Piers Morgan, writing in the New Statesman acouple of years ago,
looked back upon his depar-ture from the Daily Mirror, when he was
sackedafter his paper published fake photographs ofBritish soldiers
mistreating Iraqis. Pointing outthat other evidence had
subsequently emerged of British abuses in Iraq, and that no one had
ever been convicted of perpetrating the hoax thatfooled him, Morgan
declared: I wonder some-times if it would be impertinent to ask for
my old job back.
It is not the only occasion on which he has airedthe idea that
events had justified his decision topublish the photos, even though
almost no oneseriously contends today that they were
genuine.Morgans view seems to be that it can be right tomake an
assertion in print based on bad evidenceproviding other, better
evidence eventuallycomes along to support the assertion. In
otherwords, he got it wrong but he was right anyway.
Similar arguments are sometimes heard insupport of the Andrew
Gilligan news reports onthe sexing up of the Iraq dossier, and they
aretopical again today. With Al Gore found guiltyby a high court
judge of nine errors of fact in AnInconvenient Truth, with Michael
Moores hotlycontested health-care documentary Sicko open-ing here,
and with the Court of Appeal pro-nouncing on a landmark case about
journalisticresponsibility, right and wrong and fact and fic-tion
are suddenly on the agenda.
The anger generated by these debates can beterrifying. Dip into
the internet for guidance onhow far you can trust Sicko and you
will becaught in a blizzard of detailed accusation
andcounter-accusation on such matters as the cost of Cuban health
care, Canadian hospital waitinglists and the privatisation of the
NHS.
And the outrage can have an almost drunkenquality, with the
entire credibility of an argu-ment supposedly hanging on the
smallest detailof disputed evidence. It calls to mind Christo-pher
Hitchenss sweeping verdict on MooresFahrenheit 9/11: To describe
this film as dishon-est and demagogic would almost be to
promotethose terms to the level of respectability. To
describe this film as a piece of crap would be torun the risk of
a discourse that would never againrise above the excremental.
Behind such polemics is an assumption thatseems like nothing
more than a piece of commonsense: that people should get their
facts right.Journalism and documentary-making are aboutthe truth
otherwise they would be called fic-tion and if either of them
presents untrue infor-mation, it is betraying its reason for
being.
Al Gore, as he basks in his Nobel glow, shouldbe thinking about
this. When someone with hisresources makes nine certifiable errors,
most ofthem of overstatement, there can be no excuse,and along with
his scientific advisers and re-searchers he has to take
responsibility for anydamage to his cause. Gore may console
himselfthat Mr Justice Barton said the film was stillbroadly
accurate and with caveats could beshown in schools, but he knows
that its impact isblunted and he cant blame his critics for
that.
Life is complicatedYet the idea that people must always get
theirfacts right, like almost everything that is labelledcommon
sense, is incomplete and unsatisfac-tory. Life is more complicated
than that, so, per-haps surprisingly, there are grey areas
betweenright and wrong.
For one thing, journalism inevitably makesmistakes: producing
large newspapers every dayor every week is not like producing
Faberg eggs,and readers and lawyers have to understand thatyou cant
hang around until every detail is per-fect. In that context, it is
normal to get thingswrong occasionally. For another, if someone
iswithholding information on a matter of publicinterest without
adequate explanation, thenspeculative journalism based on the
availablefacts is perfectly justified, indeed natural evenif it may
eventually prove to be wrong.
By way of example, the early years of the Deep-cut scandal,
involving the deaths of young sol-diers in a training camp, were
marked by exces-sive official secrecy. Some stories published in
thepress on the basis of the few facts available were
22 OCTOBER 2007 | NEW STATESMAN | 33
wrong, but they ultimately performed the usefulpurpose of
pushing the Ministry of Defence intogreater openness. Its not a
general licence tomake things up, but its a case where a
greatergood can be served by speculative reporting.
The courts, too, have found that journalistscan be right and
wrong at the same time. In thepast fortnight, the Court of Appeal
broke newground by upholding what is called a Reynoldsdefence in a
defamation case brought against theauthor Graeme McLagan over a
book about policecorruption called Bent Coppers.
The judges ruled that McLagan had the right to publish certain
allegations, even though hecould not be sure they were true,
because it was amatter of public interest and he could show hehad
behaved responsibly. The Reynolds defencehad previously been used
successfully by news-paper journalists, and this ruling set aside
anobjection that the authors of books had the timeto get all their
facts right.
Does all of this mean that Piers Morgan shouldget his job back
at the Mirror? No. As he wellknows, he gambled on the validity of
those pho-tographs, lost, and paid an appropriate price forthe
damage to his papers reputation. Only if hewere to prove that the
pictures are real could heexpect his case to be reopened, and he
cant.
The test in all these grey areas between rightand wrong, as the
judge who first upheld theReynolds defence in 1999 laid down, is
whetherthe wrong thing is stated knowingly or withmalice or
recklessness, and whether the journal-ist has acted conscientiously
or responsibly.
Lord Nicholls went on to provide a helpful listof ways of
judging the latter. Was enough doneto test the quality of the
information? Was therean urgent need to publish? Did the writer
ornewspaper present it as fact, or with caveats?Was the other side
of the story presented?
Piers Morgan would not pass those tests. Norwould Al Gore (he
would fail on the first). Nor, inmy view, would Andrew Gilligan in
the sexed-up dossier case. But Graeme McLagan passedthem all,
proving that in the right circumstanceswe have a right to be wrong.
l
By Brian Cathcart
Truth,lies andfools
Inconvenientuntruths: wasGore wrong,but rightanyway?
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