Maddy McCann and News of the World stoke MPs’ anger
By Ian Dunt
The reporting of Maddy McCann’s disappearance and the News of the World phone tapping scandal reveal the decline of press standards, MPs have found.
In a wide-ranging and damning report on media freedom and responsibility, MPs on the culture, media and sport committee found both cases highlighted a decline in standards and the failure of self-regulation.
In the Maddy McCann case, MPs found “competitive and commercial factors” led to an “inexcusable lowering of press standards”.
A lack of official information made reporting more difficult, leading many newspapers to produce pieces with little to no factual content.
MPs considered the McCann example a case in which “self-regulation signally failed”.
They reserved particular scorn for the News of the World, which managed to emerge from a potentially ruinous phone-tapping scandal last year almost entirely unscathed.
A Guardian piece revealed a series of allegations about the widespread culture of phone-tapping at the newspaper, claiming this was far more pervasive than had been thought when Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, the only two casualties of the affair, went to prison.
In a passage dripping with sarcasm, the committee said the number of victims of the illegal phone hacking will never be known, not least because of the “collective amnesia” at the newspaper group.
The report concluded that the newspaper group did not carry out a full and rigorous inquiry, as it assured the committee and the Press Complaints Commission it had.
“The circumstances of pay-offs made to Messrs Goodman and Mulcaire, as well as the civil settlements with Gordon Taylor and others, also invite the conclusion that silence was effectively bought,” it suggested.
John Whittingdale, chair of the committee, said: “We were very concerned at evidence which has emerged suggesting that the phone hacking which took place at the News of the World around five years ago was not just limited to one rogue reporter.
“This contradicts the assurances we were previously given and has led us to conclude that it is inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World knew.
“While we are encouraged by assurances that such practices are now regarded as wholly unacceptable, this episode has done substantial damage to the newspaper industry as a whole,” he added.
“We were also concerned at the reluctance of witnesses from News International to provide the detailed information that we sought and the collective amnesia that afflicted them in relation to these matters.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the report should cause the police to seriously consider their lack of inaction after the Guardian story broke.
“This report blows a gaping hole in the News of the World’s line that only a sole rogue reporter was involved in illegal hacking of phones, and reveals enormous worries about the feeble response of the Metropolitan police in investigating what was clearly widespread illegal activity,” he said.
The two affairs appear to have prompted a firm response from the committee. It called for the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), whose investigation after the scandal saw many commentators berate it as toothless, to be entirely reformed and given new powers.
MPs demanded it be renamed the Press Complaints and Standards Commission and have a deputy director appointed for standards.
It should be given the power to fine its members where they breach the code of practise and, in serious cases, to be suspended from printing for one issue.
To incentivise membership of the commission, the government should allow its members to reduce the cost burden of defamation cases by allowing the public an alternative route of redress through the PCC, it proposed.
