The fall-out of Hackgate

One of the many joys of retiring from the manic intensity of 24 hour news has been to be able  to sit back and watch my former colleagues grind away without myself being stuck inside the same machine. I haven’t given up writing, but when I do hit the keyboard, it in my own time and when the mood stirs me, much like any other ordinary citizen.

Book writing endures with its own demands so if I haven’t got engaged with the wider world since FC Barcelona’s victory at Wembley  it is because I am trying to gather some fresh thoughts on Spanish football for a new tome I hope to have out in time for next year’s European Championship.

But I couldn’t resist returning today to the subject I first blogged on back in January under the heading ‘Journalists: Get Your House in Order’. Given its escalating political dimension, it’s fair to call the subject now ‘Hackgate’.

I was inspired-not for the first time- by the BBC’s Robert Peston who last night informed the world that News International had uncovered emails showing that payments were made  to  the police by the News of the World during the editorship of Andy Coulson. The story, the corporation’s intrepid Business Editor told us, was based on ‘senior executive sources’.

The Peston ‘scoop’ livens up my days of a semi-recluse, by contrast to so much stuff published and aired or conveyed on the net which leaves me feeling cold and negative. It is never boring, and always relevant, taking a matter of public interest to a new significant dimension.  I have known Robert for many years and remain full of regard for him personally and professionally. We became good friends while he was my boss in the prizewinning investigative unit at the FT (since disbanded). As a matter of record, other members of that FT unit have included William Lewis, who went on to senior roles in the media,  including editor-in-chief at the Telegraph media group, before joining News International last September and taking up his current job as group General Manager.

Hand on heart let me tell you that our little , under resourced, but fun band of brothers followed Bernstein and Woodward (of Watergate fame) by the book- we had our deep throats, ranging from secretaries to  senior executives , were happy to receive leaked documents, and cross-checked everything we did. I do recall once making use of a record of telephone numbers dialled by the late Robert Maxwell and viewing a video of his autopsy.  However we didn’t once pay cops for information, let alone hack into someone’s phone.

In his insightful Guardian column today Simon Jenkins argues that ‘Hackgate’ arose out of the competitive pressures that newspapers have had to deal with in the digital age. Perhaps this is an important element to the story. Personally  I remain unconvinced that investigative journalism on the whole has become better in recent years, let alone more ethical. On the contrary, the dubious ‘tools’ of the trade have made journalists less diligent and more susceptible   to cut corners in order to break the story, at  whatever cost.

It is  is clear that if there is a public enquiry into this whole shoddy affair it should not only examine the conduct of the media, but also its relationship with the police, not least those officers my good friend Peston reported last night had take a questionable  shilling or two for a practice now considered illegal.

As I wrote last January: “Any future public enquiry into the hacking saga may perhaps throw up other uncomfortable insights into dubious journalistic modi operandi such as the close relationship some journalists have with certain police officers or the unspoken slush funds made available to buy stories.”

Let’s not kid ourselves. The ramifications of ‘Hackgate’ goes deep and wider than the alleged evils of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.