The Guardian reported over the weekend that the owner of the Daily Telegraph is understood to have called in a private investigative firm look at the leak of Vince Cable’s comments about Rupert Murdoch to the BBC.
The comments, which the Telegraph had decided not to include in its report, were published by the BBC’s business editor, Robert Peston, on his blog.
Telegraph Media Group said today that it does not comment on internal security matters.
Earlier this month, Journalism.co.uk reported that the Observer would be seeking to distinguish between the case of ‘Operation Motorman’ and the phone-hacking scandal, after ‘confusion in the media’.
Operation Motorman was an investigation launched by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2003 into the use of private investigators to obtain personal information, claiming that evidence documented “literally thousands of section 55 offences” (Data Protection Act) with more than 300 journalists identified.
At the time the Observer released a statement to say that yes, the Observer has used the services of an outside agency in the past, “and while there were strong public interest defences for most of those cases, it is possible that some of the inquiries did not sufficiently fit that criteria”. As a result editor Roger Alton said action was taken to ensure “no inquiries will be made through outside agencies unless I believe that there is a compelling public interest to do so”.
However, following recent events in the separate phone-hacking investigation and speculation surrounding this, the Observer this weekend published a piece from its readers’ editor Stephen Pritchard, reinforcing its position that there “has never been any suggestion, let alone evidence, that the Observer has undertaken, commissioned or in any way been involved,” in phone hacking.
In relation to the issues surrounding Operation Motorman, current editor John Mulholland is said to have confirmed that Alton’s previous instruction “stands today”. Pritchard also outlines the sorts of stories journalists were using the services in relation to:
Former reporters told me they were working to uncover illegal arms deals, drugs trafficking, Islamic terrorism and political intrigue; stories they believed to be in the public interest that went on to appear in the paper. They said that the names that turn up in [Steve] Whittamore‘s register were people who would be, in the main, hard to find; individuals who would not make themselves available for interview. They felt it was right that they should attempt to find those people and put allegations to them. Sometimes, they would be up against tight deadlines and would use Whittamore because he was quicker at finding phone numbers or converting numbers into subscriber addresses.
Next month a team of journalists in Hertfordshire will come together to produce a one-off tabloid local newspaper called Newsday: The Vocal Local. The project aims to “revitalise” local news by adopting a typical ‘hyperlocal’ approach, focusing on getting out into the community and sourcing stories from the targeted audience.
The person at the heart of the project is Kate Dobinson, a freelance journalist and English literature graduate. After working on her local newspaper she said she recognised the value of being a ‘roving reporter’ but at the same time felt time and resource limitations in local newsrooms hinders the extent to which this can take place.
So she came up with a plan which she hoped would “revitalise local news”, rounding up a team of journalists to work as reporters, designers and editors to produce a one-off publication with a focus on community.
She told Journalism.co.uk a bit more about the project:
I was working on my local newspaper and my brief from the editor was: get out. Get out and talk to people, be nosy, ask questions, don’t come back until you have stories that we’re too bogged down with deadlines to find. My method wasn’t intelligent; all I did was pop into the florist/market/car boot (sale) ask people if they had any news and proffer slightly stale hob nobs in return. With a bit of prompting (most people had great newsworthy stuff but didn’t actually know it was newsworthy) I got a bunch of yarns and ended up being kicked out of the office permanently to keep it up.
Obviously it isn’t a realistic option for a small newsroom skint on time and manpower to traipse around all day for ideas that only might pay off. But it did get me thinking that the financial strait-jacket that many poor locals are laced in is slowly hacking at the idea of the ‘roving reporter’, making it difficult to truly capitalise on a connection with the community and to find imaginative content that readers will want to buy week in week out. It made me want to experiment with and revitalise local news in my area. Finding stories on my own made me realise that I didn’t need a newsroom and a coaster to get a paper out; maybe I could do it with a few more reporters, some raw skills and a bit more coffee.
After advertising for a team of writers and designers more than 25 people signed up to be involved in the project, while West Herts College volunteered some of their media students and facilities to help with production, she said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists claims to have documented at least 141 “direct attacks” on journalists and news facilities in Egypt since 30 January.
The CPJ, which says it is also investigating “numerous other reports” has compiled a link list of its daily coverage of the anti-government protests detailing the cases.
“The authorities say everything is being done to protect journalists, but reports of harassment and intimidation continue,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Shifting from a tactic of outright violence against journalists to one of erecting bureaucratic obstacles is not fooling anybody. Cairo must allow all journalists to report unhindered.”
The recent protests in Egypt have been recorded as the “biggest international story in a single week” in the past four years by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index.
According to the Pew report the stories accounted for 20 per cent of the ‘newshole’ – the space devoted to each subject in print and online and time on radio and TV – from 24 to 30 January and then 56 per cent from 31 January to 6 February . This went beyond any coverage of the Iraq war, the Haiti earthquake and the conflict in Afghanistan, the report adds.
One reason for the extraordinary level of coverage thus far has been journalists’ access to the scenes of protests and violence in Egypt that they have transmitted to US news audiences. That has been borne out by this finding from the News Coverage Index: In the past two weeks―from January 24-February 6―almost half (45 per cent) of all the stories about the unrest studied by PEJ have been reported directly from Egypt and neighboring countries.
In 2006 the Information Commissioner’s Office published a report, ‘What price privacy”, which along with other cases shone a light on the ‘Operation Motorman’ investigation into the use of a private investigator by the media to obtain personal information, which according to the report was often through a deception process referred to as ‘blagging’.
Journalists have a voracious demand for personal information, especially at the popular end of the market. The more information they reveal about celebrities or anyone remotely in the public eye, the more newspapers they can sell. The primary documentation seized at the premises of the Hampshire private detective consisted largely of correspondence (reports, invoices, settlement of bills etc) between the detective and many of the better-known national newspapers – tabloid and broadsheet – and magazines. In almost every case, the individual journalist seeking the information was named, and invoices and payment slips identified leading media groups. Some of these even referred explicitly to ‘confidential information’.
The report, which also includes extracts from a ‘blaggers’ training manual, claimed that the evidence documented “literally thousands of section 55 offences” (Data Protection Act) with more than 300 journalists identified.
Later that year, in a follow-up entitled ‘What price privacy now’, the Commissioner reported on the response of various national organisations to the earlier publication. In the report he also decided, in the public interest, to list the publications identified from documentation seized during the Operation Motorman investigation, the number of transactions they were positively identified as being involved in and how many of their journalists (or clients acting on their behalf) were using these services.
It should be noted that while the table is dominated by tabloid publications they are far from being alone. Certain magazines feature prominently and some broadsheets are also represented. The Commissioner recognises that some of these cases may have raised public interest or similar issues, but also notes that no such defences were raised by any of those interviewed and prosecuted in Operation Motorman.
Top of the list was the Daily Mail, with a reported 952 transactions and 58 journalists/clients, closely followed by the Sunday People with 802 transactions and 50 journalists/clients. Broadsheets also appeared, the Observer with 103 transactions and 4 journalists/clients and the Sunday Times with 52 transactions and seven journalists/clients. No newspaper was ever prosecuted, according to reports.
At the time the Observer, owned by the Guardian Media Group, issued a statement from its editor Roger Alton, citing a defence in most cases.
Yes, the Observer has used the services of an outside agency in the past, and while there were strong public interest defences for most of those cases, it is possible that some of the inquiries did not sufficiently fit that criteria. As a result, I have now taken steps to ensure that no inquiries will be made through outside agencies unless I believe that there is a compelling public interest to do so.
This week, Journalism.co.uk learned that the Observer is now seeking to clarify the distinction between this case and the phone-hacking scandal which saw a News of the World journalist and private investigator jailed in 2007. According to the paper, there has been some “confusion” within the media between the two cases and the involvement of the Observer.
As a result the Observer’s readers’ editor Stephen Pritchard is now preparing a piece for the paper looking back at the Operation Motorman events and explaining the steps taken by the Observer following the report. This week a spokesman for the Observer told Journalism.co.uk:
The ICO report did not concern hacking (a criminal offence without any public interest defence in law), but instead concentrated on potential offences under the data protection act to which there is a public interest defence.
Given the confusion the readers’ editor of the Observer is preparing a piece to clarify this distinction, recap what happened at the time, and explain the steps taken by the Observer following the ICO report.
None of the many newspapers and magazines named in the report were prosecuted. However, Roger Alton, editor of the Observer at the time, issued a public statement making clear that it was not acceptable to use external agencies unless there was ‘a compelling public interest to do so’. The company also subsequently launched a series of training sessions for staff on the implications of the Data Protection Act.
There are many questions related to Operation Motorman and the Observer that people still want answered. This letter from one concerned reader, sent to the readers’ editor last week, raises some of those, such as were the journalists involved suspended or are they still employed by the Observer or the Guardian?
It’s now a case of waiting to see if these will be answered in the Observer’s column, expected in the next couple of weeks.
We’ve set up this Storify post to keep track of some of the Western journalists in Egypt via their Twitter accounts.
We missed this report being published at the end of last week, but it follows a meeting of members at the Frontline Club to discuss founder Vaughan Smith’s support of Julian Assange and Smith’s decision to give Assange a bail address.
At the meeting, which chair John Owen described as “unprecendented”, it’s reported that there was widespread support for Vaughan’s stance, although some concern was raised about his perceived role in the case.
The main areas of concern were that Vaughan was seen as a spokesman for WikiLeaks and that the distinction between his personal support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and the Club could get lost in the reporting of the story.
It was suggested that the Trust should take on the responsibility of the PR and appoint a spokesperson to relieve Vaughan of what had become an “impossible task” of dealing with the press.
While there was a great deal of support expressed for the WikiLeaks operation, some journalists were concerned that the Club should be impartial and not take on a campaigning or advocacy position.
Several newspapers published by Australia’s News Limited brought out “rare” afternoon editions today in an attempt to keep print readers updated after Cyclone Yasi hit last night, according to a report by mumbrella.com.
A special edition of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph is available in the Sydney CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta and at airports with nine pages of new coverage along with updates on the situation in Egypt and the arrest of Bulldogs player Ryan Tandy.
According to mumbrella.com’s report the Australian also published a special lunchtime edition which was distributed in Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Earlier this month it was alleged that Apple had told a number of European newspapers that soon they would not be able to offer print subscribers free access to iPad editions through the App Store.
According to this report by Apple Insider, Apple is keen to make the change to prevent publishers cutting it out of the 30 per cent fee it requires.
The story developed this week as reports such as this one by the Financial Times claimed that Apple had told book publishers customers could be given the ability to purchase books outside of an app as long as the same option is also available to customers from via an in-app purchase.
It’s not yet been confirmed whether this will apply to news media apps as well, although some reports are claiming it will.
Last week the International Newsmedia Marketing Association announced that it will hold an invitation-only roundtable on tablet subscriptions at the Park Inn Hotel at Heathrow Airport on 17 February, claiming that “Apple is changing the rules”. The roundtable will analyse Apple’s new plan, discuss ways to work with it and look at alternative subscription models.
Today paidContent reported that publishers in Belgium and France are taking the matter to the authorities, “making requests that Apple be investigated by antitrust watchdogs”.
Apple has not responded to requests for comment but paidContent points out that the situation may be made clearer later today when Apple’s VP of internet services Eddy Cue joins Rupert Murdoch to launch News Corp’s new iPad newspaper, the Daily.