Media: News Corporation

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I have to declare an interest as a former group production director and personnel director for News International eight years ago, and a beneficiary of the News International pension scheme. As someone who spent his life in newspapers, I am saddened by the developments of the past few weeks and the impact on the reputations of all those who work in the newspaper sector. The only encouraging factor which should not be forgotten is that it was the determination and diligence of other parts of the press that brought this abuse of media power into the public domain.

The News International I worked for was a brilliantly successful operation, producing 5 million newspapers a night. It had transformed the technology and the restrictive practices of the past. All four of its titles had been revamped into vibrant titles. Journalists went to work for News International because the company valued and resourced them. BSkyB has been a brilliantly innovative business and the group employed some of the best in the sector. It was led by the media genius of his age.

What has gone wrong and what can we learn from it? The key is that one of the paradoxes of market capitalism is that success can breed arrogance and complacency. Rupert Murdoch was too brilliant an entrepreneur to allow complacency, but he bred an arrogance culture which has now undermined his company’s reputation. Too much market power was connived at and ignored by the political establishment of this country. That fed the arrogance of people who thought they were untouchable. It led to overdominant power, where pricing policy, promotional spend and cross-subsidisation of titles all hinted at anti-competitive activity, which was suspected but was never exposed. It meant that established politicians cowered rather than face up to them; it has clearly made some of their staff think they are above the law; and it seduced and compromised the police. Arrogance has grown as they became more dominant and became less subtle.

One of the signs of the changing judgment in the company was the ill-judged decision by the Sun to ditch Gordon Brown’s Labour Government in the middle of the Labour Party conference in 2009, just as it had abandoned John Major ahead of the 1997 general election. It was arrogant; it was ill judged; it was an incitement to the understandable ill will and resentment which has boiled over in the past couple of weeks.

What do we need to do? First, we have to grapple and challenge ownership and size in the media sector. It is the key issue now. The current mood in the country is very much like that in post-war France after the fall of the Vichy regime, when nobody would admit to being a supporter of Marshal Pétain.

Last December, the Business Secretary, whom I am sad that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, did not mention in her roll of honour, almost alone questioned the dominance of the Murdoch empire. He was prepared to ask whether it is right to accept that 40 per cent of the market is too much for Tesco but not to apply the same principle to News International. News International has become almost too dominant in newspapers. Until a few days ago, we were prepared as a country to complement that press dominance with a similar dominance in broadcasting, where Sky last year spent 50 per cent more on television than the BBC. The figures are stunning: £6 billion against £4 billion.

It is clear that corporate governance is not working in the press media. Did anyone in News International evaluate the damage done to its journalistic brand by compromising journalistic integrity and engaging in criminal behaviour? It is clear they did not. It has compounded that by condoning a seeming cover-up at a senior level. I hope that the recent appointment of a former Labour Home Secretary, David Blunkett, as adviser on corporate social responsibility will not prove too burdensome for him.

This matter is not confined to News International. Other media groups are noticeable by their silence. Why are they not declaring that none of their journalists phone-hacked, bribed policemen or illegally processed personal data? The silence suggests that they know they cannot or they fear the worst.

I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Grade, said. There are others, however, calling for the abolition of the Press Complaints Commission. It needs a thorough revamp; it needs to be strengthened; it needs greater independence, proper investigation powers and the ability to enforce corrections and sanctions. If this model can be applied to broadcasters, why cannot it be applied to the press?

It was clearly not in the public interest that Vince Cable was silenced on media issues by the Daily Telegraph in December last year. The PCC declared that the Telegraph conducted “unacceptable subterfuge”. Did Vince Cable get a fulsome public apology from the Telegraph? Did the journalist get disciplined rather than promoted? I simply do not know—and that is why the current system does not have public credibility.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. In declaring my interest as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, I can confirm that the Daily Telegraph had to publish a full, half-page apology.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, we have had many problems with the speakers’ list today. I suggest that after the debate would be a better time to answer such questions. The noble Lord should continue.