Simon Jenkins, commenting on Peter Oborne’s charges against the Telegraph (Yes, ads hurt press freedom. But the alternatives are worse, 19 February), argues that we must accept the corruption of newspapers because the job they do is still good enough. How can we know that? Newspapers are a medium of information and if the information is false the reader is duped. Jenkins suggests that plurality protects us, yet with a few exceptions our national press operates as a cartel, papers covering up each others’ faults. The result is that uncorrected lies pile up in our public space, polluting debate and warping policymaking.
Two other points. As Oborne reminds us, newspapers have “a democratic duty to tell readers the truth”, and, as Leveson reminds us, they have an obligation not to “wreak havoc in the lives of innocent people”. These are responsibilities. Sadly, the corporate press refuses to take responsibility for anything.
Professor Brian Cathcart
Kingston University London
• Journalists whose writing is influenced by the priorities of financial supporters or donors may fall foul of the Bribery Act 2010. Section 2(5) indicates that if a person or corporate body (such as a newspaper) were, “in consequence of … accepting a financial or other advantage [including excessive hospitality]”, to perform one of its relevant functions “improperly”, then an offence carrying a 10-year maximum sentence would be committed. It is one of the relevant functions of a newspaper to offer opinions and report facts in good faith. If a journalist has been “leant on” by his or her newspaper to align an opinion or piece of reporting with the views or priorities of an important financial backer, if the jury regards that influence as improper, both the newspaper and the journalist may have committed bribery.
I offer this view as a former law commissioner for England and Wales, responsible for the 2008 Reforming Bribery report that led to the 2010 act. The example of journalism in bad faith is discussed at paragraphs 3.180-3.183 of the report.
Professor Jeremy Horder
Department of law, LSE
• Free copies of the Telegraph offered by a newsagent (Letters, 19 February)? I trust the police did not ask for the recipients’ names and addresses.
Chris Trotter
Southampton