Examination of Witnesses (Questions 664
- 679)
WEDNESDAY 17 OCTOBER 2007
Mr Simon Kelner and Ms Imogen Haddon
Q664 Chairman:
Mr Kelner, you are very welcome; thank you for making the time
to help us with this inquiry. You know that it is about ownership
and the news production. I suppose more shortly put it is the
role and importance of news in an informed democracy. It is quite
a wide canvas. I should also apologise for the absence of our
usual Chairman, Lord Fowler, who is out of the country. Although
you may have heard him on the Today programme this morning
that was pre-recorded. Thank you again and to your colleague.
Can I just start off about ownership structures, Mr Kelner? How
does your relationship with Mr O'Reilly work, or is it not Mr
O'Reilly? Who do you report to?
Mr Kelner: Sir Anthony O'Reilly. I call him
Sir.
Q665 Chairman:
We should as well, yes. Do you report to him?
Mr Kelner: I suppose in the sense that he is
my ultimate boss as the Chief Executive of Independent News and
Media yes I do. However, the structure is such that I am Editor-in-Chief
of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.
We have a managing director and a chief executive who I report
to on a day to day basis.
Q666 Chairman:
To the managing editor and the chief executive.
Mr Kelner: The managing director, yes, and chief
executive.
Q667 Chairman:
Sorry, is that two people or one?
Mr Kelner: It is two people. I am solely in
charge of the editorial direction of the paper and they are responsible
for the management. Of course there are various points during
the day when both things collide, maybe not collide, but the interests
of one are served by the interests of the other.
Q668 Chairman:
How is the editorial line of the paper decided? Is this done with
you and your senior colleagues on the paper? Would there be occasions
when you want to do something that is fairly radical that has
not been done before where you feel you would feel happier discussing
it with the managing director or the chief executive? How does
that area work?
Mr Kelner: With the Independent the clue
is in the title. What you see in the paper is entirely as a result
of our journalism. We do not have proprietorial interference and
we do not have allegiance to any political party. Everything that
is in the paper is decided upon by the journalists. The paper
is the product of journalism, untainted by any sort of commercial
influence or political influence. My colleagues might tell you
a different story but I think I am quite consensual and I like
to ask the opinions of lots of different people and if the managing
director is wandering past my office at six o'clock when we are
doing the front page I might say to him, "What do you think
of this?" Of course I am at liberty not to take a blind bit
of notice of what he says, which I do most of the time. If we
were doing something radical or if the idea was to do something
radical which would have an impact on the profitability of the
paper of course I would consult and take advice from my managing
director and my chief executive.
Q669 Chairman:
You do not get an early morning phone call from an irate Sir Anthony
O'Reilly when he has seen your front page.
Mr Kelner: Only if Ireland has been beaten in
the rugby. I could tell you a hundred stories about the independence
of the Independent and the fortunate position I am in vis-a"-vis
our ownership structure. All I need to say is that we are owned
by a company whose chief executive owns 27% of that company and
is effectively the proprietor. We are owned by someone who is
broadly Euro-sceptic, supported the Iraq war and is a sort of
reserved admirer of George Bush. For anyone who reads the Independent
you will be able to understand that this is not our editorial/direction.
He is fiercely proud of that fact. In early 2003 Alastair Campbell
came to lunch before we had gone to war and sitting round the
table were myself, my deputy and some of our senior journalists,
Alastair Campbell, Tony O'Reilly, Lady O'Reilly, the chief executive
of the paper and the managing director. The talk was all about
the war and we all gave our views. At that time we were pretty
well a lone voice in opposing the war, we had gone out on a limb
about that. We had a big discussion with Alastair Campbell which
was quite robust. At the end of the discussion he said, "Right,
we have all had our say, who is against this war?" I put
my hand up and I am proud to say that all the senior editorial
people put their hands up. Then he said, "Who's for the war?"
Tony O'Reilly, Lady O'Reilly, the chief executive and the managing
director all put their hands up. I saw Alastair Campbell about
a week later and he said if ever the independence of the Independent
is under question you should relate that story because the only
people who were against the editorial mind were the proprietor,
the proprietor's wife and the senior management.
Q670 Lord Inglewood:
What benefits do you think come to you by being part of a large
media plc?
Mr Kelner: The trite answer is a very important
answer. The plurality and the diversity of the British press are
in a sense underpinned by this large organisation that makes profits
in many different countries. Editorially there are many benefits.
There are many benefits for our papers around the world in being
able to use the journalism that is in the Independent.
It is not just a one-way street; we quite often use reports from
our papers in a remote part of South Africa, for instance, or
a political piece from Ireland or Australia. It is a two-way street
in that respect. We have close contact with our colleagues elsewhere
in the world, whether it be in Belfast or in South Africa.
Q671 Lord Inglewood:
You explained how there was a complete juxtaposition between the
views of the proprietor and the views of the newsroom. I do not
imagine that is always the case. Is there any kind of direct relationship
between the ownership structure generally and the newsroom or
are you genuinely at arm's length and operating separately?
Mr Kelner: I cannot remember the last time I
had a discussion with Tony O'Reilly about the sort of wider political
matters. I would not be able to characterise what his politics
are, for instance; they are quite complex for a start. Editors
are of a different character these days. The days when an editor
would come in to do morning conference, dictate the editorial
line, go to have lunch at the Garrick until half past three and
then come back, sign off the leaders and head off for dinner with
a High Court judge are over. Editors these days are very commercially
minded and marketing minded. I would regard part of what I do
as a marketing function. The front page of our paper is a form
of marketing, it is where journalism and marketing collide. My
discussions with Tony O'Reilly would be about more commercial
things.
Q672 Lord Inglewood:
Does that spill over into what you are going to carry? Clearly
he does not encourage you to lose money and I gather you are heading
towards being profitable and presumably he is pleased about that.
Is there a sort of general thrust that you must try to make sure
you do not run up the costs and the losses and so on?
Mr Kelner: Yes, of course. If we were making
£50 million a year we would still be under pressure to keep
our costs down. People who run huge businesses like Tony O'Reilly
are not known for their wastefulness, that is why they are very
successful. Costs are kept under very tight control and I would
always argue for more money and he would always try to argue me
out of it. That is the nature of our relationship. He would never
say, "If you took this line you would sell more copies of
the newspaper" or "If you supported the war you would
sell more copies of the newspaper". I could not imagine a
set of circumstances where that could take place. I wake up every
morning and regard myself extremely fortunate that I do not have
to work in that environment.
Q673 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
I would like to comment on your front page today, which is an
interesting piece of views reporting rather than news reporting.
What were you intending to do by this particular story where the
assertion would be offensive to some although the news story that
lies behind it and the presence of a geneticist is a decent explanation
if you follow through on page two. Does this take the example
very clearly that you have become much more directly a viewspaper,
you are interested in thought rather than fact?
Mr Kelner: No, because behind the thought is
a fact and the fact is that James Watson said this.
Q674 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
He did not say Africans and Westerners; he said blacks and whites.
Mr Kelner: He was referring to Africans.
Q675 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
There are white Africans.
Mr Kelner: Any headline on any story is a summation
in five or six words of what could be quite a complex story. You
have to allow for that. The fact was that he made these comments
which are very controversial and which I would regard as offensive—and
I am sure quite a lot of people would regard as offensive—comments
in an article that was published in the Sunday Times in
their magazine. The Sunday Times, whether they were asleep
at the wheel or whatever, did not even spot what I think is a
very good story in their own newspaper so we made it into a story.
James Watson is not Jo Soap, he is someone whose views are taken
seriously and he has form in this particular regard.
Q676 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Set against the other news priorities which are evident in the
wider world, what is the point of that?
Mr Kelner: I think you will find it has been
followed up by every single newspaper and every broadcast media.
There was a phone-in for 40 minutes on the subject this morning.
Q677 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
It is creating news.
Mr Kelner: Yes, which is a news story. I think
it is a news story. I think when someone who is so eminent in
his field as James Watson and has the background that he has says
something like that, I think it is news.
Q678 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
How do you determine the difference between that, for example,
and the issues that are facing the Chinese Communist Party which
could affect a vast number of people?
Mr Kelner: We have to make these decisions every
day.
Q679 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
On what basis do you make that decision?
Mr Kelner: What I think will be interesting
to our readers. That is inevitably a subjective judgement. It
is a judgement that is based on the priorities of the day, ie
what is a cracking good story one day may not be such a good story
on the day the Gordon Brown resigns for instance. What you may
think is a boring, run of the mill story, come seven o'clock it
may be the most exciting story you have ever seen because you
have nothing else to put in the paper. We are making those judgements
every day. Sometimes we get them right, sometimes we get them
wrong.
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