Politics: Media Select committee's meeting with Nick Davies

Yesterday, I sat in on the Media Select Committee's meeting with Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News, and Roy Greenslade, a Guardian media commentator, having learned about it from Ben Goldacre's Twitterings (@bengoldacre). The meeting has been covered by a Guardian reporter here, but I thought I would put some of the more interesting quotes here.

Paul Dacre is going before the committee tomorrow, and barring unforeseen circumstances, I intend to be there, and should post the results here forthwith.

NB: Very few (if any) of these quotes will be verbatim what the people said, since I can't write in shorthand, but they do represent the general gist of what they were saying.

On libel laws:
Libel law in England and Wales is a means for one to seek redress if a statement has been published which seriously damages the reputation of the victim, without justification (ie it's not true). Obviously this relates to the press since they often print untruths (intentionally or otherwise), and people's reputations or businesses may be irreparably wrecked. However, increasingly, the libel laws in England have been increasingly been used (abused?) by powerful figures to prevent journalists publishing damaging material, which could be considered to be in the public interest, and the heavily punative damages awarded if the figure wins means that newspapers have been reluctant to run with stories for fear of falling foul of a libel writ.
The courts have tried to balance this dilemma over the years, with varying results. The current situation is that journalists can claim the "Reynold's Defence" - basically if they show that they acted responsibly and gave the offended party a right of a reply in a story that is in the public interest, they can be exempt from liability. It is named after the former Irish Prime Minister, Albert Reynolds, in his case against the Times (Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd and Others [1999] UKHL 45).
Mike Hall MP asked the specific question as to whether libel laws were still relevant, to which Nick Davies' view was an unequivocal no. His reasoning was that libel writs don't write wrongs as much as they could, and access to justice is still too expensive for the lay person (a term used frequently during the proceedings to describe a person who is not a member of the press, and would not be considered a 'public figure'). Roy Greenslade wasn't so entrenched, although he did say that the libel laws in England and Wales need serious reform.

Nick Davies: 'The Reynolds defence gives licence to print malicious falsehoods, as long as the article prints a denial by the other side.' Davies went to recount a story about how after he published his book, a journalist contacted him about a story they were running concerning the sexual conduct of his wife. The journalist was aware that the story was untrue, but were running with it anyway, with an inclusion of his denial. It was only after Davies made it clear he would go public with this behaviour that the journalist dropped the story. Davies has never been married.

Roy Greenslade: 'I am constantly under threat from publishers and editors of libel action. Journalists are the prime users of the law that they rail against.'

RG: 'Prior notification [to the other side] gives spin doctors the opportunity to sabotage the story, by giving a press conference softening the impact of the story, and denying the journalist their scoop.' The example given here was when ITN had uncovered evidence of the extent of Charles Kennedy's drinking issues. His PRs set up a press conference at around 4pm (two hours before ITN's main evening news broadcast) to change the story from 'I've got a drinking problem,' to 'I'm on top of a drinking problem'. Both Davies and Greenslade commented that prior notification can also be used to blackmail or bribe the subject of the report when the story needs more substance. For example, they can get an exclusive interview from the subject of the story, if they leave out more lurid elements of the story. Frank Bough's name was mentioned as an example of how this was done to the detriment of the subject.

RG: 'When the Guardian was investigating Tesco's overseas tax structures, they tried to do the responsible thing and give Tesco a right of reply. Tesco responded by suing the Guardian for malicious falsehood for getting the exact details of a complex case wrong.' This case was criticised as 'bullying' by the panel, especially since Private Eye was able to provide evidence that tax evasion was taking place, just not in the way the Guardian had alleged. Greenslade said that 'corporations should not be allowed to sue for libel.'

ND: 'The newspapers lawayers, who vet the stories, often play it safe, and advise not running stories - this is the real chilling effect [on free speech].' ... 'Even in a paper such as the Guardian, the lawyers will ask, 'does this person have money,' because if he does, he will sue.'

Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs) are a device in law to provide greater access to justice to those who can't afford it. They are commonly known as 'no win, no fee' agreements, whereby the lawyer will not accept payment if they don't win any compensation for the client. To offset this rick (beyond the practice of not taking on risky cases), is that they increase their legal fees, usually by about 100%, which is recoverable from the losing side.

RG: 'Anecdotally, CFAs have been used by rich clients to rachet up the legal fees for the newspapers,' Often, if legal fees increase too rapidly, one side will settle in order to cut their losses, this is often the result in libel cases in journalism.

On the PCC:
The Press Complaints Commission was widely condemned on all quarters, with Greenslade decided that it was useful to have editors on its panel, whereas Davies said there shouldn't be.

ND: 'Having editors on the PCC is akin to having a jury of twelve people, where five of them share commercial and common interests with the accused.'...'The PCC is not sufficiently independent enough to be functional, it is not on the side of readers, it has repeatedly shown its function to be the defence of bad journalistic practice.'

RG: 'The PCC is not proactive enough. The feeding frenzy of the McCanns, and Robert Murat was due to the fact that the PCC was not proactive enough.'

ND: 'The PCC is so weak, it damages the notion of self-regulation.' Davies did go on to say that under its new leadership, the PCC should be given another chance, if only to prevent constant court proceedings for press wrongdoing.

Other Miscellaneous quotes:

ND: 'Journalists told me that they knew that the story of their being bones hidden under a foster home in Jersey was not true, but ran with the crowd anyway, or else they would eventually be marginalised within their newsrooms.'

RG: 'If one paper runs with something, such as revealing where Elizabeth Fritzl was now residing, the others feel that they must catch, or get new details, creating a vicious cycle. The Independent used the defence that the information was already in the public domain, so they published it, rather than criticising the peper for revealing it in the first place.'
Committee member: 'The Austrians called the British press, "Satan's reporters."

RG: 'There is virtue in the probing style of UK journalism, but the fearlessness that drives it should not be turned into recklessness.'

ND: The university courses are more concerned with getting their graduate jobs, so they teach their students how to recreate press releases, as the papers want them to be. There are only about four or five good journalism courses in the UK.

ND: The Courts have a history of being hostile to good journalism. We are suspicious of them.

ND: Paul Dacre has lobbied Gordon Brown to not have prison sentences for breaches of the Data Protection Act, because he wants to plunder people's medical records. However, if he was in hospital with a heart condition, a message would go around Fleet Street to not report it.

RG: Competition should be a good thing, but the bad result of competition in the UK press has resulted in increasingly bad behaviour.