The Daily Telegraph’s former chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, has called for an independent inquiry into the paper’s editorial guidelines over its lack of coverage of the HSBC tax story, which he described as a “fraud on its readers”.
Oborne resigned and delivered a blistering attack on the Telegraph’s management and owners on Tuesday. He claimed the paper deliberately suppressed stories about the banking giant, including last week’s revelations that its Swiss subsidiary helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars in assets, in order to retain its valuable advertising account.
He claimed staff at the title had no confidence in the management or owners.
Oborne said he had raised his concerns with management over the past 10 weeks, but was going to go quietly until the HSBC story blew up. The Telegraph’s coverage had been minimal, he said.
“I found as a journalist, it makes you feel sick,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Oborne laid out his reasons for his resignation in an article on the Open Democracy website, which the Telegraph called an “astonishing and unfounded attack, full of inaccuracy and innuendo, on his own paper”.
If “my article is a tissue of lies” he went on, “they need to come out and explain their editorial guidelines. The Telegraph must now call an independent review. We need an independent outsider to come in and do a full assessment of the relationship between advertising and editorial.”
On Tuesday night, Oborne told Channel 4 News that the staff had no confidence in Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive of the paper’s parent company nor its owners.
“I believe I am speaking for the vast majority of the staff in saying we have no confidence at all in Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive and I’d go further than that and say we have no confidence at all in the Barclay brothers, who own the paper,” he said.
Oborne, associate editor of the Spectator and a familiar face on Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries, said the lack of coverage of HSBC and its Swiss subsidiary was a “most sinister development” at the broadsheet title, which he described as “the most important Conservative-leaning newspaper in Britain”, but where he alleged the traditional distinction between the advertising and editorial departments had collapsed.
Oborne claimed it was a pattern that could be seen elsewhere in the paper’s reporting, including its coverage of last year’s protests in Hong Kong.
Oborne said the Telegraph’s coverage of HSBC, by putting the interests of a major international bank above its duty to report the news, was a “form of fraud on its readers”.
“There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored,” he wrote in his Open Democracy article.
Oborne said the paper had discouraged stories critical of HSBC since the start of 2013, when the bank suspended its advertising with the paper following a Telegraph investigation into accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay live on the neighbouring island of Sark.
He said one former Telegraph executive told him HSBC was “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”.
Oborne said he had told MacLennan that he was resigning in December last year. He said he had intended to leave quietly, but had a “duty to make all this public” following the Telegraph’s HSBC coverage, which “needed a microscope to find”.
“The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers,” he said. “It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible.”
A Telegraph spokesperson said: “Like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear.
“We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary. It is a matter of huge regret that Peter Oborne, for nearly five years a contributor to the Telegraph, should have launched such an astonishing and unfounded attack, full of inaccuracy and innuendo, on his own paper.”
Before the HSBC revelations were published – by the Guardian and a range of other outlets including the BBC – and while discussions were continuing over the material, the bank put its advertising with the Guardian’s parent company, Guardian News and Media, “on pause”.
A joint investigation by the Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde and other media outlets revealed earlier this month that HSBC’s Swiss banking arm had helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities.
Conservative donors, peers and a high-profile MP were listed among the wealthy who legally held accounts in Switzerland with HSBC’s private bank. Ed Miliband labelled David Cameron a “dodgy prime minister” over his failure to answer questions about the affair and his appointment to a ministerial job of its former chairman, Stephen Green.
Oborne, who joined the Telegraph from the Daily Mail five years ago, accused it of a “collapse in standards” under its owners, the Barclay brothers, the reclusive multi-millionaire owners of the Ritz hotel, who bought it in 2004.
Oborne said the paper’s reporting of HSBC – he said his own investigation into the bank had been rejected late last year – was “part of a wider problem”.
“It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed,” he said.
He described a comment piece on the democracy protests in Hong Kong as “bizarre” and said it had been followed by a commentary in the paper by the Chinese ambassador whose “headline was beyond parody: ‘Let’s not allow Hong Kong to come between us’.”
He also highlighted a feature in the paper about Cunard’s Queen Mary II liner – “Cunard is an important advertiser” – and what he regarded as its lack of coverage of the Tesco false accounting story last September. He said the paper’s coverage of HSBC meant he had a “duty to make all this public”.
“Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team received a tipoff about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC,” he said.
“This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph,” he said. “Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months.”
Oborne said interference by management in stories involving the bank was happening “on an industrial scale”.