Did The Mail On Sunday Expect Thanks From Its Readers For Skewering The English 2018 FIFA World Cup Bid?

Philip M. Stone May 19, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Frankly, it was journalism at its most disgusting – a former girl friend invites the head of the English Football Association (FA) and leader of its 2018 World Cup bid to a private lunch, she carried a secret wire, he talked about some extremely damaging international football bribery allegations, she sold that to a Sunday newspaper for £75,000, he had to resign and justifiably the newspaper got lambasted for an exclusive story that may well have destroyed the 2018 bid.

British media are always mouthing off against what they see as incursions by the courts in imposing privacy law in the UK, yet when The Mail on Sunday did what it did this week, then it has only itself to blame when so many people ask out loud whether such entrapment is really legitimate journalism and maybe there is a need for formal privacy law after all. Even if publication under current rules was legally ok, is that what the media should be up to?

Perhaps the best news to come from all this is the wave of public opinion against the newspaper. It wasn’t so much the bribery allegations that Lord Triesman, the then head of the FA and the World Cup bid, told to his lunch companion that upset people, but rather that such publication was an embarrassment to international football and would probably doom England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Just two days before under a glowing media spotlight the English, led by David Beckham, had shown up in Zurich at FIFA (international football) headquarters to hand Sepp Blatter, the FIFA boss, the details of the British bid. Even new Prime Minister David Cameron phoned Blatter to say the government was solidly supporting the bid.

So for 36 hours all was sunshine and then The Mail on Sunday dropped its entrapment bombshell. Was the newspaper blinded by the fact that it is very conservative leaning and Lord Triesman has a long history as a communist and then as a member of the Labor Party and this was a great way to bring down a long-time opposition bigwig without much thought given to the greater calamity such a story could bring to the nation? Or was its intention to destroy the English bid?

For near three days the newspaper refused comment and then it came out with, “This story concerns very serious allegations of corruption at the highest level of sport, made by a man who was leading the England World Cup bid. The public is clearly entitled to know about such allegations. We would also like to make it clear that Melissa Jacobs put details of her relationship with Lord Triesman on the Internet, and made her recording of her conversation with him, without the knowledge or involvement of The Mail on Sunday. There is no question of entrapment, the paper was simply reporting events that had already taken place.”

But that explanation wasn’t good enough for one of the newspaper’s premier sports columnists, Garry Linecker, a very well respected former England International and World Cup Star who is now one of the BBC’s premier sports presenters. He is also an official ambassador of the bid and he bluntly told the newspaper, “The story itself, the circumstances surrounding it, and the actions of The Mail on Sunday in publishing it have undermined the bid to bring the World Cup to England in 2018.” The newspaper tried to keep him on by saying he could be as critical as he wished of the newspaper within his column, but he still left.   

Once the story was out the immediate media angle was that this would probably put an end to the English bid. Lord Triesman was made to fall on his sword twice – resigning as the bid chairman and as chairman of the FA and to his credit he did it very quickly. Indeed, there were indications Tuesday from FIFA that those fast resignations will go a long way to redeem the London bid, but no promises on the final outcome. The English had been favored beforehand to win.

Bid organizers had put on a brave face after the Sunday publication saying FIFA wouldn’t be making its decision until December and there was plenty of time to mend fences. But there was no doubt the fans were furious -- on the TalkSport radio station 84% of listeners said the newspaper was wrong to publish. The Press Complaints Commission, an independent self-regulatory body that deals with complaints about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines, says it has received more than 50 complaints.

A Facebook page was set up which stated the most prevalent view, “In publishing details of Lord Triesman’s conversation with Melissa Jacobs, The Mail on Sunday has undermined England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup finals. The Mail needs to understand that England is more important to us than the sordid celebrity gossip and tittle-tattle that appears in its pages, and that we will punish the rag for publishing this anti-England story in pursuit of a salacious headline and a quick buck.”

And now the newspaper has to make a decision whether to run more of the story next Sunday. According to the Independent newspaper Melissa Jacobs has much more damaging material on her tape, but even she has been taken aback by the entrapment allegations and negative reader response and she is said to be reconsidering on whether she should sell more. But then again, £75,000 is £75,000. The Mail on Sunday might actually wish now that she doesn’t want to sell more and that would let it off the hook, but if she does will the newspaper continue with the story or sit on it? Its marketing and PR people cannot be happy with the reader response – no doubt they have spent the past days privately testing public opinion -- and everyone will be looking at next Sunday’s circulation figures to see if there is reader retribution.

But back to the actual entrapment itself – surely such conversations are private and publication not allowed? Besides who owns the copyright – the owner of the tape or the one whose words are on the tape? The Football Association tried to get an injunction on Saturday night to prevent publication but was turned down and that’s probably a good thing because British judges in the past have been all too happy to grant such pre-publication injunctions. But doesn’t such entrapment fall foul of the Princess Caroline ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that even public figures are entitled to privacy, and that no one can publish a picture of anyone during their private life without expressed consent. If a picture is not allowed then surely not secret tape recordings of a private conversation? The court said that publishing pictures taken when personalities are not on duty violates human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and the basic ruling is that everyone, no matter how well known, must be able to enjoy a legitimate hope for the protection of his or her private life.

Lord Triesman was at a private lunch with someone with whom he had some sort of prior relationship. He was not on his official duties. If a picture had been taken of the lunch that surely would have been against the European Court’s ruling. So why should not such an insipid recording also come under the ruling?

There was an event during the recent General Elections that also raised media eyebrows. Prime Minister Gordon Brown had two microphones wired to him to pick up the audio as he spoke with voters in the Labor stronghold of Rochdale. A woman got into a lively discussion on various subjects, including immigration, and Brown, on camera, was polite throughout. He then got into his car and perhaps not realizing the radio strength of the microphones, or forgetting he still had them on, he was overheard as the car traveled down the road to refer to the voter as “that woman” and that she was a “bigot”. And that became about the only story that day on the 24-hour news channels and the regular newscasts on the rest.

It was certainly a huge embarrassment to Brown who apologized, and apologized and apologized… Now this was an election campaign and Brown being a politician understood he was fair game for whatever he said publicly, but there he was in the back seat of his car speeding down the road having a private conversation and the live microphones picked it up. Was that ok or out-of-bounds? The Labor Party didn’t really take on the press for that, rather putting it down to one of those things that happens, but was there an invasion of privacy there? The legitimate purpose for those microphones had passed. Was that in fact a private conversation, or does the media believe that when it comes to politicians in an election there is no such thing as a private conversation?

The Mail on Sunday case is fascinating for the negative public reaction, which really had nothing to do with entrapment but rather that the story soundly hurt a cause for which the country seemed solidly behind, and thanks to that story the cause may be lost. The newspaper can always argue the public’s right-to-know, but there seems to be a clear message that newspapers should understand prior to publishing the consequences of what they print. If they don’t, then they will certainly understand those phone calls that say, “Cancel my subscription”.

See also in ftm Knowledge

UK Newspapers

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The Privacy Issue

The privacy issue touches every aspect of media. From consumer protection and the rights of individuals to news coverage privacy is hotly debated. New media and old media stumble and the courts decide. ftm offers views from every side of the Privacy Issue. 37 pages. PDF (April 2010)

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