Book claims to outline story behind Fleet Street

Press, 31 October 1984, Page 48

Book claims to outline story behind Fleet Street

NZPA staff correspondent London Fleet Street newspapers, for all their long reign in journalism, appear to rest on little more than circulation wars, bingo games, fake investigations, entertaining fabrications and publicity stunts, says a book released in London. “Lies, Damned Lies” is written by one of "the Street of shame’s” seasoned journalists, Henry Porter, who relentlessly exposes the mistakes, prejudices, and arrogance of Britain’s national newspapers, from the mischievious tabloid, the “Sun,” to the once-hallowed “Sunday Times,” which he works for. At once tongue-in-cheek and serious he describes it as “Fleet Street exposed ... and some exclusives” while describing numerous socalled exclusives as fakes. He gives examples “of less than accurate journalism from 1983”. For him last year was an all-time low in the systematic decline of fairness, accuracy, and honesty in Fleet Street. He says his book “is by no means a complete survey of a year in which Fleet Street newspapers, from the most self-regarding to the seediest, excelled themselves in their lack of concern for such simple matters as truth.” His reason for writing it is that instead of consumers continuing to trust newspapers’ contents through ignorance he hopes they might become conscious of the level of fiction and inaccuracy and demand a better service. He considers political bias of newspapers to be best encapsulated by Benjamin Disraeli’s “Damn your principles, stick to your party” while the most consistent reaction from journalists in the Parliamentary lobby is “yes Minister...” His tally of newspapers shows the “Daily Mail,” “Mail On Sunday,” the

“Sun,” the “News of the World,” “Daily Telegraph,” “Sunday Telegraph,” “The Times,” “Sunday Times,” “Daily Express,” “Sunday Express” and the "Standard” openly supported the Conservatives during the 1983 General Election. The papers named as remaining committed to the Labour cause were the “Daily Mirror,” the “Sunday Mirror” and the “Sunday People" while the “Guardian,” “Observer” and “surprisingly the ‘Daily Star” maintained a more or less independent stance.” Accounting for the news media obsession about Royalty he writes that Buckingham Palace has a policy of not denying stories because they are so numerous. It estimates that 70 per cent of Royal coverage is fabricated. “The Princess of Wales, for example, has been pregnant at least four times, she has suffered nervous anorexia and a severe case of post-natal depression. She has had countless rows with her husband, the Queen, Prince Philip, and Princess Anne and she is constantly being told off for misbehaviour. “Prince Charles has more or less been ignored since his wedding, but his brother, Andrew, has been credited with a tally of conquests which would exceed the reasonable expectations of any man’s lifetime.” Porter also believes that “nowhere are facts and fiction more blurred than in the coverage of show business.” In a chapter on “tales of mystery and imagination” he describes the widely used, often accepted way of cheque-book journalism, along with deliberately fabricated interviews and claims of "world exclusives”. The book also ranges through stories from the news in the self-named “fact-packed Daily Express” about President Andropov

being shot to “a 10-year-old girl on the pill” with the “Daily Telegraph,” even after corrections had been given that she was 13, giving the lurid details of the “girl temptress in sex case”. The “News of the World” revelation “U.F.O. lands in Suffolk — and that’s official,” when there had been no confirmation whatever could also be paralleled with other “investigative” stories which have insisted on Greenham Common’s “red mole” and the peace movement “C.N.D. holding hands with 1.R.A.”.

There are also many cases cited as “pictorial deception” where “the ‘Sun’, unsurprisingly leads”. Porter emphasises that its readers were not likely to be taken in by a photograph of the Russian Politburo all voting with one hand and holding “Sun” bingo cards with the other. Its caption said, “Sun bingo gets everyone’s vote comrades. Even in the Kremlin Russia’s top politicians are on their Marx to Chekhov their numbers.” But, says Porter, “... they will certainly have been fooled by a picture of Dennis Nilsen, the homosexual murderer.” The photograph, taken when he was in the Army, was first published in a local paper showing him cutting a large hunk of meat with a knife. When the "Sun” published the same picture he was wielding a menacing meatcleaver. Other picture frauds include finding a likely looking replacement for someone they cannot acquire a photograph of, or deliberately giving roles or names to the wrong people. Although many of these practices are mostly confined to the popular press, other newspapers regarded as the “quality” press seem almost as susceptible to what might be a highly amusing or sensational item, according to Porter.

He meticulously follows events which led to “The Times” and "Sunday Times” claiming the scoop of “Hitler’s secret diaries to be published” when they became dupes for one of the biggest fakes this century. Porter commented that secrecy and haste were often behind such downfalls. Porter also referred to the case of Sarah Keays’ affair with Cecil Parkinsor which caused the Minister’s resignation. He said the “Sunday Times” report headlined “The case for Parkinson — ex-Minister speaks out” caused “a good deal of unease in the newsroom” after Parkinson had given an extensive telephone interview “on lobby terms.” "Reporters pointed out that the piece was almost entirely based on quotations and information attributed to supporters of the former Minister. The truth was that these, almost without exception, were supplied by Parkinson himself. “The only paragraph ascribed to him was the quotation asking his friends to desist from further comment, a device insisted upon by Parkinson to throw the scent,” Porter writes. Recalling the cover-up by Whitehall about the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, having eye surgery, he says that the fact of her original operation was suppressed, and when Downing Street admitted that she had some eye trouble they described it wrongly and had underplayed it. Later, the press office gave the distinct impression she was recovering when her condition had deteriorated to have to undergo another operation, and although Mrs Thatcher was incapacitated for more than a week, Lord Whitelaw was not summoned to London to stand in for her. Porter writes, “What is so extraordinary about this episode is that Fleet Street,

when noting the correct version of the facts, only referred in passing to this suppression. “There seems to be an acceptance that this sort of lying is part of the cat-and-mouse game between the Fourth Estate and the political establishment. “The fact that the Prime Minister herself commissioned the deception seems to have made it no more reprehensible.” Less serious points covered by Porter include other deliberate creations such as the fictional character of Raphael Duvant who was reported in news items of the “Daily Telegraph” and whom Porter describes as “fiercely patriotic and constantly bemoaning the standards of morality and service in British life”. Duvant “encapsulating all the quirkiness and conservatism of the average ‘Daily Telegraph’ ” disappeared abruptly after a journalist from another newspaper “who prides himself on an instinct for the bogus ... voiced his suspicions to one or two senior executives of the ‘Telegraph’.” Porter confesses to telling a friend on what was then the “Evening Standard” that he had just seen a black cat killed outright by a hailstone. It was reported in the London evening paper in small italics, but six months later the "Telegraph” “unwittingly included my fake cat” in a weather review. Porter constantly refers by name to the reporters, columnists, editors, and proprietors involved in the deceptions, and often includes their reactions, humble or otherwise, to being exposed. He also writes about all the editors and main proprietors of main newspapers.