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Leveson: not all journalism bad, just as not all doctors like Shipman

HOMEPAGE NEWS REPORTS INDEX MEDIA NEWS FEBRUARY 2012
Original Source: TELEGRAPH: THURSDAY 09 FEBRUARY 2012 
By Martin Beckford, Home Affairs Editor 
10:00PM GMT 09 Feb 2012
 

 Most journalism in Britain is in the public interest, the judge leading the inquiry into press standards has declared, just as most doctors are not like Harold Shipman.

Lord Justice Leveson defended the majority of British journalism.

 

Lord Justice Leveson sought to reassure the media that he was not putting the whole industry on trial, even though he is focusing on examples of bad behaviour.

 

 

He made the statement on the last of 40 days of evidence about the culture and practices of the press, as the National Union of Journalists read accounts from anonymous journalists of bullying and "dark arts" on Fleet Street.

 

 

After hearing from one reporter who complained that the inquiry was vilifying reporters, the judge said: "I wouldn't want it to be thought that the conclusion of this particular journalist about journalists and journalism in general is one that I share.

 

 

"I have said more than once and I’m happy to repeat that I consider a great majority of the journalism in this country, from all areas, to be very much in the public interest and a very great credit.

 

 

“That’s not to say there isn’t some in respect of whom, given the evidence, I’m likely to take a different view.

 

 

"But I’m keen to make it clear to you that the mere fact that we are focusing on examples of poor behaviour or poor ethical decision-making shouldn't be taken as a view that this is what I think of the world.

 

"When Dame Janet Smith conducted the inquiry into the regulation of the medical profession following the activities of Dr Harold Shipman, nobody suggested that there were other doctors out there who were behaving as he did.

 

“Inevitably an inquiry requires focus on areas that suggest change is necessary but it’s important that context is provided.

 

"If that reassures that particular journalist and indeed everybody with which this inquiry is concerned, then I'm pleased to give that reassurance."

 

However the inquiry on Thursday also heard more evidence of the way in which the parents of Madeleine McCann were manipulated by some in the industry.

 

It was claimed that the editor of the News of the World had ordered his news editor to mislead a spokesman for the missing girl's parents about an intrusive story the tabloid planned to publish.

 

Colin Myler was said to have told Ian Edmondson to have a "woolly" conversation with Clarence Mitchell and not reveal the fact that the newspaper had obtained Kate McCann's private diary.

 

He came up with the ploy to stop the family of the missing girl obtaining an injunction against the story being published, the inquiry into press standards heard.

 

The evidence from Mr Edmondson, the former head of news at the News of the World who is taking his old paper to an employment tribunal, contradicts what Mr Myler has previously said.

 

The former editor has told the Leveson hearing that his paper would never have published the diary of the missing girl's mother if she had not been aware of the plan, and that he thought Mr Edmondson had cleared it with the McCanns' spokesman, Mr Mitchell.

 

Giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice hearing, Mr Edmondson said he had a meeting with Tom Crone, the paper's senior lawyer, who gave a view of the story that "dismayed" his editor.

 

He said the editor told him to phone Mr Mitchell but not to make it clear exactly what the paper had and intended to publish that Sunday - "make it very woolly".

 

This was in case the McCanns "took action" to stop the story coming out, and also as cover in case they complained afterwards.

 

"It would be in order to blame Clarence, that he hadn't acted properly on instruction."

 

Mr Edmondson said he felt uneasy about doing this and suggested that the editor ring Gerry McCann himself, but was overruled.

 

Asked if this had been a one-off incident, the former news editor replied: "I'm sure there were occasions where an editor would order you to deceive someone, yes."

 

Asked by Lord Justice Leveson if he had told his editor that he had informed the McCanns' spokesman about the planned diary story, Mr Edmondson replied: "No."

 

Although there was a "sea change" in the culture at the tabloid after the original phone-hacking trial and the Max Mosley case, Mr Edmondson said bullying still went on.

 

"Everything emanates from the editor," he told the hearing.

 

"It's not a democracy, the newspaper, it's autocratic," he concluded.

 

He said the "majority" of stories in which they used the private investigator Derek Webb to carry out surveillance were about love affairs, and that some were in the public interest.

 

"There have been a number of examples of false public image - someone portrays themselves in the media as wholesome, faithful and would never cheat on their wife but they're doing something else in private."

 

He said politicians would highlight their "family values" in election literature while celebrities would "parade their children" in glossy magazines.

 

Meanwhile the leading PR agent Max Clifford told how he had personally reached a settlement of almost £1million with Rebekah Brooks, another former editor of the News of the World, after finding his phone had been hacked.

 

He said he had been warning clients about what they said on the telephone as far back as Muhammad Ali and Marlon Brando, and was aware that hotel rooms were bugged when stars were staying in them.

 

Mr Clifford said phone hacking was a "cancer" that is now being removed, and that the scandal and the Leveson inquiry have led to some big stories being kept out of the papers.

 

He denied that a story about Cherie Blair's pregnancy had come from phone hacking, and said Peter Mandelson had been very friendly with him when he was helping to expose "Tory sleaze" but didn't hear from him again after the 1997 election.

 

Mr Clifford admitted that it was not true that the comedian Freddie Starr had eaten a hamster, prompting a famous Sun headline in the 1980s, but that his client was about to go on tour so he considered it good publicity.

 

The inquiry, which has now heard from 184 witnesses and taken 42 written submissions, will return after a two-week break to examine the relationship between the media and police.

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