Well, We Didn't Stop Him. So What Next for the Media?
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Media North CAMPAIGN FOR PRESS AND BROADCASTING FREEDOM (NORTH) l Issue 5, December 2019 l £1 A simple message projected by Led By Donkeys on the iconic Anthony Gormley sculpture, Angel of the North By Granville Williams channel of a ‘wider pattern of bias’. The party alluded to THE weekend newspapers reviewing Channel 4’s licence after the election made grim Well, we didn’t (which runs out in this par- reading. Election maps of the liamentary term) ‘to look at swathes of the country where whether its remit should be once Labour dominated went better focused’. blue. What went wrong? stop him. A clampdown on public One key factor for the em- broadcasters by an all-pow- phatic Tory victory was their erful government would be media strategy. Dominic Cum- deeply worrying. The pros- mings, and the team working So what next pects for media reform are for him, have a track record of also likely to be frozen. success with the Brexit cam- We won’t see a second paign, the Australian election, stage of the Leveson inquiry and now this. for the media? or the inquiries into media Cummings’ style of media ownership and ‘fake news’ strategy is gloves off, cynical, the Tory landslide are pretty declared that he was ‘looking that Labour was promising. fast and loose with the facts, disturbing. We saw the way at’ scrapping the licence fee. The Tory election social me- driven by paid advertising on Boris Johnson treated col- “How long can you justify a dia campaign was driven by social media, and dismiss- leagues he perceives to have system whereby everybody disinformation and fake news ive of the democratic role of been disloyal; he is a man who has a TV has to pay to – why would they want to go broadcast media. who holds grudges and set- fund a particular set of TV and near any inquiry? And, at the core of it, was tles scores. radio channels?” he asked. And the Silicon Valley tech a confident reliance on the Johnson and his media When Channel 4 News re- giants who would have been bloc of Tory-supporting news- chief, Lee Cain, issued a series placed Johnson and Farage taxed to fund the Labour pol- papers to be ‘on message’ and of threats to public service with melting ice sculptures icy’s free super-fast £20 billion deliver a relentless attack on broadcasters during the cam- after they shunned a leaders’ broadband scheme can rest Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. paign. debate on climate change, the easy now. It’s what we can now ex- Days before polling, when Tories lodged an impartiality l Our Leeds conference pect in future elections he was feeling heat over his re- complaint with Ofcom. It was on 8 February will focus The implications for sec- fusal to be interviewed by the rejected. Conservative media on these urgent issues tions of the UK media of BBC’s Andrew Neil, Johnson chief, Lee Cain, accused the (see Page 8). NEW OWNERSHIP WOES HIT LOCAL MEDIA – PAGES 4 AND 5 2 | MediaNorth DECEMBER 2019 Left: Andrew Norfolk, So who had the The Times’ chief investigative death threats? reporter Below: The Sun’s Tim Gopsill on The Times’ front page headlining reporter accused of racist Sarah Champion’s and dishonest reporting 2017 report (Images from ONE of the most lauded in- charity called Just Yorkshire, Unmasked) vestigative journalists in the which campaigned for racial national press stands accused and social justice, launched of racist and dishonest report- a consultation to test local ing, demonising the Muslim opinion. community in a Yorkshire Its report came out in town and attacking a progres- March 2018. Many of the sive inter-community group, 165 summarised responses rare correction, that ‘no death forcing its closure. criticised the MP but also threats made at the time were Andrew Norfolk, The praised her work supporting attributable to the report’. Times’ chief investigative re- victims. The report had been Had there been threats, porter, based in Leeds, has sent to her in advance, and police would surely have won a string of awards, in- to relevant national and local questioned Just Yorkshire, but cluding Journalist of the Year authorities, but no reactions there has been no contact. in 2014, for his revelations of were received. anybody and works across child sex abuse gangs, notably Then in July 2018 Andrew Deliberate misquoting communities – or used to. Af- in Rotherham, for which 19 Norfolk had a story in The The phrase ‘industrial-scale ter this and later stories from men and two women were Times claiming: “An MP who racism’ had come from the Norfolk, it lost its funding and jailed in a series of trials. received death threats after report, in this sentence: ‘To collapsed. condemning the abuse of girls attempt to define the issue of The one thing that is true Sun article by groups of British Pakistani child sexual abuse along eth- is that Champion’s security Norfolk’s reports led to wide- men has been given increased nic lines … or claiming there was stepped up, but not in spread comment that all the police security … Sarah Cham- is something inherent in the connection with the story. men were Asian Muslims and pion was accused by activists [Pakistani] heritage is border- MPs, especially women, do the children all white. Nei- … of ‘industrial-scale racism’ ing on industrial-scale racism’. get threats, and in Yorkshire ther was true but the MP for …. Criticism of the former La- It was notional, not an accu- there is special concern since Rotherham, Sarah Champion, bour frontbencher has been sation against Champion, and the assassination of Jo Cox, wrote an article in The Sun in led by racial justice charity the qualifying words ‘border- but the perpetrators are usu- 2017 headlined ‘British Pa- that claims to speak on behalf ing on’ had disappeared. ally far-right white racists. kistani Men ARE raping and of the Pakistani community.” All journalists know these Nadeem Murtaja, former exploiting white girls’, which Not much of this was true. tricks of deliberate but just- director of Just Yorkshire, has said: ‘These people are preda- There is no evidence that about-defensible misquoting, praised Norfolk’s earlier work, tors and the common denom- Champion received death and many do use them, but but says: ‘He was demonising inator is their ethnic heritage.’ threats, and indeed after Just they are inexcusable in such the whole community, which In the row that followed, Yorkshire made complaints sensitive areas as this. is no more responsible for the Sarah Champion resigned as to police and to the national Just Yorkshire, founded crimes of these predators than Labour’s front-bencher on papers’ tame press regulator in 2003, does not represent the whole white community equalities, and a Rotherham IPSO the paper published a is for white crime. And he was trying to make us look like Al- Qaeda.’ Read the Unmasked report While Champion did not receive death threats, Murtaja Andrew Norfolk’s anti-Muslim reporting is analysed in detail in a report and his family did, as a result from the Press Gang entitled UNMASKED, price £10, written by Brian of the reporting. One of these Cathcart and Paddy French. It covers other stories as well and is online at read: ‘Filthy inbred Muslim https://hackinginquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Norfolk_ cunts. We’re going to kill you Report_Unmasked.pdf all. Britain first’. Andrew Nor- folk has never reported that. DECEMBER 2019 | MediaNorth 3 TV correspondents should think before they Tweet Laura Kuenssberg’s apology a voice for the Conservative for her tweet reporting the Trigger-happy Twitterati need to Party. fake news that a Conservative Alastair Campbell’s edict on aide had been punched in the take more care, says Nicholas Jones entering Downing Street with face by a Labour activist was Tony Blair in 1997 was that he yet another illustration of the news online or the Ten O’Clock wanted the government’s in- erosion in editorial standards News. formation machine to ‘grab the that has resulted from cut- When Kuenssberg and agenda’ rather than just supply throat competition among Peston tweeted that a Tory information or simply react to journalists to be first with the aide had been punched by a requests from the news media. news on Twitter. By placing Labour activist after a visit to At election time his opera- her trust in the truthfulness Leeds General Infirmary by the tion merged seamlessly with of Boris Johnson’s propaganda Health Secretary Matt Hancock that of Labour and the blur- machine she has endangered (9.12.2019) they were relying ring of responsibilities between the BBC’s reputation for accu- on briefings by Conservative government and party has con- racy and reliability. sources and had not seen foot- tinued with a vengeance under As a BBC correspondent for age of the incident itself. Cummings. 30 years I can speak with first- In their subsequent Twit- hand experience of the inher- ter apologies Kuenssberg said Salutary lesson ent dangers – and frustrations Laura Kuenssberg ‘two sources suggested it had In my final years as a BBC – of having to deal with media happened but clear from video correspondent, my difficulty advisers closest to the Prime that was wrong’ and Peston was that it was hard to check Minister who tend increasingly acknowledged it was ‘com- out or challenge information to speak exclusively to a hand- pletely clear from video foot- passed down the line from the ful of trusted journalists. age’ Hancock’s adviser was ‘not political editor.