Tory MSP Bill Aitken resigned this week as convenor of Holyrood’s Justice Committee after the mounting furore over remarks he made to a journalist at the Sunday Herald forced him out.
Mr Aitken was right to resign. His remarks were inexcusable and no-one can expect to remain in such a position of authority as he held having suggested that a rape victim may have been a prostitute.
Let’s get that out of the way right at the start because this piece is not about Mr Aitken’s comments, nor his resignation. This is about the dubious way one journalist and one newspaper dealt with the story. It is also about the worrying creep of entrapment and of breaking normal journalistic rules which is becoming more and more prevalent and which, left unchecked, has the potential to alter – for the worse – the reporting of all politics in Britain.
This particular tale started last Friday when Mr Aitken was contacted by phone by Matthew Holehouse of the Sunday Herald. Mr Holehouse was doing a story about the alleged rape of a woman in Glasgow.
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He had a conversation with Mr Aitken (a lengthy excerpt of which can be accessed via the New Statesman website). First, it is quite apparent from the transcript that Mr Holehouse is very unsure both of what has happened and of normal legal restrictions. He has to be reminded by Mr Aitken that the alleged offence is indeed an alleged offence. He also appears unable to confirm some of the simplest details of the case. But that is not the issue here. During the course of that conversation, Mr Aitken makes the remarks for which he has since had to resign. These are the key parts: 1) “Well, it is an area where quite a lot of the hookers take their clients. Now, that may not have happened in this case. But, you know. What was happening? Certainly we cannot have a situation where women are getting dragged off the streets up lanes and raped. Erm, but you know … Are the police saying it is the same outfit?” And, 2) “Well, you always know there's a lot more to these city-centre rapes than meet the eye, of course. But this does sound concerning. So what I will be saying: there is a disturbing pattern, and while the offences may not be related it is absolutely essential that unaccompanied women take the greatest care when walking in these areas. I have little doubt that the police will eventually get a result but it is a disturbing situation nonetheless. OK?” It appears from that second quotation that Mr Aitken gets round to giving his on the record quote with the line starting “So what I will be saying…” The rest appears to be background and, as such, off the record. Mr Aitken does not believe the rest of his remarks will be quoted because it is quite clear that he and Mr Holehouse are talking through the events with each other, trying to clarify what went on and what the police are doing. Mr Holehouse then rang off and thanked Mr Aitken for his time. Mr Holehouse rang back and spoke to Mr Aitken later that same day. At that point Mr Aitken, apparently, gave a clear and unambiguous on the record quote, making it absolutely clear that women were not responsible for any rapes and condemning the alleged rape entirely. The transcript of that second conversation has never appeared, despite Conservative requests for it to be published. Yet, the first transcript (or at least a lengthy excerpt from it) appeared on the New Statesman website with remarkable speed. That exchange, which Mr Aitken believed – quite understandably – was off the record, was also used for a Sunday Herald article which resulted in the clamour which eventually led to Mr Aitken’s resignation. Keen to make sure I did not represent anybody and to make sure I had Mr Holehouse’s side of the story, I rang him last night. He did not want to talk about the story or the way it had been handled. If we were to have a conversation, it would have to be “off the record”, he insisted. He was quite adamant on that point, which I found revealing. He, clearly, did not want to find in print comments which he clearly intended to be kept as background. I will keep our conversation private – as Mr Holehouse requested. He wanted it to remain off the record, so it will remain off the record. I would only point out the obvious: if only he had been as conscientious and principled in his treatment of Mr Aitken as he was with me, then none of this would have happened. I believe there are two key issues here. The first is this: should Mr Aitken be held responsible for comments he made in an off the record exchange with a journalist? The Sunday Herald and Mr Holehouse believe he should be, which is why they published details of Mr Aitken’s remarks and started the furore which led to his resignation. They have a point – I don’t personally agree with that point, but I fully accept that it is a valid viewpoint to hold. Their argument appears to be that if Mr Aitken was in a position of authority, which he was, then he should not be allowed to make any comments which suggest, in any way, that a woman is to blame for a rape or that the woman in this alleged incident was a prostitute. But there is another issue here too. Is it right for journalists to deceive politicians (or indeed anybody in public life or in private) into believing they are talking off the record when they will be, in fact, quoted in full? According to the most basic book of journalistic ethics, anybody who conducts an interview over the telephone which they then tape, has to tell the interviewee that they are being taped. Mr Holehouse did not appear to do that. He certainly appeared to tape Mr Aitken – judging by the transcript which appeared on the New Statesman site – and he did not inform Mr Aitken that he was being taped. Furthermore, somehow the transcript of that conversation then appeared in the public domain. If an interviewee is told at the start that the conversation with a journalist is being taped, then the exchange is open and both parties are accountable for what is said. If that is not done, it is entrapment. This is not the first time this sort of trick has been used. The Daily Telegraph caused some short-term embarrassment towards the end of last year to various senior Liberal Democrat MPs by sending reporters into constituency surgeries to talk to the MPs, apparently as constituents, and then getting them to record comments by the MPs which were then publicised to embarrass the MPs. Let me stress again, for the avoidance of doubt: Mr Aitken’s comments were inexcusable. He had to resign and that is what he has done. But the issue that concerns me – and many of my colleagues at Holyrood – is one of journalist integrity. I have been a political journalist for 16 years. I have always, to my knowledge, respected the rules for on and off the record comments and, as far as I am aware, in all the years I have worked at Holyrood and with all the people with whom I have worked, only one of my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament has ever failed to do so. All the rest of us know and respect the rules that govern the reporting of comments by the people we cover. That doesn’t mean we stand back or are afraid to criticise. Anyone who has seen some of the material I have written over the years on a number of people, including current party leaders Alex Salmond and Iain Gray, will appreciate that. But these unwritten rules are there for a reason. They are to establish a level of trust (even if the parties involved don’t like each other) between reporter and politician. If that trust breaks down, then politicians will retreat behind uniformly bland press releases issued by press officers, nothing will be said to anyone and the public’s knowledge and understanding of the political process will diminish as a result. Our job is to provide an insight into the world of politics. There have to be rules and guidelines governing our relationship with the politicians we report on. If these are dismantled – for whatever reason – then it is the reporting of politics that will be the poorer. Mr Holehouse and the Sunday Herald did not break any laws. All they did was trample over the code of journalistic ethics which all of us, as journalists, signed up to – as, indeed, the Daily Telegraph did before them. Mr Aitken has been a casualty of this affair and very few, if any, will shed any tears for him given the comments he made. But what is at issue here is not the end result, but the method and the impact this creeping trend for underhand tehniques will have on politicians and on reporters. Perhaps I am just old-fashioned, but I believe you have to have principles in this rather murky trade of ours, otherwise you have nothing. I also believe that, if this trend continues, then the vital level of trust that exists between reporters and politicians will disintegrate and the long-term price will not just be steep, it will be paid by everybody.Response from the Editor of the Sunday Herald Your article 'The Tory MSP, the resignation and journalistic ethics' by Hamish Macdonell is based on a number of false assertions and dubious conclusions. Mr Macdonell suggests that Bill Aitken's comments to a Sunday Herald reporter regarding the victim of a gang-rape in Glasgow were off the record. They were not. At no time were the words 'off the record' uttered during the course of the conversation. Mr Macdonell then goes further - suggesting that we should have realised the remarks were off the record from the context of the conversation. In other words, journalists should assume that everything is off the record until an interviewee specifically says that he or she is going on the record. We don't know of any journalist who works under that assumption. Does Mr Macdonell? It would be a dangerous development if journalists begin to edit quotes on the basis that they believe them to be off the record, even when the interviewee has not said so. Mr Macdonell also suggests entrapment by the Sunday Herald and its reporter. Again, this is an enirely baseless suggestion. Our reporter telephoned for a routine quote on a series of rape allegations. Mr Aitken brought up the suggestion that the area where the alleged rape took place was a popular one for prostitutes. We had not asked him about prostitution and certainly had not set out to take the interview in that direction. Mr Aitken raised the matter with no prompting by us. Mr Macdonell seems to believe we should simply have ignored his comments, or treated them as off the record. Why? It is no part of our job to edit politcians' quotes to save them embarrassment. It would be dangerous for journalism if that were the case. There is another interesting journalistic and ethical dilemma posed by Mr Macdonell. Let's say that Mr Aitken had gone off the record in a conversation with our reporter and made the comments he did about rape and prostitutes. What would Mr Macdonnell have done? Collaborate with his political contact and protect them from public opprobrium? Thankfully, we did not have to grapple with that dilemma. As we have said, Mr Aitken made his comments on the record. Mr Macdonell goes on to make the rather confusing point that the Sunday Herald has somehow damaged the ability of the press to scrutinise politicians on behalf of the public. It is hard to understand why hiding Mr Aitken's comments could in any way further the public interest. Indeed there is a stronger argument that doing so runs contrary to the public interest. The relationship between journalists and politicians described by Macdonell is dangerously cosy and does a disservice to readers. We could go on to question why the Aitken story was picked up by so few newspapers and broadcasters and why even now so many commentators are bending over backwards to support Mr Aitken's nonsensical suggestion that his comments do not reflect his true views. But perhaps it is best not to go there … Richard Walker, Editor Sunday Herald
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