The Daily Telegraph has mounted a strong defence of its coverage of the HSBC scandal in which it “makes no apology” for the paper’s decision to largely ignore the story.
In a leader column, first published online on Thursday evening, it criticises the BBC – which along with the Guardian first revealed how HSBC helped clients with Swiss accounts to avoid tax – for being subsidised by taxpayers, and the Guardian for being “cushioned from commercial reality by a generously-endowed charitable trust”.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, we have no regard for the opinions of rival media organisations. None is the paragon of moral or journalistic virtue that their criticisms this week might suggest. All have their own self-serving agendas, both political and commercial. We will take no lectures about journalism from the likes of the BBC, the Guardian or the Times.”
Peter Oborne, who had been chief political commentator of the newspaper, resigned this week in protest at its coverage of the HSBC scandal. He claimed that the paper soft-pedalled on HSBC because of commercial pressures. He has called for an independent inquiry into the newspaper’s editorial guidelines.
The Telegraph defended its coverage of HSBC and attacks rival outlets for covering the latest allegations with “almost indecent glee”. It adds: “We believe we are not alone in our suspicion that those outlets have given this issue such prominence partly because of their deep-seated hostility to business and partly with the intention of doing political harm to the current government and the Conservative Party in particular.”
The article goes on to say that the Telegraph is “drawing up guidelines that will define clearly and openly how our editorial and commercial staff will co-operate in an increasingly competitive media industry”.
“No subject, no story, no person and no organisation is off-limits to our journalists. We care profoundly about our readers. There is indeed a bond of trust between a newspaper such as The Daily Telegraph and its readers. We take that bond very seriously indeed.”
The leader concludes: “We are proud to do that which our critics cannot or will not do: to combine journalistic excellence with commercial success. We do so for you, our readers. We will continue to do so.”