[This will not be the usual fare]
Yesterday evening (9 December) according to “senior Tories” (Robert Peston, ITV Political Editor) and “two sources” (Laura Kuenssberg, BBC Political Editor) a Labour activist punched a Conservative party advisor. The incident apparently occurred when the Health Secretary (Rt Hon Matt Hancock) visited Leeds General Hospital.
This didn’t happen. But for several hours apparently it had. The perpetrator had been arrested. The protesters got to the hospital in taxis paid for by the Labour Party. None of it true.
One assumes this is part of the rough and tumble of election campaigns. However, what struck me was the “two sources” line from Laura Kuensberg. Racking my brain, I remembered a piece by Peter Oborne in October for Open Democracy. Entitled “British journalists have become part of Johnson’s fake news machines” The article is worth revisiting.
Mr Oborne’s article starts with an autopsy of a Mail on Sunday front-page splash during one of the fevered Brexit period that eventually led to the passing of the Benn Act that would prevent a “no deal” Brexit. The Mail on Sunday’s original story asserted that “the Government is working on extensive investigations into Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin and Hilary Benn and their involvement with foreign powers and the funding of their activities.” Strong stuff, but was there an investigation? According to Oborne’s account, the Number 10 press office and Cabinet Office spokesmen denied the existence of such an investigation.
The Mail on Sunday stated when questioned by Open Democracy:
We stand firmly by our story. Two separate sources in Downing Street told us that officials in Number 10 were gathering evidence about allegations of foreign collusion by MPs opposed to a No Deal Brexit. When the prime minister was asked about our story on the BBC ‘Today’ programme on 1 October he responded that there were ‘legitimate questions to be asked about the generation of this legislation’.
Two separate sources again.
Mr Peston even wrote a long reply to the piece. I won’t summarise it. However, he proudly writes that:
[the role of a] conscientious political reporter then and now has been to distinguish palpable nonsense spouted by aides from information that genuinely represents the policy of the Government.
So was the non-existence of a punch a policy that brave Mr Peston was relaying with “maximum transparency permitted under conventions that govern political reporting in the UK”? Or simply that the policy is distraction, and some journalists are just hapless pawns in the game?
I hope that this is life lesson for Mr Peston and Mrs Kuenssberg and other British journalists prone to such errors. Maybe they won’t in future simply transmit what comes out of the mouths – or whatsapp accounts – of their “two sources.” But, I will not hold my breath.
So what chance do us unwashed folks have? How can we hope to know what has actually happened in our politics when the political editors of our two largest television networks apparently do not fact check what was a clear incident that either happened or did not. It seems at the minute they simply get the story from one (senior) bloke with a vested interested and check it with his mate.
I donate to fullfact.org. I suggest others should too.
Read more:
- Press Gazette (10 December), BBC and ITV political editors apologise for false hospital “punch” claim in tweets: https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-and-itv-political-editors-apologise-for-false-hospital-punch-claim-in-tweets/
- Open Democracy (22 October), British journalists have become part of Johnson’s fake news machine: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/british-journalists-have-become-part-of-johnsons-fake-news-machine/
- Open Democracy (22 October), “My job is to draw back the veil”: Robert Peston responds to Peter Oborne: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/my-job-draw-back-veil-robert-peston-responds-peter-oborne/
The Lord Meyricks 