witness statement of kelvin mackenzie

8/3/2019 Witness Statement of Kelvin MacKenzie

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W I T N E S S S T A TE M E N T F R O M K E L V I N M A C K E N Z I ELEVESON EN QU IRY INTO THE CULTU RE, PRACTICES AND ETHICS OF THE PRESS

Septem ber 2011

I have been in the m edia for almost 50 yea rs. Held senior editorial positions in the Da ily Express, TheNew York Post and The Sun before becoming Editor of the Sun betwee n 1981 and 1994 . I was brieflymanaging director of BskyB and then MD of the cable TV station Live TV before becoming managingdirector of Mirror Group newspapers. I then set out on my own buying the commercial speechstat ion T alk Radio before co nvert ing i t into TalkSport. I sold the business for 100mil l ion. Today Ieffectively own the TV S ports Channel Sports Tonight and am a columnist on the Daily Mail .

In the editorial area of The Sun I , as the Editor, was responsible for the corporate governanc e. Ididn t spend too m uch t ime ponde ring the ethics of how a story was ga ined nor over worry abou twh ether to publish or not. I f we b elieved the story to be true and w e felt Sun rea ders shou ld knowthe facts we published it and we left i t to them to decide if we ha d done the r ight thing. They coulddecide we w ere correct and carry on purchasing us - in my t ime in ever increasing numbers- or coulddecide we w ere wrong in w hich they could decl ine to buy us ag ain i .e. Hil lsborough.We had in-house lawyers raising legal issues surrounding potent ial publicat ion of stories and I , asthe Editor, could decide to accept their views or no t. Final ly there w as the senior ma nagem ent of thecomp any, the chief execut ive and the ow ner. They wou ld either support me o r chast ise medepen ding on whe ther they approved of that days papers. They co uld also decide to dismiss m e.Br iefly L ive TV w as an enter ta inment channel and therefore had no s imi lar ity wi th the newspaperbusiness. Neither did Talk R adio or Talk, Sport. They w ere both l icensed and therefore the newsreports had to hav e this r id iculous idea cal led balance. I adhered the to al l the Ofcom rules; Ipresume this inquiry is not thinking of l icensing new spapers.Journalism is not a profession. There aren t professional bodies, exam s or the l ike. I ts a trade.

I f the point of this quest ion is were there any writ ten corporate governance docum ents or pol icies inmy t ime then the answer is no.

There we re no docum ents or pol icies.

They didn t change in my t ime.

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The responsibi l ity for the source of information lay with my senior journalists. They w ere bringing inthe stories, they had their name on the stories. The sources were theirs. By and large I did not getinvolved. At one stage I was ap proached by a se nior reporter to inform that the Mo D had g onebeserk becau se we ha d led on a piece of information which they did not want to be published. Theyhad b rought in a s enior off icer to invest igate but the reporter said i t wasn t all bad ne ws. I ask edwhy. He said the officer was the contact who had given him the story in the first place.!!I!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the run of the mil l stories I would have n o idea where they cam e from. How ever on the big ones-for instance the Elton John and the rent boy scandal I did get involved. Met the boy, cross-examinedthe boy and agreed he was tel l ing the truth. In fact he had duped me an d The S un and it cost us arecord l ibel payout of 1m il lion.

the print ~tl,The d ict ionary definit ion of ethics is; the ph ilosoph ical study of the m oral value of hum an con ductand the rules an d pr inciples that ought to govern it . They were n ot issues I bothered with. I do hopethat this inquiry is not seeking to imp ose them on pr int journalism-that would be b loody funny towatch. Perhaps L ord Leveson m ight try asking the Prime M inister to face such issues before taking usto war in Iraq.

I was never put under any comm ercial pressure by my managem ent or owner when running TheSun. In fact the reverse. Rupe rt Murdoch often felt the pap er had gon e too far under my ed itorship.

New spapers l ike to disclose fresh information to their readers every day. I t has nothing to do w ith"f inanc ial incentives". One of the attract ions of you r morning pape r is that i t contains stuff youdidnt know w hen yo u we nt to bed. I t s not l ike televis ion whe re they can rol l out any old nonse nseas long as it has video to go w ith it.

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As far as I kn ow w e never u sed private invest igators but I am certain that public off icials would havedisc losed imp or tant informat ion to us and that depending on w hat that informat ion w as we wouldhave pa id them. I am whol ly suppor t ive of pub l ic of f ic ia ls whis t le b lowing to the Sun even i f we haveto pay m oney. After al l the police pay inform ants to disclose information.

I had v ir tual ly nothing to do w ith paym ents . If a large amoun t was to be paid in my t ime, and thatwas two decades ago, anything cost ing more than around 3,000 would cross m y desk for approval.

As I have said as far as I am aw are we did not use private invest igators although we w ould havepeople to supply ex-direc tory numbers when w e wanted to speak to somebody about whom wewere w riting a story. Clearly it would on ly be correct to have the other s ides v iew published. Ho wdange rous and impo ssible would it have bee n to have gone ah ead w ithout checking the "victims"view. Libel? A distinct possibility. Press Complaints Commission a racing certainty. We could leave itanother day and try and track down the pe rson I suppose bu t just as easi ly on the phone they c oulddeny the s tory and therefore that would be the end of i t or put down the phone. W here is the harm?

Not apply.

There w ere no po lic ies for dealing with freelance journalists who broug ht in stor ies.

Unsure w hat this quest ion m eans. I f you mean d id we invest igate the source of stories supplied to usby freelances then the answ er was certainly not. New spaper pe ople guard their sources l ike FortKnox.

I didnt take into acc ount p ubl ic interest (whatever that is) or private interest (dont publ ish i t wi l l

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harm m y com mercial ambit ions) when deciding to print a story

Nobody com puter hacked in my t ime.

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witness statement of kelvin mackenzie

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