Examination of Witnesses (Questions 980
- 990)
WEDNESDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2007
Mr Andrew Marr and Mr Dominic Lawson
Q980 Chairman:
Although true.
Mr Marr: Absolutely true. The decision was taken
at that point that we should not run it because we had an absolutely
unequivocal denial and we were the BBC and we should be very,
very careful about these things, and I was irritated at the time.
I do not think that was about political bias—
Q981 Chairman:
That was a decision that any newspaper might well have taken?
Mr Marr: Might well have taken. I do not think
that was about political bias I think it was about nervousness
about a story. There have certainly been occasions when I was
political editor when I had a story where I had to go and convince
my bosses that not only was it true and so on but it was such
a big story that it needed to be run high up the bulletins and
also that it would be denied, ferociously denied and that we would
be denounced the next day for running it. That happens. But, again,
I am sure that exactly the same conversations would have been
had in the Sunday Telegraph and other newspapers between
political correspondents and editors.
Q982 Chairman:
Does this sound familiar territory to you, Mr Lawson?
Mr Lawson: Yes. I remember when we broke the
story that Bernie Ecclestone had given money to the Labour Party
and it was denied to me by his lawyers in the most categoric terms—"You
publish this at your risk." I think for newspapers it is
probably slightly easier; I think the BBC does have this sense
of, "We are paid for by licence fee payers, we are the voice
of the nation," and there are great burdens on the BBC which
a newspaper, in my view, thank goodness, does not have, and so
we published the story. In fact the story that Andrew mentions
about the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, I think The
Times actually had exactly the same thing. I think they were
trying to write stories saying this and they were told by the
Liberal Democrats that it was completely untrue. But that is a
journalistic call in the end; it is as simple as that. Do you
believe someone, do you believe your journalist, do you believe
the politician and in the end you publish and take the risk and
if it is wrong you get sued and you pay a lot of money and you
may lose your job.
Q983 Chairman:
You talked about the pressures that the British media is under
and the United States, where we have been, is also under the same
kind of pressure—even more so. The BBC and its news reporting,
does that make it more important that they should still be there
and if it does make it more important what is your response to
the cutting back of the journalistic staff, which appears to be
about to take place?
Mr Marr: No journalist likes to see journalists
being fired or asked to take redundancy in large numbers; on the
other hand, this is a huge institution and the idea that the BBC
cannot make savings anywhere is patently ridiculous. Of course
I am not in charge of this process so I do want to leave it to
those who are in charge of it, who have to take the horrible,
hard decisions, and not make their jobs worse. I do think that
we are different and we have to stay different, and this is most
acute in the age of 24-hour news because the desperate journalistic
desire to be first is felt so intensely and our main competitor
now, Sky News, always trumpets, "First with this,
first with that." We are the BBC and we have to be surer
that we are right and we must not therefore get into the culture
of first and frequently correct. So in some sense that gives us
a new kind of problem: do we therefore look a little bit plodding?
If we do that is part of the penalty we have to pay for being
the BBC.
Q984 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
I think the BBC questions I wanted to ask have been answered but
can I go back to ask Dominic Lawson something? You said earlier
that you celebrated the diversity of ownership among our newspapers
and comparing it with America. Do you think that there is sufficient
safeguard to maintain that diversity? Do you think that we are
just fortunate to have it or do you think that there is a danger
of monopolies building up?
Mr Lawson: It is a very controversial area but
there are limits on the percentage of the market that any one
owner can have.
Q985 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Do you think that is sufficient?
Mr Lawson: It seems to have been. Rupert Murdoch
has a particular stronghold but none the less he would not be
able, say, to own both The Times and the Financial Times.
There would be a legal block on that. So I think that there are
safeguards and I think there is diversity and I do not see signs
of an extraordinary consolidation.
Q986 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
But it is something to watch out for?
Mr Lawson: Yes, but, if you like, there are
too many people interested in being in the game.
Baroness Thornton: Rupert Murdoch thinks
that it is completely onerous, unacceptable and outrageous; he
told us that when we went to America.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: That
was cross platform of course.
Chairman: Lord Inglewood.
Q987 Lord Inglewood:
I was wondering, given what you said to us, that it seems in terms
of the direction of a newspaper that where things are going well
a degree of consensus emerges between the proprietors and the
editors, but that it has gone wrong when there is a fundamental
dispute and when a fundamental dispute takes place would it be
correct—take, for example, Dominic Lawson's two instances
at the start, one of Conrad Black and one with the Barclay Brothers,
his silver tongue persuaded the proprietor to pull back—that
the buck ultimately rests with the proprietor?
Mr Marr: No editor in the end can really complain
about being fired by a proprietor in those circumstances. You
can make your point, you can argue but you do not own the newspaper,
you have been given the job and he has given you the job—she
has given you the job—ultimately. So in the end it is always
the owners who call the last shot.
Q988 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
I just wanted to go back for a minute to the pressure to be first
with the news. One can imagine that when news was mainly conveyed
through newsprint that this would be a genuine race, but surely
now with the Internet and with the global access to instant news
it is almost becoming a battle that cannot be fought, is it not?
Mr Marr: It is very fast but it is felt as intensely
as ever. I think if you are sitting in the newsroom of BBC
News 24 and you are 10 or 20 seconds ahead of Sky News
you get exactly the same rush as the Daily Express night
editor would have got in 1936 with beating the Mail—I
think it is just the same, it is just faster.
Q989 Chairman:
Also the scoop is actually even more important, is it not, because
of exactly the things that you have said and Lady Eccles has just
said. If you can get something which is not actually on the 24
Hour News that is a real plus.
Mr Marr: Absolutely.
Q990 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Do you think that licence fee money should be used to pay for
this retraining scheme? I noticed when you were at the Independent
there was a retraining scheme on which you cast some aspersions.
Mr Marr: I of course wait to see exactly who
does it and how. I am sure that the caricature of my most eminent
colleagues, of John Simpson being hauled in to explain the difference
between right and wrong, I am sure that will not happen. So we
will wait and see. If there were slippages among staff in BBC
News then it is a reasonable thing to try to find out whether
there is a systemic problem. So it will all be within the sophistication
of the meetings and process.
Chairman: You have been very patient and it
has been a fascinating session. Thank you again very, very much
for coming. Perhaps if there are any other questions we might
write to you, but thank you very much.
| 
