It’s vital for democracy we end cold war between police and the press
A good rapport between reporters and officers is the mainstay of a mutually beneficial relationship
As a junior reporter on an evening newspaper many years ago, the first task of the day was police calls. Every morning, one of us was deputed to phone the local station and find out from the duty sergeant what had happened during the night.
The resulting conversation often made that lunchtime’s lead story, perhaps a dreadful accident, an assault or occasionally even a murder. Every now and then we might bump into the officer in the pub and buy him a drink, partly to acknowledge his assistance but also to develop a rapport, putting a face to the name.
The relationship between the press
and the police was symbiotic. They needed us to help garner evidence, alert potential witnesses, report on their successes and reassure the public they were on top of local criminal activity. We needed the information they provided to fill the great white spaces in the newspaper.
It was not always an easy association and our requirements would often clash. The police might want to keep something out of the paper which we thought should go in; but arrangements could be made to everyone’s satisfaction provided there were good lines of communication.
The police and the press are part of the same nexus: they serve the public and we seek to inform readers about what they are up to and why. It is never wise for the relationship to get too close – after all, exposing corruption in the police is also a function of the media. But in a free country, people are entitled to know what their agencies are doing on their behalf and the press is the conduit to them finding out.
This dispensation has maintained for many decades but it began to break down in the aftermath of the phone hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry into the newspaper industry. Its terms of reference included a consideration of “contacts and the relationship between the press and the police, and the conduct of each”.
Ever since, these have become increasingly fraught. They reached a nadir at the weekend, with the extraordinary statement of a senior Metropolitan Police officer, Neil Basu – the force counter-terrorism chief – threatening to prosecute newspapers if they continued to publish leaked emails from Sir Kim Darroch, the erstwhile ambassador to Washington.
What on earth possessed him to issue such a warning? More to the point, why did no one inside the Met, including the Commissioner Cressida Dick, not think there was something fundamentally wrong with such a menacing threat to press freedom?
To a great extent this goes back to Leveson and an institutionalised, even willful, misunderstanding of what a free press actually involves. His report was critical of the police for fostering “a perception” that some senior officers were too close to executives at News International and that this prevented a proper investigation of the extent of phone hacking.
Whether or not that criticism was justified, it appears to have generated an entirely new sense of “them and us” inside the Met in particular.
Mr Basu’s initial statement captured this tension. “I would advise all owners, editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government documents that may already be in their possession or which may be offered to them, and to turn them over to the police or their rightful owner, Her Majesty’s government.”
A police officer of his rank in the past would not have dreamt of making such a threat. It is one thing to pursue the leaker for a breach of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) but publishing information embarrassing to an ambassador is not yet an offence.
On Saturday, the Met rowed back – but only in part. In a fresh statement, Mr Basu said the force “respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy”. But he added: “We have also been told the publication of these specific documents, now knowing they may be a breach of the OSA, could also constitute a criminal offence and one that carries no public interest defence.”
It is not clear who told him that. While the disclosure itself might have been a breach of the OSA, the contents were not matters of national security. Moreover, when prosecutions have previously been brought for unauthorised disclosures in the media they have always been against the leaker not the newspaper or journalists.
This changed in 2011 amid the furore generated by the hacking scandal when the police set up Operation Elveden to look at the relationship between public servants and the press in which payments had been made for information. A succession of prosecutions resulted in the conviction of 30 people who leaked, including nine police officers. However, of the 29 journalists charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office only one was convicted at trial and that was overturned on appeal. After five years, Operation Elveden – which cost £30million, tied up scores of detectives carrying out dawn raids and left suspects on bail for years – was wound up. Perhaps Mr Basu’s threat was a legacy of that episode and a perceived sense of unfairness at the outcome. The Leveson findings also played a big part in the change of culture and a developing sense that the media were an inconvenience, even an obstruction, to police work, rather than the eyes and ears of the public. The report found that successive Met commissioners had tried to boost the public image of the police by wooing the media: “A number of commissioners have deliberately courted working relationships with the press, no doubt partly in an attempt to enhance the standing of the service in the minds of the public; others have adopted a more remote style.”
Rightly or wrongly, the impression was given that there was something wrong with a working relationship. Sir Paul Stephenson, who resigned as commissioner at the height of the storm, maintains that the opposite is the case.
“One of the most important rules of senior police leadership is maintaining a regular dialogue with editors and reporters to set the context of policing, correct inaccuracies and engage in debates,” he said. “There’s little doubt that Leveson had a chilling effect. It put up a smokescreen and give the impression that there was widespread impropriety throughout the ranks when there was anything but.”
He added: “When more junior officers see that criticism they become more circumspect. If young cops feel they cannot talk to the media then that is a tragedy, frankly. We need a dialogue at all levels.”
Leveson recommended that an official record be kept of journalists’ meetings with senior officers, as well as tighter curbs on briefings with reporters, entrenching this departure from how things had worked before. Indeed, in response Lord Hoganhowe, who took over at Scotland Yard from Sir Paul, put a stricter regime in place governing contact between the media and police officers.
As one reporter put it: “Relations with the Met were very chilly indeed under Hogan-howe. He didn’t give any briefings and refused to answer any questions.” Things appeared to have improved under Cressida Dick, with the reinstatement of social gatherings with journalists and a promise of more briefings. The comments of Mr Basu, however, will raise questions over how far that might go.
Sir Mike Penning, MP for Hemel Hempstead and a former policing minister, said: “If the police can’t communicate with the press, they can’t communicate with the public. And that erodes trust. The police now feel like they are a soft target for the press. They’re forever getting beaten up in the headlines.”
He added: “There’s a degree of that, which is partly due to Leveson – but it’s also a result of this risk-aversion when talking about crime. The general public is looking for less corporate speak and more passion.”
Coincidentally, the Met is currently searching for a communications officer. The recruitment advert states that “the nature of policing is to be visible and accessible, and for our communities to know who we are”. That is only possible if a free press and the police work in a mutually beneficial way, not in open hostility.
‘If police can’t communicate with the press, they can’t communicate with the public. That erodes trust’