Paying police for news stories isn’t the malaise of modern journalism

Published: 26 May 2011

I CANNOT see why such unforgiving looks were given to Rebecca Brooks, chief executive of News International, for telling a Commons committee that journalists paid police officers for stories – or words to that effect.

Journalists of another generation would know that it was common practice to pay policemen for stories.

When I worked on a west London weekly, too far back in time to date in this column, I would drop in to the local cop shop and if a story given by an officer was sold on to a national or London evening, the proceeds would be shared.

Today, this would be considered a corrupt practice, I suppose, but it shades into insignificance compared with what is fundamentally wrong with many journalists.

It is now accepted that if Britain’s journalists hadn’t slavishly swallowed Ministry of Defence press hand-outs or military briefings on the Iraq war, the public would have been better informed, and the war may have taken a less-bloody course.

Today, the gung-ho colour stories filed by our journos about the rebels in Libya have the same smell about them – rebels? But what do they want, what are their policies? Does Al-Qaeda have any roots among them?

I believe those journalists responsible for that fiasco have more to be ashamed of than reporters on the Sunday press who gave money for officers to trouser. 

There is a lot wrong with the British press – locals included – and that can be linked to ownership. Too many corporations, including transnationals, own far too many large groups, dictating what goes into them. 

More often than not, this is in the interest of the Establishment, not the people.