Crisis of trust – 3 CHRISTOPHER JAMISON Necessity of virtue


The restoration of confidence in British institutions, from the banks to the press, will not happen if the focus for reform is based only on structural change rather than a revival of trust through a rehabilitation of prudence, temperance, courage and justice


“I


nvestigative journalism is a noble profession but we have to do igno- ble things.” This bald description of the way journalism works


comes from Paul McMullan, former deputy features editor at the News of the World. Having left the paper, he publicly blew the whistle on the claim that phone hacking was confined to one rogue journalist and helped set off a chain of events that have led us to where we are today. But McMullan is far from repentant about this way of working; while acknowledging that hacking the phones of Milly Dowler and soldiers’ families went too far, he nevertheless defends the use of ignoble means in journal- ism. His open defence of this practice helps to clarify the wider issue: do we want a noble profession of journalism that only uses noble means or do we want the status quo? Few of us protested when The Daily


Telegraph paid for documents to expose the misuse of expenses by MPs and most people accepted the paper’s public-interest defence of its action. News media have increasingly


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Facebook, Twitter – plus sophisticated mobile-phone technology had begun to ren- der obsolete the press’s role as providers of the first draft of history. It was time for the national press to clean up its act. Only it didn’t. With a reporter and a private detective jailed, News Corporation, ably assisted by the Metropolitan Police, pro- ceeded to sweep the entire affair not under the carpet but into the hallway and out of the back door. The result: the worst crisis to face print journalism in almost 400 years of mostly admirable muckraking. It is a cliché to argue that the instigators were a few bad apples in a barrel of otherwise palatable fruit, but like most clichés it is true. It is probable that none of the 200 or


so staff thrown out of work as the News of the World ceased publication had anything whatsoever to do with phone hacking. Those that did, at the paper and elsewhere in what is still known as Fleet Street, have that to contemplate as their heads lie


8 | THE TABLET | 16 July 2011


used this argument – that the end justifies the means – but Catholic morality has never accepted that argument.


It also leads people to confuse what is in the public interest with what is of interest to the public. Some journalists use the public- interest argument to justify illicitly obtained information about celebrities as well as politi- cians. This in turn laid the path for journalists to seek illicitly obtained material about any- body in the news. Private individuals experiencing tragedy in the public eye, victims of crime for example, have become indistin- guishable from politicians and celebrities. Journalism itself now joins a long line of institutions, such as Parliament and the Catholic Church, that the news media have recently exposed as engaging in immoral prac- tices, from fiddling expenses to failing to deal adequately with child abuse. Yet journalism has little to lose. The “Trust in the Professions” veracity index run by Ipsos MORI has been asking the public one simple question about a range of professions since 1983: “… would you tell me if you trust them to tell the truth


uneasily on their pillows each night. Meanwhile, the newspaper industry needs to break the habit of disdaining rivals and establish an industry-wide cooperative that will examine practice and malpractice throughout the press and beat Government to the knockout punch by establishing water- tight regulation preventing such a situation occurring ever again. The much-criticised Press Complaints Commission must be reconstructed, giving it the authority and sharp teeth that will bury its reputation of being no more than a feeble lapdog of the papers that fund it. The British Journalism Review has for some years been urging re-examination of self-regulation as part of a concerted effort to re-establish public trust in an industry that has been shamefully letting down – and therefore losing – readers by the kind of behaviour it would rapidly condemn elsewhere.


At its best, British journalism is the best in the world. At its best, the News of the World


or not?” Since 1983, an average of 17 per cent of the public – the lowest share of any of the professions – have trusted journalists to tell the truth, while more than four times that number trust the clergy. The survey’s statistics reveal that as a society we still trust our doctors, judges, teachers and priests and have little confidence in journalists, politicians and business leaders. ’Twas ever thus you might say, but something has been changing in the last 10 years. The recent literature on trust is extensive


and is well documented in Anthony Seldon’s excellent Trust: how we lost it and how to get it back, published last year. Seldon offers a fine analysis of how we arrived at our present “crippling deficit of trust” (to use President


was a formidable newspaper, exposing cor- ruption, penetrating the smokescreens of criminal activity and, yes, advocating the truth. Yet if the newsroom culture that pre- vailed there is not eradicated across the industry, all may be lost. The damage it has done – and perhaps further damage yet to come – may determine that the only place in history for the half-jokingly dubbed “Screws” will be as the newspaper that tar- nished


popular journalism beyond


redemption. The most notable editor of the 23 that headed the News of the World’s editorial oper- ation as time passed was Sir Emsley Carr, who was also chairman of the company when he died in 1941 after half-a-century at the paper’s helm. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a frequent contributor over the years, attended the anniversary celebration at the Dorchester Hotel and it was Churchill who was to say: “When things are not at their best in this country, it is to the journalist people turn for inspiration.”


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