The Wardman Wire

This morning the Independent has a piece by Stephen Glover about the paper’s virtual reprinting of a Foreign Office Briefing note as pages one and three of the paper, without admitting that this was the case.

Stephen Glover comments (retyped because the column cannot be accessed on the web <g>. Technical problem rather than “vanishing”, I think, on this occasion. Update 11:30 - it is back.). I’m reprinting the brief item in full. The original is here.

Facts? I don’t think so

I should have written last week about the strange case of The Independent and the Foreign Office memorandum.

On 18 October, this paper presented “10 myths about the EU treaty” on its front page, and ran an article on page three debunking these myths. A sharp-eyed Eurosceptic named Neil O’Brien noticed that the article was almost a verbatim reprinting of a Foreign Office briefing note.

Contrary to his editor Simon Kelner’s reaction:

“I am completely unapologetic about our attempt to explode the myths that have been allowed to develop in what has been an extremely one-sided debate,” Mr Kelner told MediaGuardian.co.uk.

“What we printed was a collection of facts, which our political editor independently verified.

“The source doesn’t really make a material difference. What matters is whether those facts are accurate or not. And no one, as far as I can see, is doubting the truth of what we printed.”

Stephen Glover argues:

Does this do? I don’t think so. I should declare that, unusually for a columnist on this paper, I am a Eurosceptic, but I don’t think this makes any difference to my argument. The Independent was not, of course, reproducing facts, but an interpretation of facts. Whether this interpretation was correct or not is beside the point.

Imagine how we would feel if the Daily Mail or The Daily Telegraph reproduced a Tory briefing note without attribution. Even if we agreed with the interpretation, we would feel that we had been wrongly kept in the dark. How much stronger would we have felt this if these newspapers had passed off an official policy paper as their own work when the Tories were in power?

A newspaper is perfectly within its rights in agreeing with the Government of the day, but if it directly borrows its arguments it should say so. Even then it would be preferable, by way of establishing one’s independent credentials, to amplify and refine those arguments oneself.

I’ve had a bit of a go at the Indy over the last couple of weeks, but fair do’s to them for carrying the other opinion too.

Tags: guido fawkes, stephen glover, independent, foreign office briefing, simon kelner[tags]guido fawkes, stephen glover, independent, foreign office briefing, simon kelner[/tags]