Shock! Horror! Majority of public think tabloid journalists are 'basically decent, honest people'

Following the phone hacking scandal, the public's view of tabloid journalists must be at an all time low.

Well, not according to a ComRes poll in the Independent today that shows 46% per cent of those polled agree that "most tabloid journalists are basically decent, honest people" while 45% disagree and 9% don't know.

The results might be a bit confusing for Independent readers because after all they are reading a tabloid.

'Don't blame all the press for hacking scandal'

The Independent today argues that MPs' indignation over phone hacking by the News of the World has led to the inference that the whole of journalism, and the press in particular, was defined by such reprehensible practices.

The paper says in a leader: "That slur – and it is a slur – needs to be scotched before it becomes a new verity, drawing to itself all manner of calls for tougher regulation and restrictions. There was more than a sense, too, that some MPs were seeking vengeance for the exposure of the expenses scandal.

"It is probably not reasonable to believe that phone hacking and other unethical and illegal practices were restricted either to the News of the World or to the News Corp stable. The chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, John Whittingdale, spread the net somewhat wider in yesterday's debate.

"But he also allowed that, just as the expenses scandal had tainted all MPs, even though many had not abused the system, so many journalists were appalled about the activities of some members of their profession.

"We were, and we are. But it is also crucial to defend the honour of this and other newspapers, especially at a time when the press as a whole is coming under acute financial pressure. Most journalists and most newspapers well know the difference between ethical and unethical, legal and illegal, right and wrong.

It adds: "Let's not forget that it was not only the MPs' expenses scandal that newspapers exposed, but the phone hacking whose ramifications are being minutely chronicled in some newspapers, including this one, even as others did their utmost to keep it under wraps.Freedom and responsibility in the British media turn bad only when cut-throat ambition spawns illegality and when journalists or proprietors neglect their responsibility to keep a distance from power.

"What the phone-hacking scandal has shown, as it has evolved, is that – for all the scum that sticks to some journalism – Britain still has a free, independent and ethical press, and it remains as essential to the nation's wellbeing as ever."

• Hull Daily Mail editor John Meehan has tweeted: "Sick of references in TV #phonehacking coverage to 'the press' as if we're all the same. Local papers are blameless & a force for good."
• Ipswich Evening Star editor Nigel Pickover has written to David Cameron urging him not to judge the newspaper industry by the standards of the News of the World, reports HoldtheFrontPage

• This comment came in via email from a journalist who wants to be anonymous:"Good piece drawing on the Indy comments on the trade and reputation this morning. I've been wanting to post something but, perhaps feebly, I'm worried about getting it in the neck for saying what people think I'm saying rather than what I am saying. And that is that, while plenty of journalists didn't and never would do the stuff the scumbags at the Screws did, plenty more of the public who are now so outraged bought the paper when it was stitching people up. Where do they think they got the info? A lot of the outrage seems to be from people who enjoyed the Screws sticking it to other people but now don't like it when it's being stuck to them. Which doesn't make any of the sticking to right, but is a point. Such is the nature of public discourse that if I say that in public I'll be dismembered by the mob."

  
  

How the Independent could invade the privacy of muck-raking tabloid rats - and sell more papers

An Independent reader has come with a novel way to boost the newspaper's sales, after reading Mary Ann Sieghart's article yesterday on how the muck-rakers in the tabloid press should be stopped.

R S Foster from Sheffield, in a letter published by the Indy today, says:

"Could I suggest that if Mary Ann Sieghart and her high-minded broadsheet colleagues are serious about restraining the muck-raking vermin who infest the tabloids (Opinion, 20 June), they do so by using the many discreditable facts they no doubt know about the vermin to produce a weekly page about their repulsive personal behaviour and private misdeeds?

"I believe this would have far more impact than any number of high-minded columns and editorials, might sell more papers, and would certainly provide much amusement to the rest of us."

Julie Burchill: 'Why I love abuse from Indy readers'

Julie Burchill celebrates her first year as a columnist on the Independent today by telling readers how much she loves their abuse.

Burchill reveals she turned down a job travelling the world for the Sunday Times magazine to join the Indy.

She writes: "One of the most delightful aspects of my time here has been the abuse. Before I took this job I was offered the cushiest billet you've ever heard of by The Sunday Times magazine, basically flying round the world at the front of the plane hanging out with whoever I pleased and writing about it.

"The problem was me. I hummed and hahed and kept making excuses not to start my job there. I'd miss my husband. My feet would ache from the travelling (I really said that!) But I had to admit the truth: I didn't want to do a job where I wasn't going to get abused. Then The Independent found me, and the rest is hysteria.

"I can't explain why I enjoy being disliked; it might have something to do with being an adored only child and growing up with an almost sociopathic sense of self-esteem. Verbal humiliation for me is what flagellation is for judges; when you feel so impervious, what could be more exotic than, momentarily, being treated like the lowest of the low?

"It's a perk for me, like a company car. I can't drive but I know what gets my engine running. More, now, again!"

Indy says 333 gag orders granted in five years

The Independent has found that more than 333 gagging orders protecting the identities of celebrities, children and private individuals have been granted in the past five years, a far higher figure than previous estimates.

The paper says: "The secret nature of super-injunctions and other restrictive orders means that no definitive figures exist for the number of rulings currently in force in England and Wales."

But it claims an audit by The Independent has found that at least 264 orders exist which grant anonymity to children or vulnerable adults. The figures reveal a further 69 cases where injunctions have been granted barring the publication of the names of high-profile individuals, including 28 men accused of extra-marital affairs and nine cases where convicted criminals have been granted anonymity.

The Independent says: "Courts are ready to issue gagging orders in a wide-ranging and occasionally surprising number of circumstances, including the case of a lawyer accused of possessing a quantity of hardcore pornography and an order preventing disclosure of the identity of a sex change candidate."

It also claims: "Orders have also been granted to at least seven major companies, including the publicly owned bank Northern Rock. The orders, some of which are permanent and some temporary, prevent publication of allegations about their commercial affairs."

Indy front page puts spotlight on Ryan Giggs

Today's Independent puts Ryan Giggs firmly in the spotlight with this striking front page.

Scolds the front page: Indy says the law is a farce

This is how the Independent sums up the furore surrounding court injunctions on its front page today.

Inside the paper's media commentator Stephen Glover writes: "The High Court is trying to enforce the unenforceable. Until now, newspapers, which are generally obedient, had respected such orders, but their patience is cracking because the information is so readily available on the internet or Twitter. Last Friday, Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, expressed surprise that "someone who has a true claim for protection" should be "at the mercy of modern technology". His Lordship needs to wake up to the 21st century.

"Judges have made things worse for themselves. If they had not issued so many privacy orders forbidding newspapers to publish, there would probably not have been the reaction we have seen on the internet. By denying newspapers the right to publish what is arguably in the public interest, judges have stimulated an enormous public appetite which only the internet can satisfy.

"The judges are their own worst enemies in another way. They have not understood the rising disquiet at the privacy law they are developing out of Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. They believed only the tabloids were irked. In fact, the issue is turning into one of free speech which concerns parliamentarians and the public."

Indy ripped off Kelvin interview from student mag

George Brock, head of journalism at City University, says in a post today that the Independent "ripped off" its Kelvin MacKenzie article, in which he called on all journalism colleges to be closed, from City's student magazine.

Brock says: "One of the many pieces of practical journalism our students complete is a 108-page magazine, X-City, which has just appeared. Kelvin developed his views about training journalists at greater length and the interviewer, Harriet Thurley, turned it into a first-person piece. This was then ripped off, without any attribution, by The Independent today (a lesson in itself on what to expect from national papers). Credits were inserted a few hours later."

His view of MacKenzie's call to shut journalism colleges is fairly succint: "Kelvin is talking bollocks."

• Bit surprised by MacKenzie writing for the Independent, after all he told the Today programme when i was launched: "What I don't like is the current Independent and, having put them side-by-side for the first time today, I can't see how the current Independent, which is long, boring and political, is going to compete very well, with this rather light, frothy, interesting and not left-wing paper..."