Phone hacking: social media is the new front line

Amid the hilarity contained in the news that the Metropolitan Police had lent Rebekah Brooks a horse, which led to the term #horsegate trending on Twitter, is a more serious point.

Well, actually there are multiple serious points, not least why the Metropolitan Police was lending livestock to the Chief Executive of a company it was supposed to be investigating? However, I intend, for the purpose of this blog, to concentrate on the media aspects.

There has been an orchestrated counter-attack over the last 10 days by the media establishment in the form of Michael Gove, current Education Secretary and former Times columnist; Trevor Kavanagh, former political editor of The Sun and Lord Hunt of the Press Complaints Commission. All have waded into the phone hacking debate and on-going Leveson Inquiry to criticise the Met’ for heavy handedness; accuse politicians of wanting a compliant media and Gove, in particular, accusing Leveson of creating a “chilling atmosphere” for the media to operate in.

I was privileged to be able to listen to Tom Watson MP at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham last week and, in the course of a fascinating evening, he gave some insight into what is going on at the moment. “The danger, “ he said “is not that the public will get bored of phone hacking, but that the media will.”

In other words, there is nothing News International and others in the national media would like more than for phone hacking to go away and leave the status quo, including a rebadged but still compliant Press Complaints Commission, intact. Hence the articles talking about ‘over-reaction’ and the potential ‘threat’ to a free press.

The national media though has form in this area. When the Guardian was the only newspaper running with phone hacking stories prior to the Milly Dowler furore, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, was forced, according to Watson, to call in a favour from the editor of the New York Times to get the paper to investigate phone hacking in the UK. The result was the mammoth investigative reporting piece that ran in the ‘Paper of Record’ in 2010.

Is the same happening again? I believe the public remains interested in this story, aghast at the journalistic tactics used by News International and deeply worried about its relationship with the Met. Don’t believe me? Why else would #horsegate start trending?

If the nationals try to sit on this story again however, Watson plans a different tactic. In his own words, “we’ll use social media to get the story out to the wider public.” In the modern media age the national press is no longer the only source of supply.

PS: Watson remains convinced that “there is a lot more to come” in relation to phone hacking, payment of public officials and computer hacking, as events this week at Leveson have demonstrated. The one to watch though is the Tommy Sheridan perjury conviction appeal. I won’t go into the details here, but Watson is convinced that Sheridan will win his appeal which has potentially serious implications for a certain former News of the World editor who subsequently went on to work as Head of Communications for the current Prime Minister!

A Good Day for Democracy

Yesterday was (another) bad day for Rupert Murdoch and News International but it was a good one for democracy.

Speaker John Bercow (who is rapidly becoming a serious contender for my Man of the Year) has played a blinder in the last few days. In agreeing to an emergency debate on phone-hacking he has placed the House of Commons at the centre of the phone-hacking crisis, which is exactly where it should be.

The previous speaker (Gorbals Mick) would never have dared get on the wrong side of the previous Labour Government in agreeing to a debate, but Bercow has proved he is his own man (one suspects Cameron and the Whips Office are privately furious with him).

I was fortunate enough to be in the car on the way back from a client meeting and able to listen to a packed House during one of its finest hours for many a year. Tom Watson (who for me had the line of the day “News International had entered the criminal underworld”), John Whittingdale, Bob Stewart, Alan Johnson, Nicholas Soames, Yvette Cooper, Simon Hughes and Menzies Campbell all spoke well, eloquently and without shrillness. For the Government, Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, made a series of telling points.

For me the big loser was Cameron (it was a good day as well for Ed Miliband at PMQs which even the Daily Telegraph conceded!). Yes the Prime Minister agreed to a Public Inquiry (perhaps even two) but I think he is still behind the curve on this one (and Peter Oborne explains why in today's Telegraph). My concern when he announced an Inquiry was the potential for it to be very narrow in its terms of reference and without teeth. Lo and behold this morning the Independent reports that the PM and Clegg are at loggerheads over whether a judge should take charge of one or both - Clegg wants the judiciary involved, the PM doesn’t.

Frankly, any Inquiry needs teeth and that means a Judge in charge of it who is able to sanction those who refuse to attend (a tried and tested News International tactic) and then cross-examine under oath with all the consequences that entails.

This whole saga now looks as if it could be the high watermark for Rupert Murdoch’s influence on British public life, just as MPs expenses proved a catalyst for the House of Commons. The crucial issue now is how the Government will wriggle out of its commitment to let News International buy BskyB (and it’s going to have to however much it protests!).

Keep watching!

Full disclosure is the only route now for Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch must have thought he was going to have a good summer. The phone-hacking scandal was dying down, Sienna Miller had been paid off and the Culture Secretary had kindly waved through his takeover of BskyB.

And then we find out that the News of the World (NOTW) had been hacking into Milly Dowler’s phone! There are multiple reasons why this is a horrendous story for News International.

Firstly, from a journalistic ethics point of view, it is hard to scrape any lower than this. Regardless of the potential effect on the family of hacking and, crucially deleting, messages it is highly likely that, at best, the NOTW’s actions diverted police resources and, at worst, de-railed an entire investigation at a crucial time.

Secondly, these disclosures widen the dates of the phone hacking back to 2002. We now have a four-year window when we know, categorically, that phone-hacking was taking place, namely 2002 to 2006 not the two-year window (2004-2006) that News International has claimed all along.

Thirdly, Rebekah Brooks, for the first time, can be said to have been in a position, namely editor where, even if she didn’t know, then she should have known what was going on. Previously, under the two-year 2004 to 2006 window she could claim to have been out of the loop.

Finally, this story now has all the potential to gain a foothold in the public consciousness. Previously, exposure of the NOTW’s antics has been almost exclusively the territory of The Guardian and, latterly, The Telegraph, but with the Prime Minister wading in the whole media corps will stoke a strong sense of revulsion on the part of the public.

What does Rupert Murdoch do now? My own view, and it’s long overdue, is that only full disclosure of all the facts, regardless of how painful it will be, will stem the tide now for News International. That means a full cleansing of the augean stables, sackings, full compliance with the police investigation, attendance and an end to stonewalling at Parliamentary Select Committee enquiries and full co-operation with what is looking increasingly like a full Public Inquiry.

PR statements and front page apologies are not going to cut it anymore. What’s more Rupert is probably going to have to cut Brooks free at some point. This will be painful as she is his direct line into Downing Street, but even Nixon eventually sacked his Chief of Staff HR Haldeman.

The Watergate analogy is not cheap. What started out as a “third rate burglary” in the words of the 37th President, eventually brought him down. Murdoch is probably insulated from that fate but he will be keen to ensure that his family are bomb-proof on this one which probably explains why James Murdoch has recently been moved to New York.

Rebekah though is still in London!