No doubt you’ll be staying up all night, waiting for the big moment when you can rush out and get your Sunday Sun.
The prospect has got me reflecting again about the events that destroyed the News of the World. And luckily for me, Leveson is taking a break, giving me the chance to catch up with February’s evidence sessions.
I spent this afternoon in the magnificent Mitchell Library, reading through the morning evidence from the 9th February. We heard from the National Union of Journalists, the owner of a photography agency, Heather Mills and a former NotW journalist. This last was my favourite. Ian Edmondson, who used to be a reporter at the NotW, was asked why it should be in the public interest to reveal that two adults were having a consensual affair. He replied that they did so primarily when it was hypocritical. In other words, if someone was presenting a wholesome, family-guy image but was in fact a trouser-dropping womaniser, then it was the solemn duty of a tabloid to expose this fact.
Now I’m not sure that, just because I’ve watched someone on telly a bit, I have any kind of contract with them that allows me to be outraged if they turn out to be not actually very nice. However, perhaps some people feel otherwise. What was interesting was that Edmondson then went on to discuss a 2007 change of policy at the NotW, when a ban on using private detectives was issued.
He explained that in at least one case – that of Derek Webb – the investigator was simply asked to change the name of his company (from Shadow Watch to Derek Webb Media), relinquish his private investigator’s licence and get an NUJ card. So the newspaper went from transparently employing private investigators who were properly licensed to employing pretendy journalists to act as covert private dicks. This is actually a change for the worse, because they have changed the policy but not the practice.
As a slight aside, I am currently studying for a Certificate in PR. I have learned that there are different theoretical approaches that can be taken to PR, with the gold standard being two-way symmetrical PR. This is where your communications with your audiences involve both parties learning about, understanding and ultimately adapting to the other’s needs and expectations.
What the NotW did was the exact opposite. It changed the image that it projected, in order to meet public expectations that they would stop being sneaky judgemental twerps, but then carried on in exactly the same way. Which, if you think about it, is exactly the sort of two-faced behaviour that they claim to have been exposing in celebs and politicians.
I sincerely hope the new soaraway super Scottish Sunday Sun will be above such scullduggery.