Press watchdog drawn into 'smear emails' affair

Here's a difficult one for the Press Complaints Commission's new chair, Baroness Buscombe. The PCC is about to get embroilled in the Downing Street 'smear emails' affair.
The Daily Telegraph reported this morning that Frances Osborne, the wife of the shadow chancellor, has complained to the Press Complaints Commission under the accuracy code after the emails, which included a fabricated story about her, were repeated in The Sunday Times and the News of the World.
The Telegraph says Mrs Osborne is "baffled" and "hurt" to have been dragged into the controversy. The paper says she wrote in her letter to the PCC: "Although acknowledged as untrue, these false and damaging allegations were nonetheless gratuitously repeated and insufficient care was taken to make clear that they were unfounded."
Blogger Guido Fawkes who broke the smear emails story, prompting the resignation of Damian McBride, has never published the contents of the emails on his blog.
The newspapers are likely to argue that the contents of the emails went to the heart of the story and publishing them was in the public interest.
Guido (aka Paul Staines) says on his blog today: "Guido did not take a penny from either the Sunday Times or the News of the World for their front page stories."

Partridges follow the bullet for Craig Brown

Craig Brown, whose departure from the Daily Telegraph caused much consternation, has been given a leaving gift by a reader, the Evening Standard reports today. The Standard's 'In The Air' column reports: "One Daily Telegraph reader, hearing about Brown's abrupt defenestration by the newspaper, sent him...a dozen partridges."

Something Greenslade and Glover can agree on: The Daily Telegraph is tragic

MediaGuardian commentator Roy Greenslade earlier this month lambasted the Barclay brothers, accusing them of "disembowelling" the Telegraph following the sacking of many of the newspaper's best known journalists. Today it's Stephen Glover's turn.
In his Independent media column, Glover describes what is happening at The Daily Telegraph as "a national tragedy". He makes the startling claim: "If The Daily Telegraph continues down the path of trying to be like the Daily Mail it will be slaughtered."
Greenslade and Glover don't always see eye to eye. Back in September Glover was so angry about a piece Greenslade wrote in the Evening Standard on the revamped Independent that he thundered: "We pundits are sometimes cruel or unfair. I have certainly written things I later regretted. But I wonder whether I have ever sunk as low as my esteemed colleague Professor Roy Campbell-Greenslade did in his media column in the London Evening Standard last week."

Booze in the pews: Pitcher defends drinking in journalists' church after charity carol service

George Pitcher, who conducted the journalists' carol service at St. Bride's in Fleet Street last week, defends drinking wine in the church in a column in today's Telegraph.
He tells how a woman objected to the congregation drinking wine in St. Bride's after the carol service, held in aid of the Journalists' Charity. "I explained that this was a celebration, that Jesus himself was described as a "glutton and wine-bibber" (Matt: 11:19) and the miracle of the wedding at Canaa set something of a precedent. "But this is a church!" she exclaimed as if that answered everything."
He goes on to defend drinking in general: "Like anything, drink might kill us, but it needn't. And if I snuff it in my sixties or seventies for the price of years of fun, that has got to be preferable to living into a mentally acute great old age with Harriet Harman.
"Hallelujah for booze."
Cheers, George.

"Does Jack Straw know what constitutes the modern media?" asks Joshua Rozenberg

The Daily Telegraph's legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg raises some very interesting points about the privileged access journalists would be given under plans to open up the family courts to "accredited" media. (see posting below)
He writes: "It is fundamental to the Government’s proposals that the media should be given privileged access to the courts. As a journalist, I naturally welcome this.
"And it must be right to draw a distinction between the press and the public at large. Opening the family courts to everyone would put children and families at risk of being identified and stigmatised. It would not be possible to stop identifying information from being made public.
"But Mr Straw does not seem to have given enough thought to what constitutes the modern media.
"If I decide to write about legal affairs on my own website, am I a freelance journalist who should be allowed access to the courts or a blogger who should not? And who is to decide?
"Mr Straw’s officials pointed out that press seats at criminal trials are allocated by court officials. But those denied such seats can usually attend as members of the public. That option would not be available here.
"Journalism is not a profession, in the sense of an occupation with controlled entry such as law or architecture. Anyone can call himself or herself a journalist. It is therefore essential that the final decision on who may attend the family courts as a journalist is one for the courts themselves, not officials.
"Subject to that concern, Mr Straw’s announcement is to be welcomed. His aim is clearly to increase public confidence in the courts...But his proposals are based on the assumption that there are enough journalists to cover the courts effectively. In these straightened times, this may be a rash assumption to make. Unless, of course, you include the growing band of freelances."
As an ex-Crown Court reporter, I think Joshua Rozenberg is right to stress that the final decision on which journalists be allowed to attend family courts should be up to the courts rather than officials. In my experience court officials tend to see journalists as unwelcome outsiders and often put barriers in their way.

Gunning for George

Two of the Daily Telegraph's big hitters Jeff Randall and Simon Heffer were laying into the Tory's George Osborne even before the "Corfu capers" story broke. Last Saturday Heffer began a piece in his column: "When I described George Osborne, the teenage shadow chancellor, as a "dolt", some of you thought I was unkind. I wasn't unkind enough." He then went on to accuse the shadow chancellor of lying about Tory economic policy in an interview on the Today programme. Randall commented last week: "Osborne seems to have frozen in the headlights. As the situation becomes ever more serious, George looks increasingly flaccid."