LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Privacy and the Press
Sill,—Mr. C J. Slade's article on " privacy and the Press," however well-meant, is not very helpful to the journalist, however welt-meaning. It may be morally right that damages should be recoverable in some cases when a person's privacy has been invaded by newspaper repre- sentatives. But before we come to the question of punishment we must define and prove the offence. At what point and under what con- ditions does it become an invasion (a word suggesting a hostile act) for a reporter to put questions to a man or woman in the news—that is to say, a person whose replies are likely to be a matter of interest and importance to the public ?
Speaking as a journalist of more than fifty years' experience, I should say that in the immense majority of cases the reporter causes no resentment. For one report that creates a feeling of affront and unfairness there are tens of thousands that are regarded as properly and usefully contributing to a well-informed public.
All intelligent persons realise that the reporter's duty is not to accept rumours and tittle-tattle but to seek trustworthy first-hand information. This may mean putting inquiries to persons suffering from the Shock of bereavement. The well-trained reporter will do this in the kindest way possible, perhaps enlisting the friendly co-operation of a neighbour or policeman. In my reporting days I often had to approach people in distress, but none of them ever resented efforts to get a correct report.
I have found almost all reporters sympathetic, helpful and eager to be accurate. They would get precious little news if they were harsh and bullying. They would not stay long on a newspaper if their reports proved to be wild hearsay or cruel exaggerations.
Those who criticise the Press—and many now do, often from a barely disguised .political motive—invite us to believe that the homes of Britain are inhabited by a sensitive, timorous race of people dreading the knock of the reporter on the door. It is the most ludicrous non- sense. It does not relate to the fads of life in Britain at all, but to the caricature of American newspaper methods on the screen of twenty sears ago.
But in recent years there has been ground for complaints of pester- ing enquirers such as we never used to have. This is mainly because 1 so many newspapers now send reporters hot-foot on the same quest. What may be reasonable enquiries by one man can become intolerable when repeated by a dozen or twenty men calling or ringing up at all hours. Door-bells and telephone-bells then become an infuriating nuisance. Can we devise a remedy ?
We might contrive more co-operation by newspapers to avoid com- petitive enquiries that amount to persecution. I have suggested this to some proprietors and met with an encouraging response, and I hope before long to have a chance to put before a Press Council and before the Guild of British Newspaper Editors a co-operative scheme. We might well agree to leave routine enquiries of the distressed to the local correspondent when, for example, a Reuter cable reports a casualty to a victim with a provincial address. It is needless cruelty for a dozen papers immediately to ring up this address. The local correspondent could make the enquiry in a far more neighbourly spirit and give the information to all who want it.
In London the remedy might not be so easy, but it ought to be pos- sible to agree to leave. if not to a local correspondent, at least to the well-conducted Press Association the task of making the necessary enquiries. In the circumstances I am discussing there is no point in sending a flock of reporters to write so-called exclusive stories all saying just the same thing. The arrangement I suggest would save many unhappy persons from a needless repetition of their ordeals. Where pictures are desired there is more difficulty in a sharing plan, but in the provinces a friendly arrangement is often made.
Mr. Slade speaks of journalists who badger the mother of a con- demned criminal. This may be a just reproach, but my experience is that the parents of the condemned may be eager to speak out, perhaps in a pathetic desire to make the crime seem less odious and improve the chance of a reprieve. The reporter's difficulty is more often that of coping with the flood of information offered than of extracting facts from unwilling sources. It is not unknown for persons -alleged to be intruded upon to get copies of the newspapers concerned, clip out the references to themselves and their families, send copies to their relatives elsewhere, and preserve the record for the rest of their lives. The reporter, and the newspaper he represents, are not intruders; they are part of the life of the community and are accepted as such. We know public men who are eager to give information to the Press; they -speak a little recklessly and then, finding themselves in trouble for a breach of confidence, calmly repudiate the interview or pretend that they thought they were speaking off the record.
Mr. Slade calls fresh attention to the Maclean case. Poor Mrs. Maclean, dreading publicity, may wish her friends were less eager to keep her name before the public., It must be pointed out that when her husband and Guy Burgess disappeared, possibly to Russia and pos- sibly with Foreign Office secrets, this was not a cause for family anxiety alone. It raised a life-and-death question, a question of the safety of the realm.
If it is said that the making of enquiries should have been left to the Foreign Office and the police, it must be pointed out that State Depart- ments are tempted to hush up events that might bring upon them public censure, and that even our excellent police have been known to act more decisively after spurring by the Press. The Maclean-Burgess case has disturbing aspects. It may or may not have been mishandled in certain respects by certain newspapers. But, thinking of other cases, let us take care not to wrench from the Press those powers of investigation which have made it an invaluable watch- dog guarding the public safety. To protect the privacy of all citizens when their deeds are in question is to endanger the people. Many who complain of the Press have something to hide which ought not to be hidden.
These points ought in fairness to be considered in conjunction with those that Mr. Slade put forward so vigorously.—Yours faithfully,
W. L. ANDREWS,
President of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors. Yorkshire Post Office, Leeds.
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