Dispatch — September / October 2007
Private Matters
A new push to rein in the tabloids has British reporters on edge
By Mariah BlakeOne of the biggest scandals to engulf the British press since princess Diana’s death began with a trivial bit of gossip about her eldest son. In late 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid News of the World ran a story about Prince William’s plans to meet with Tom Bradby, a well-known television reporter and trusted confidant of the prince’s. Bradby was supposed to help William patch together a film from footage William had collected during his gap year, between high school and university, when he camped in a hammock in the jungles of Belize and lived on army rations. Only four people—Bradby, William, and two royal aides—were supposed to know about the plan, so seeing it splashed across News of the World’s pages raised some troubling questions.
The day after the story appeared, Bradby turned up at the Prince of Wales’s palace, portable editing gear tucked under his arm, and was ushered into William’s private chambers. The two discussed the leak and how it might have happened. Bradby shared his suspicions, based on some “jaw-dropping” things he had learned while working as a royal reporter a few years earlier. “At the time,” he recalls, “I had heard that people were regularly breaking into voicemails. The practice was colossally widespread, and I suggested that might be what was going on.”
After the meeting, the royal family enlisted a retired British spy to investigate Bradby’s hunch, then called in Scotland Yard, which assigned an antiterrorism team to the case. Months later, in August 2006, police arrested Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal editor, and a private investigator named Glenn “Trigger” Mulcaire. The pair was accused of hacking into the voicemail of top royal aides more than six hundred times. Mulcaire, who had worked at the paper since 1997 and was paid at least $200,000 a year, was also suspected of eavesdropping on messages intended for a number of politicians and celebrities, among them former Home Secretary David Blunkett and supermodel Elle MacPherson.
Those revelations quickly mushroomed into a national scandal that would stretch over months and stir a deep reservoir of public outrage over the excesses of the tabloids. It also rekindled debate over an issue that has vexed Britain for decades—how to balance privacy rights against press freedom. Large swaths of the public have begun to feel that something needs to be done to keep the tabloids from trampling on private lives, and some new measures are already in the works. Meanwhile, many journalists fear that efforts to rein in gossip mongering could hamper legitimate reporting on public figures. “There are genuine abuses going on, and it is making things more difficult for the rest of us,” says David Leigh, the Guardian’s editor for investigations. “The tabloids are threatening to poison the well for all journalists.”
Shortly after Goodman’s arrest, Britain’s Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, whose job it is to protect private information, heaped more shame on the tabloids by publishing a follow-up to a May report suggesting that journalists were “driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information.” It focused largely on a corrupt private detective who bribed officials to get bank records, medical files, and other information. His client roster consisted almost entirely of reporters.
In fact, at least 305 journalists from thirty-one publications had hired him more than thirteen thousand times over a three-year period. Payments for these services stacked up to around $2 million. The worst offender was the Daily Mail, where fifty-eight reporters had enlisted his services, but most major British tabloids were on the list, along with a few broadsheets and magazines. Mick Gorrill, the head of enforcement in Thomas’s office, says the case may be just the beginning. “We believe these tactics are extremely widespread,” he told me.
It was against this backdrop that Clive Goodman appeared at London’s criminal courthouse, the Old Bailey, for his sentencing hearing on January 26, 2007. The judge, Justice Gross, chided him for his “grave, inexcusable, and illegal invasion of privacy,” and sentenced him to four months in prison. It was the first time in more than forty years that a British journalist had been jailed. The verdict shocked the British press and touched off a shake-up at News of the World. Within hours, the paper’s editor, Andy Coulson—who was reportedly destined for great things in Murdoch’s empire—announced his resignation.
The fallout for the rest of the press was just beginning. For months before the Goodman scandal broke, Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, had been pushing for tougher penalties for violations of the Data Protection Act, which is designed to safeguard sensitive personal information. Shortly after Goodman was sentenced, the government moved to adopt Thomas’s plan. Now, those who illegally access private data could face up to two years in prison instead of a simple fine. Gorrill says the tougher penalty was the only way to rein in the growing black market on private information.
But many journalists worry that the threat of jail time could hamper serious investigative reporting, especially given the law’s broad scope. Not only does it safeguard sensitive personal records, like bank statements and medical files (particularly in their electronic forms), it also protects more basic information, like unlisted phone numbers and vehicle-registration data. There is a built-in exception for stories that serve the public interest, but reporters have to be reasonably certain beforehand that the information they seek will reveal official misdeeds, a virtual impossibility for investigative journalists, who often dig based on hunches.
The stiffer penalties, mixed with tougher enforcement, have also raised the specter of journalists being forced to reveal sources of sensitive information, even if they are ultimately cleared of wrongdoing. “That thought alone is having a chilling effect, not only on reporting, but on the willingness of whistleblowers to step forward,” says Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.
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