• News International chief agreed with £700,000 settlement
• Andy Coulson admits ‘things went badly wrong’ at NoW
• Coulson also says he has evidence his own phone was hacked
James Murdoch, the News International executive chairman, was aware of Gordon Taylor’s breach of privacy claim and agreed with the decision to settle for £700,000 after a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into the Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive’s phone, MPs were told today.
The News International head of legal, Tom Crone, and the News of the World editor, Colin Myler, took the settlement figure to Murdoch for his approval, MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee hearing into privacy, press standards and libel heard.
Myler told the committee that Crone – who was also giving evidence to MPs today – advised him after taking legal advice that News International should settle the case brought by Taylor, whose phone messages were hacked into by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Mulcaire was sent to prison for six months in January 2007 for hacking into the messages of Taylor and other public figures, including Elle Macpherson, and members of the royal household.
Murdoch, also the chairman and chief executive of News International parent company News Corporation’s businesses in Europe and Asia, was told about the Taylor claim, and Crone continued negotiations with the PFA boss until a settlement was agreed last year, Myler told the committee.
“James Murdoch was apprised of the situation and agreed with our recommendation to settle,” Myler said. “It was an agreed collective decision.”
The Labour MP Tom Watson, a member of the select committee, asked Myler and Crone when they told the News Corporation chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, about the payment, but his question was unanswered.
Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, also appeared before the committee today and admitted to MPs that “things went badly wrong” during his editorship at the tabloid, which ended in his resignation over the jailing of the paper’s royal editor for illegal phone hacking.
Coulson said he did not condone phone hacking and had “no recollection” of it taking place while he was News of the World editor. He also that rejected MPs’ suggestions that the paper had a systemic culture of phone hacking.
The former editor, now the Conservative party’s director of communications, announced his resignation from the paper in January 2007 when royal reporter Clive Goodman went to jail for four months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to intercept communications, which involved hacking into the phone messages of members of the royal household. Goodman was jailed at the same time as Mulcaire.
Coulson told the MPs that “mistakes were made” during his four years as editor. “Things went badly wrong under my editorship of the News of the World, I deeply regret it,” he added.
“When I resigned I gave up a 20-year career with News International and everything that I had worked towards since I was 18. I have to accept that mistakes were made and I have to accept that the system could have been better,” Coulson added.
But he said that Goodman’s extra cash payments to Mulcaire were unknown to him. “Goodman deceived the managing editor’s office and deceived me,” Coulson told MPs.
He added that his initial reaction when he learned of the payments was one of surprise and anger.
Coulson said he was not aware that any other journalists from the paper were involved in phone hacking with Mulcaire while he was editor.
“As far as I am aware there is no evidence linking the non-royal phone hacking by Glenn Mulcaire with any member of the News of the World staff,” Coulson added.
However, Coulson also said he had evidence that his own phone was hacked by Mulcaire. He added that that he had recently been contacted by a Scotland Yard detective.
“There strong evidence to suggest that my phone was hacked,” Coulson said. “There is more evidence to suggest that my phone was hacked than John Prescott.”
Coulson’s revelation comes two years after MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed that Rebekah Wade, then Sun editor and News International chief executive designate, had her own phone hacked into by Mulcaire.
He was also asked about the settlement with Taylor. “I never asked for a Gordon Taylor story, I never commissioned an Gordon Taylor story, I never read a Gordon Taylor story, I never published a Gordon Taylor story,” he replied. “With all respect to Gordon Taylor, he is hardly a household name.”
Coulson said he would regularly spend a five-figure sum on a picture or a story so that Mulcaire’s £100,000-a-year contract “did not stand out”. “The idea that I would micromanage the budget, it just wasn’t the case,” he added.
He told MPs that News of the World staff were expected to obey the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.
“My instructions to the staff were clear – we did not use subterfuge of any kind unless there was a clear public interest in doing so. They were to work within the PCC code at all times,” Coulson said.
He later said that he did not think that phone hacking was in the public interest.
Coulson added that he did give senior reporters free rein and that as the News of the World published more than 100 stories a week he was not involved in all of them but focused on the first 15 pages of the paper, as well as the main sport pages, the features spread and the comment section.
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A gift for the libel tourists
Britain’s libel laws are killing investigative journalism. But the News of the World scandal makes reform even more unlikely
Why is it that grubby journalists have to sully the reputation of the good? The furore surrounding the News of the World and its use of private detectives to delve into the mobile phones and other records of public figures could not have come at a worse time for journalism.
I say this not to defend the practitioners – I am not one to defend the status quo. This profession needs far greater accountability, on issues such as conflicts of interest, and a strong and formal code of conduct to guide the working practices of reporters and editors.
But the consequences of this scandal are far more important than the future of a tabloid newspaper and a spin doctor. It is intriguing to watch the Labour party attack Andy Coulson, not for his former role as one of Rupert Murdoch’s chosen sons, but for his present role as David Cameron’s director of communications. This government, and the next Tory government, will stop at nothing to appease Murdoch and his business interests. Both parties have form on this.
The problem with British journalism is that it shouts a great deal, throws many bricks, but uncovers precious little. Investigative journalism is a declining art. Much of that is due to economics. It costs a considerable amount to deploy a team to unearth information about, say, a dodgy arms deal or collusion in torture. Sometimes months of probing leads to nothing, and with newspapers in their current parlous position, editors are under pressure to account for every penny.
But the main impediment comes from Britain’s horrific libel laws. Britain has become the libel capital of the world, home of what has come to be known as “libel tourism“, the destination of choice for Russian oligarchs and others to prosecute not just journalists, but book authors, even NGOs. The chilling effect is hard to quantify, because beyond the prosecutions lies the self-censorship that is affecting so much journalism. The new mantra, from the BBC to most newspapers, even to some bloggers, is: “Why cause trouble?”
The Commons select committee on culture, media and sport is due in a few weeks to publish its report on “press standards, privacy and libel” – note the order. They will be tempted to use the latest scandal to do the opposite of what they should. Instead of loosening libel, they are likely to harden rules on privacy.
At Index on Censorship, in conjunction with English PEN, we have been conducting our own inquiry into libel. We have spoken to editors, lawyers, publishers, bloggers and NGOs in a unified campaign for changes in the libel law. The main areas we are looking at are costs (which have spiralled out of all proportion), areas of jurisdiction and balance of proof.
When Tony Blair, in his dying days as prime minister, derided journalists as “feral beasts”, my response was to laugh. I remember a conversation a few years earlier with a friend, a former political journalist who had made the familiar journey to government service, becoming a senior information officer. He told me that, no matter what a headline might scream, he had been shocked to find out how little journalists ever found out.
On a good day, he said, the public might learn around 1% of what was going on. And now, thanks to the News of the World and others, in their pursuit of salacious gossip about celebrity, we are in danger of finding out even less.