anybody put in the dock in front of a jury, especially over the Dowler hacking allegations, will probably be subject to a hopelessly prejudiced trial. The police have not yet finished their investigations, but those responsible (including Rebekah Brooks, NOTW editor at the time) already will not be able to return to anything like normality for the rest of their lives, regardless of the outcome of any legal proceedings. This public outpour of disgust leads to a real danger of cases being thrown out on legal technicalities, if juries are shown to have been influenced by prior reporting. Ironically, therefore, it could be the press that prevents those responsible from being brought to book when all is said and done.

Worse still, there has also been indication that they may be more shocking allegations to come, although you have to wonder to what further depths this episode can now sink. There is an inescapable feeling that the British press is about to get a very rude awakening when tighter regulations are discussed in Parliament. I feel this is somewhat unfortunate, because it is nearly inevitable that good journalists using sound methods will also suffer as a result of the hacking scandal. However, if those at the top of the tree at failed banks (notably Fred Goodwin at RBS) are fair game when failings are uncovered further down their organisations, the same rules must apply to other industries as well. Brooks’ protestation that, “…it is inconceivable that [she] knew – or worse – sanctioned these appalling allegations…” is therefore utterly irrelevant. She was in charge, she should be held to account. I eagerly await the public enquiry.