Leveson hasnt changed press: Greenslade + privacy cases

Roy Greenslade rather caustically points to the papping of 2 TV journalists as indicating that the red-top press has very swiftly forgotten about Leveson and returned to type, pointing to the printing of the naked Prince Harry pictures as another example of this.

I usually agree with RG, but I'm not completely sure on these examples, Marr/Murnahgan/Harry - what do you think? Have the press once more ignored the PCC code or is there a genuine public interest defence?

• Monday 10 September 2012

• Bah, humbug! There's no public interest in sneaky pictures of TV journalists

  I often quote Tom Stoppard's line about the "casual cruelty" of newspapers. Sometimes though, it is far from casual as Dermot Murnaghan and Andrew Marr will testify today.
  They have suffered the embarrassment of being pictured - in the Sunday Mirror and The People - kissing women who are not their wives. And the Daily Mail's website has followed up by publishing both sets of pictures too. (No, I'm not going to link to any of it).
  Why have the pair been papped? Here's the public interest defence. These men, by virtue of appearing on television, are role models. They are married. According to the editors' code of practice, the public interest is served by "preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation."
  So Murnaghan and Marr - both of them journalists, incidentally - are "guilty" of misleading the public. Case proved. As for the invasion of their privacy by snatching sneak pictures, that's fine too because the men were snapped while in a public place where all the world could see them.
  The public has a right to know and all that. Editors may say they do it more in sorrow than in anger. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Bah, humbug!
  There are all sorts of questions to be asked about the nature of the tip-offs that led to the photographers stalking their prey. But I guess we can be sure it didn't involve phone hacking this time.
  But what's the point of my bellyaching about these gross invasions of privacy? The tabloids are reverting to type, so my complaints are not going to change anything.
  With the Prince Harry pictures and these two new examples, it is abundantly clear that the so-called Leveson effect is history. Celebrities are fair game again.
  Duck for cover, Hugh Grant. Watch out, Charlotte Church. Stay home, Steve Coogan. The paparazzi are back in play. The tabs are on your tails. And you can't all flee to Afghanistan.
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  Roy Greenslade

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