It was a gentle ride for Dominic Mohan, editor of the Sun, at Leveson yesterday. There were no searching questions, no awkward moments, no difficulties to speak of.
The most optimistic way of viewing the session was that it was a way of lulling other serving editors into a false sense of security before their appearances before the inquiry. Whatever the reasons, Mohan came out of it all very well. He had time to emphasise the positive contribution made by the Sun through its charitable and educational endeavours, as well as explain how the Sun was a bastion of quality journalism.
At times, Mohan slipped into well rehearsed corporate speak, turning it into an advertisement for the virtues of his newspaper — as you’d expect he would. If you read the coverage in today’s Sun you might be forgiven for thinking that the Leveson inquiry is attempting to find out why the ‘super soaraway’ is such a bloody great newspaper, rather than delving into the nastier side of tabloid journalism.
Stories involving anonymous sources required four separate signatures, he explained. The Sun was in constant contact with the PCC, he said. Nothing “prevented” the Sun from telling the story of Anthony Worrall Thompson being convicted of shoplifting, he said. Rupert Murdoch was a”journalist at heart” but never interfered, he insisted. An interesting choice of verb, “interfere”, but there was only gentle probing.
“I’ve seen mistakes over the years and I’ve learned from them,” said Mohan, quoting the example of Charlotte Church’s complaint about her pregnancy being reported before she had reached 12 weeks (the PCC upheld an adjudication about the story). “As a result I have obviously not printed stories about females under 12 weeks pregnant. Last year we had a story about Dannii Minogue and they told me she was under 12 weeks and I decided not to run it.”
The Mirror, though, did run it, and were censured by the PCC, despite the information already being in the “public domain” thanks to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald. If Mohan gave the impression of a newspaper that stood strong against the temptation to print such stories, that bubble was punctured only a little when he was later presented with a Sun story from 4 November last year, where the paper speculated about whether the Duchess of Cambridge may or may not have been pregnant.
“It looks like a piece of speculation about the DOC’s dietary requirements,” said Mohan. Which it is, although there wasn’t much speculation of that nature going on. Under the headline “Something you’re nut telling us, Kate?” the story wonders aloud why the Duchess might have turned down the chance to eat peanut paste while on an official engagement.
The tale is illustrated by one of those “onlookers” who so conveniently pop up at times like this, saying exactly the kind of speculative thing that fits the narrative of the story perfectly, so perfectly that you’d be hard pressed to make up a better quote. The anonymous “onlooker” — possibly wanting their identity to be concealed for fear of reprisals from the Royal family — was quoted as saying: “The Duchess does not have a nut allergy, nor is it like her to appear rude. The only explanation is that she is pregnant and has been told — like many expectant mothers — to avoid nuts.”
Is there really a piece of paper somewhere in a filing cabinet at Wapping with four signatures on it, saying who that “onlooker” is? Perhaps that was an opportunity missed by Leveson, to get the Sun‘s editor to discuss these anonymous “friends”, “sources”, “onlookers” and “eyewitnesses” who pop up all the time in tabloid tales — not just to fluff out a relatively harmless story with a startlingly perfect quote, but in more serious contexts too.
But there were no big hits, no big quotes, no errors from all this. It was the kind of dull, un-newsworthy encounter that Mohan must have been hoping for, to keep himself out of the headlines and avoid putting the Sun in the spotlight. So far, it doesn’t appear that editors will be getting a rough ride at Leveson — not yet, at least.
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