The Great Debate UK
Whistleblowers need protection
- Gavin MacFadyen is Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit training charity, who advance education for, and public understanding of investigative journalism. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Whether the press, or even the police (if Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin has his way) succeed in unmasking the person who leaked MPs’ expense details to the Daily Telegraph, one thing which remains troubling in this story is the alleged exchange of money for those 1.2 million-or-so damning documents.
Journalist Heather Brooke, whose five-year struggle to obtain details on MPs’ expenses set this story running in the first place, described last week a “black market” created by the parliamentary culture of secrecy around this topic.
Disclosure of these documents has been delayed and delayed under Freedom of Information legislation, and was due for publication in late summer (albeit in redacted, and it is argued, selective form), before the Telegraph swooped.
There has been some speculation about how much (if anything) a story like this might have cost the newspaper but in any case, this story isn’t taking place in a vacuum.
Across the Web there are no shortage of Websites soliciting material from those who would blow the whistle on wrongdoing – who offer to line the pockets handsomely, should an exclusive be considered sufficiently newsworthy.
Regardless of the ethical rights and wrongs of “cheque-book journalism”, the existence of a black market in public interest information is a function of the lack of adequate legal protection for whistleblowers in the UK. And this in turn does violence to our civic life, and the fundamental principals of our democracy.
Telegraph tactics on MP expenses enhance democracy
- John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship and former editor of the New Statesman. His new book, “Freedom for Sale”, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Squalid is the adjective that best describes the approach of our not-so-honourable members of parliament to their own expenses. But what about the journalism that has helped to all but destroy what remaining trust the public had in its elected representatives?
Some legitimate questions have been raised about the tactics deployed by the Daily Telegraph in buying in the information, apparently a CD from a mole inside parliament which had been touted around newspapers for months.
Cheque-book journalism is a time-honoured tactic of British newspapers, often revealing tawdry stories about celebrities that have little to do with free expression and more to do with prying into people’s private lives.
But in this instance, the Telegraph has surely acted in the public interest. Indeed, all the facts surrounding the case suggest that the newspaper has – far from undermining our democracy – helped to enhance it.
MPs, it should be remembered, fought tooth and nail to try to exempt themselves and the details of their 88-pence bath plugs and black glittered toilet seats from the public gaze. When they forced to publish the information, they sought to time the release to coincide with the summer holidays. Then, instead of dealing with the issues in hand, the stock response of some parliamentary authorities was to call in the police to investigate wrongdoing and to attempt to change the rules by ensuring the expenses will not be published in future.
My critique of the British press is somewhat different to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s who, in one of his valedictory speeches as prime minister, described the British media as “feral”. Certainly there are many valid concerns around standards, around accountability (journalists’ expenses chits would also make for amusing reading), and around attention spans in the 24-hour news culture. But by far the worst trait of the modern-day profession is a lack of fearless investigation.
Surely all they’ve actually done is prove how easy it is to make mistakes in going through these accounts? Their assumption that every item on a till receipt submitted in support of a claim actually forms part of the claim is a schoolboy howler of the worst kind. Or maybe it just reflects the reality of how journalists submit expenses claims!
And the hoity-toity “I never discuss sources and I’m sure you as a journalist appreciate that” from their editors in every interview – doesn’t that just reveal that they suffer from the selfsame affliction of which they’re accusing politicians, that the rules by which the general public lives don’t apply to them?
