Across the pond

Although it is only February I already have a candidate for the most amazing libel of the year. Amazing because it appeared in Guardian Unlimited, which has a readership of 19 million, enough to make any libel lawyer lick his lips and go for damages of millions. Amazing because it was perpetrated by one of the most experienced journalists in the trade, Roy Greenslade, who knows the libel laws better than most. He has had experience as a reporter, columnist and senior editor on the heavies and the tabloids. He is a former editor of The Daily Mirror, where he worked for the late Robert Maxwell, who knew the libel laws better than most journalists. And he is presently Professor of Journalism at City University, where he debates with colleagues the issues of doing serious journalism, which include, how to  do investigative journalism without landing your newspaper with a million pound libel suit.

The award winning article was posted on Monday 2 February at 11.15 PM.  Here is the headline and the first few paragraphs.

I never thought I would write this – Jonathan Harmsworth (aka)Lord Rothermere IV, is guilty of the most contemptible behaviour. Until now, I’ve always had a high regard for him because he has shown enormous respect for his newspapers and for their journalists.

When I read the article about noon on that day, I was just astounded. It would be risky to liken a school teacher or a social worker to Pontius Pilate and to follow it up by accusing them of ‘contemptible behaviour’. But to make that kind of attack on one of the richest and most powerful men in the country, controlling shareholder of the Daily Mail and many other newspapers was sheer folly. Particularly since Greenslade was writing about one of the most read stories of the day. The sale of the London Evening Standard to a Russian who is a former KGB man.

And there was not a hope in hell of a fair comment defence. There was lots of evidence that Rothermere, far from selling his staff down the river, had done his best to get the best possible redundancy terms for those who would be made redundant. And he is not totally abandoning the staff or the newspaper. He is retaining a 25 per cent shareholding.

So how come we have not been reading about a million dollar libel battle between two of the most powerful groups in British journalism?

Answer number one is that this particular libel resulted in what it is probably the fastest retraction in the history of journalism. At 3.45 PM on that day this post appeared on Greenslade’s blog.

Further to the posting immediately below, Rothermere plays Pontius Pilate, I understand it has raised the temperature at executive level in Kensington.

There followed five points demonstrating that Rothermere had not behaved like Pontius Pilate.

But since this retraction was obviously decided upon by the principals rather than their lawyers, honour was maintained on both sides.

In the penultimate paragraph of the retraction Greenslade wrote this.

My original Pontius posting reflects the feelings of the majority of the staff, though some have also pointed out that Rothermere is far from the only culprit.

That of course is quite defensible. And Greenslade would have been perfectly safe if in his first blog he had said some Evening Standard staff feel that Rothermere is playing Pontius Pilate but others have a different view.

But the retraction must have left some Guardian readers wondering why Rothermere was prepared to settle for this rather than go for hard cash, particularly since the original offending post is still up on Guardian Unlimited and makes far more compulsive reading than the second post.

And the whole affair has left me wondering why no other newspaper has commented on this very interesting matter who has much to do with standards in journalism and with how newspapers are adapting to the age of the blog.

This blog is already long so I will continue later.