Diary
Book Review: News of the World?
19 June, 2008
In 2006 Fleet Street was rocked by the trial at the Old Bailey of Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal correspondent. Goodman was charged with intercepting the voicemail of Princes William and Harry and other members of the Royal Household, contrary to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. He received a 6 month sentence for his actions.
This apparently isolated case summed up so much of what was wrong with tabloid journalism. There was the arrogant disregard for personal privacy, a willingness to break the law to achieve the latest ‘scoop’ and sensational headlines that were designed, in the words of Goodman’s editor, to ‘destroy people’s lives.’
One is left asking when, if ever, this kind of shady subterfuge is justified. The answer, says Peter Burden in News of the World?, depends on whether a story is based on genuine public interest, not merely on what is ‘of interest to the public.’
Part of the author’s disapproval rests on the methods used to trap high profile celebrities. England rugby captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, is a case in point. Two News of the World reporters, pretending to be the executives of the Gillette razor company, offered Dallaglio a six figure contract for using his image for a promotion campaign. But they told him that he had to impress Gillette’s director in a social meeting later that day. After being plied with alcohol, Dallaglio began to make some wild and fantastic claims about taking drugs.
The headlines that followed painted him as a seedy drug dealer and were at wide variance with the facts. However as Burden points out, what is disturbing here is not so much the drug revelations, however unreliable, but the methods used to extract them.
More troubling still is the entrapment used on Joe Yorke, the 10th Earl of Hardwicke. A man of little wealth, Yorke ran a scooter business in London and kept a low profile away from the public gaze. A ‘News of the World’ team visited him and, disguised as businessmen, offered to purchase £100,000 of scooters.
Before the deal was signed, the group had an expensive meal at the Savoy that involved large quantities of drink. There the Earl was asked whether he could obtain cocaine for his customers and, to his shame, Yorke brought some from a local supplier.
Yorke found himself the subject of lurid newspaper headlines and subsequently received a suspended sentence for supplying drugs at Blackfriars Crown Court. For Burden, it is a scandal that the News team was ‘never called to account for aiding and abetting (their) victim in his crime.’ As he rightly says, inciting someone else to commit a crime is in itself a criminal act. That is why this form of entrapment is so questionable and why it must be used with some caution.
Burden gives his readers an engaging, at times shocking, expose of the darker side of tabloid journalism. But at times his tone of self righteous anger seems a trifle exaggerated. While the tabloids revel in bringing down celebrities to boost their circulation, they also expose genuine criminality, hypocrisy and wrongdoing.
The News of the World in particular has been responsible for exposing the affairs of public ‘family’ men including MP Mark Oaten, David Beckham and Mick Jagger. And thanks to its top investigative reporter, Mahzer Mahmoud (aka the Fake Sheikh), we now understand how Sophie, Countess of Wessex, was abusing her position as head of her PR firm, R–JH. Entrapment in the cases of Dallaglio and Yorke may seem unsavoury to some but those who live with publicity should be savvy enough to spot a ‘sting.’
Burden is right to say that journalists should clarify the boundaries of private and public in their work. A private life, including a person’s marriage, sexual relationships and hobbies, should be shielded from public exposure unless laws have been broken or some hypocrisy exposed. And the law should not be broken without an overriding public interest, though as that last term is so unclear, this debate will surely rumble on. Burden’s book is a valuable contribution to that debate.
Helen Steer
London, UK
04/07/2008
I'm really glad you enjoyed this book. I work for the publishers, Eye Books, and wanted to call to your attention Peter's new blog about the issues raised in NOTW. Visit www.peterburden.net and join the discussion on press vs. privacy. Thanks again for reviewing the book.