Phone-hacking justice doesn’t have to equal journalists in jail

Peter Preston
The Observer

An Istanbul columnist may be too bold to draw parallels between Turkish reporters in prison and those arrested for hacking in the UK, but his analogy still has resonance for the Leveson inquiry

Lord Justice Leveson, centre, at the start of his inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. Photograph: Getty

Here’s an honest mistake from far away that sends chill winds blowing up Fleet Street and rattling the door on Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry. A good and respected Turkish columnist – Yavuz Baydar, who writes for Today’s Zaman in Istanbul – is fighting back against human rights judges in Strasbourg who say that Ankara has “the worst press freedom record” in the 47-nation strong Council of Europe. But 64 journalists in prison, maybe even 72 … who can argue with that? Anyone with a wider perspective, Baydar declares.

“There are, at the moment, around 16 journalists in jail in Great Britain, under arrest pending trial in the so-called News of the World phone-hacking scandal. They are accused of breaching the law, and their conduct is under scrutiny by ethical rules as well. But some claim no wrongdoing, saying this was journalism in the public interest. So far I haven’t seen any protest from their colleagues that ‘the freedom of the media in the UK is in danger’.”

Watch this space, Yavuz. But grow reflective while you do. How many Operation Weeting arrests – present and future – do journalists and politicians, trawling through the dead ashes of the News of the World, actually want turned to jail sentences?

If a whole newsroom was hacking, does that mean 28 reporters going down? If Richard Thomas, the former information commissioner, had got his wish and long since persuaded the government to make the blagging of information a custodial offence under the Data Protection Act, would Fleet Street – or any other street where media men and women live – have been dancing with glee? A month in the clink for excavating ex-directory telephone numbers? Even Turkey might raise an eyebrow over that.

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