The Times: 'NI has lost control of the story'

The Times in a leader today describes the impact of the phone hacking scandal on its owner, News International, as "catastrophic".

It says: "Feeling unable to rely on the information supplied by News International, politicians, the police and other journalists are seeking to piece together the truth themselves.

"If the result has been a mixture of scandalous truth and half-baked allegation, brilliant investigative scoops and unworthy commercial agendas, incisive political leadership and petty political sniping, then News International cannot, sadly complain. It employs enough experienced journalists to know what happens when you lose control of the story."

It adds: "The political cost became even clearer yesterday as those with long-held grudges against News International weighed in. But it is not a cost that will have to be paid by the company alone. There will also be broader questions about the methods and motives of journalists that will have to be answered by all media companies. For there will not be one that hasn’t cut corners or used what will seem to some questionable methods to pursue a story."

The Times says some of the great journalistic exposés in history were achieved using methods that could now be, and sometimes were at the time, challenged by the police or taken to court.

"Take the publication by The Daily Telegraph of the details of MPs’ expenses claims, made possible by the exchange of money for stolen goods. Or the publication by The Guardian of diplomatic cables provided to them by WikiLeaks, which has led Bradley Manning, a soldier in the United States Army, to face a large number of serious criminal charges.

"In each of these cases there will be, and there must be, accountability before the law. But the examples illustrate something beyond that. They show that the ultimate test for journalists — the one that cannot be failed — is integrity.

"Public opinion and the law will ultimately stand by journalists who pursue great stories in the public interest and are able to demonstrate that they have acted to expose the facts on matters of national importance. Embarking on an investigation, journalists need to ensure that the methods they use can be justified by the motivation and the outcome.

"The new phase of what began as the hacking scandal will provide journalists and the newspaper industry with more hard days ahead. It is a challenge they can only meet by restating the public purpose of journalism, underlining its necessity as a check on power and robustly defending its freedom."

• The Times turned down the MPs' expenses story. Times columnist David Aaronovitch told a meeting at City University last October the editor of The Times believed it was "unethical to buy information that had been stolen."
• The Times is behind a paywall.
  

Times to credit show sponsors in arts reviews

The Times is to name the main sponsors of shows in its arts reviews, the paper has revealed.

Times' chief culture writer Richard Morrison, in a article about the change in policy, says: "For the first time in more than two centuries The Times will credit the main sponsors of the shows it reviews. It’s a move that has been contemplated many times in the 27 years that I have been writing for this paper.

"If my old brain recalls correctly, we rejected it in the past for two reasons. We didn’t want businesses to feel that they could buy an approving mention in The Times simply by chucking a bit of their loose change at a theatre. And we felt rather like the irked reader who wrote to me last week. We believed that the arts pages should focus on the art itself, not the financial arrangements behind the scenes."

He adds: "Perhaps that was always a blinkered attitude. After all, if there’s no one to pay the piper, there’s no tune. But in those palmy days when hefty arts subsidies seemed guaranteed forever and sponsorship looked like a nice icing on the cake, such views were widely held.

"Well, that age — of innocence, naivety or myopia; call it what you will — seems prehistoric. The recession, the big cuts in government spending, the reluctance of many formerly generous businesses to sponsor the arts while laying off their own staff, the reduction in the investment income of trusts and individuals who once donated millions: all this has generated something close to despair in many cultural quarters."

Morrison says the arts "needs friends in the media who are civilised enough to give the oxygen of publicity to great art. Since its first day of publication The Times has celebrated and chronicled the cultural life of the nation, as well as much else.

"If we can now help our brilliant performers and artists to flourish in these perilous times, we should."

• I remember a Times journalist quitting after a Sky logo appeared on one of his arts pages.
• The Times is behind a paywall.
  

The times they are absurd, says The Times

The Times argues in a leader today it is absurd that it cannot tell readers the name of the well known journalist who could be prosecuted for contempt for mentioning a footballer on Twitter.

The leader says: "A high-profile journalist on a leading British newspaper has made a comment on Twitter about a Premier League footballer for which he, or she, now risks being prosecuted for contempt of court. For legal reasons, The Times is not at liberty to name the footballer, or the journalist, or the newspaper for which he, or she, works. This would remain true even if The Times was that newspaper, which may, or may not, be the case.

"All of this is absurd, and doubly so because you, the reader, very possibly already know all about it, including the bits that we are not at liberty to print. If you do not, and are sitting at a computer, you could probably find full details in a matter of moments. Although we may not tell you how."

The leader concludes: "Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, declared last week that the internet was 'making an ass of the law'. In fact, the law needs no such help. Contempt of court is a crime, but contempt for Britain’s injunction habit is close to universal."

• The Times is behind a paywall.
  

The Times and Independent dare to be different

The Times has won plenty of plaudits today for daring to be different with its front page wraparound treatment of the royal wedding using a shot of the newlyweds driving off, rather than opting for the traditional kiss on the balcony scene.

The Independent also strived to be different with an original artwork of the royal couple by Tracey Emin but still went for that kiss.

The Mail and Sun opted for the kiss photograph, as did the rest of the nationals.

Times goes blankety blank over privacy gags: Telegraph on 'worldwide' ban on naming tv star

The Times today blanks out parts of its story - both in print and online - on the latest privacy injunction granted to a football star to emphasise what readers are not allowed to know.

While the Telegraph reports that an unprecedented worldwide privacy order has been imposed to stop the media reporting on a tv star's private life - even online.

It says: "A Premier League footballer won a legal gag yesterday against a topless model, preventing her from revealing details of their six-month affair.

"The married sportsman, who plays for ****, is using controversial human rights laws to prevent details of his adulterous relationship from being made public.

"The secrecy orders override the traditional principle of open justice in favour of the right to privacy or to prevent the risk of harm to family members who may be embarrassed by the revelations.

"Politicians had pledged that human rights laws would not be used by the courts to introduce a legal right to privacy behind the back of Parliament.

"**** had been accused of having a six-month affair with Imogen Thomas, a glamour model who has appeared as a housemate in Channel 4’s Big Brother."

The Telegraph reports: "A High Court judge has issued an unprecedented gagging order in an attempt to prevent details of a television star’s private life being published, even on the internet.

"Mr Justice Eady, who has been at the centre of most recent controversial libel and privacy cases, made the injunction "against the world" rather than just against national newspapers and broadcasters.

"His order seeks to prevent the publication of “intimate photographs” of a married public figure after a woman tried to sell them for a “large sum of money". The judge said the woman “owed” the claimant, identified only as OPQ, a “duty of confidence” and breaching his privacy would damage the health of the man and his family.

"His order is intended to cover discussion of the case online as well as in traditional media, despite the difficulties in enforcing it. The injunction contra mundum is intended to be never-ending and, as its Latin name suggests, applies to the entire world."

The Telegraph adds: "It is understood that it is the first time that such an order has been granted in a privacy case. They were issued on personal safety grounds in the cases of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who murdered James Bulger; the child killer Mary Bell, and Maxine Carr, the former girlfriend of the Soham killer Ian Huntley.

"The ruling takes secrecy laws to a new level, marking a further advance in the steps the courts are prepared to take to protect high-profile figures and to restrict the right to freedom of expression."

Is Brand's Arthur a dud offer from The Times?

Subscribers to the The Times Online are being offered the chance to claim tickets to see previews of Russell Brand's new film, the remake of Arthur which starred Dudley Moore.

But, as many nationals reported yesterday, the film was panned by US critics when it opened on Tuesday.

The Mail reported that writing on the Huffington Post website, film critic Marshall Fine slammed Brand saying: "If anything, this movie should put a nail in the coffin of Russell Brand's career as a movie comic because, well, the guy's just not that funny. Particularly not when he assays an entire role in that high, whiny, little-boy voice that he uses here."

The Telegraph quoted Entertainment Weekly: "I really started to wonder: Why are we sitting and watching this dithering, half-cocked egomaniac?"

The Sun story was headlined: Russell Brand is panned over Dud remake.

Sounds like Arthur belongs behind a paywall so that film fans can't see it.