Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1460
- 1479)
WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2008
Ms Rebekah Wade
Q1460 Baroness Thornton:
I mean "you" collectively.
Ms Wade: You could always call Kelvin. He always
enjoys these sessions quite well, so feel free to call him! I
would have brought him with me if I had known. I have been an
Editor for eight years, so you have eight years to go on. In 1992,
I think I was in college.
Q1461 Chairman:
Let me take you up to the absolute present. When the Committee
went to New York, we met Rupert Murdoch. He was very frank about
the position. He said that whatever the position was with The
Times and The Sunday Timesand you remember there
were certain conditions placed when they were taken overhe
was, and I use the phrase, the "traditional proprietor"
when it came to The Sun and the News of the World.
You have edited both The Sun and the News of the World.
Can we take it then that he sets your political stance?
Ms Wade: When you saw Mr Murdoch, he did in
fact say that he was a traditional proprietor. You were asking
him in terms of appointing editors and he was explaining that
obviously with The Times there is the independent board
of directors. Mr Murdoch appoints the Editor of The Sun
and of the News of the World and, in that sense, he is
the traditional proprietor. He appointed me the Editor of the
News of the World and he then subsequently went on to appoint
me Editor of The Sun; but also our previous Executive Chairman,
Les Hinton, was very much involved in that appointment process
too. That is what I took him to mean when he said he was a traditional
proprietor in the sense of The Sun and the News of the
World: in the same way that the Rothermeres appoint their
editors and the O'Reillys appoint their editors.
Q1462 Chairman:
But I think that he also said to us that he exercised editorial
control on major issues.
Ms Wade: I have not seen that exact quote but
when he says he exerts editorial control, in the way that he is
a traditional proprietor he appointed me to do both those jobs;
and it would be fair to say that I have worked for Mr Murdoch
for 18 years and 12 of those years I have either been a deputy
editor or an editor. I think it would be fair to say that, before
any appointment, he knew me pretty wellany senior appointment.
In that way, he would be aware of my views, both social views,
cultural views and political views.
Q1463 Chairman:
I am sure you are right that he appoints the editor and I am sure
you are right on the factors but, when it comes to an election,
who decides who you will support? Is it Mr Murdoch or is it you?
Ms Wade: I have been Editor for a couple of
elections. If you take 2005, where The Sun in the end backed
Tony Blair, famously with the Vatican chimney on the top of Wapping
and we announced that there would be blue or red smokeI
cannot remember whether we had any yellow smoke even ready, apologies
to the Lib Dems!but that process takes a long, long time.
Again, I am sorry to keep repeating myself about The Sun
readers but it is a particularly special relationship we do have
with them. In the run-up to the election, I was very careful to
give the Conservative Party and the Labour Party equal opportunity
to show their wares, so to speak, in The Sun, so that Sun
readers could make up their own mind by seeing a very fair coverage
of both sets of policies. In the end, however, I did talk to Mr
Murdoch of course. Mr Murdoch is a lifelong newspaper man; he
has also lived through political change both here and in America
and Australia; his advice is always exemplary and good. At the
same time, I also spent a lot of time talking to Trevor Kavanagh,
who was the political editor at the time, and his deputy George
Pascal Watson, who has now taken that role, and Les Hinton, our
Executive Chairman. The way I edit the paper, I do seek advice.
I think that I am actually very lucky to have a traditional proprietor
like Mr Murdoch, coupled with always having Les Hinton there as
well, who, as you know, was a journalist. Yes, I do seek advice
from them and, yes, it is a consensus issue. But I wanted to back
Tony Blair; I voted for him; and that is what happened.
Q1464 Chairman:
Cutting through all that, when it comes to it, if Mr Murdoch said
in your editorship, "You will back Labour" or "You
will back Conservative", that is actually what you would
do.
Ms Wade: If Mr Murdoch told me to back the Lib
Dems, I would resign. I cannot imagine that he would but, if he
did
Q1465 Chairman:
I think that we are probably agreed on that!
Ms Wade: I am sorry, Lib Dems. I am going to
be nice about the Lib Dems a bit more, later on! It just does
not happen. These are hypothetical questions. I am being very
frank with you. This is
Q1466 Chairman:
They are not that hypothetical because what he told us, and I
am quoting from the minutes of our evidence there, was that he
"exercises editorial control on major issues, like which
party to back in general elections or policy on Europe".
That is what he said actually.
Ms Wade: Take Europe for examplethat
is quite a good one to bring upMr Murdoch was absolutely
aware of my views on Europe, I think even before I became Editor
of the News of the World, maybe even Deputy Editor. I am
very strongly against a federal Europe and the bureaucracy that
it creates, and I think that it is hugely damaging to my readers'
lives. I am very, very strong on that; probably, in some ways,
much stronger than Mr Murdoch's own opinion. So the European campaign
absolutely comes from me; but it is not a disagreement between
me and Mr Murdoch. That is not one of the occasions where he will
ring me up and say, "I think you got it wrong": it comes
from me.
Q1467 Chairman:
It comes from you but also it is inconceivable, is it not, that
Mr Murdoch would appoint an editor of The Sun who happened
to be a great Euro-enthusiastic or even Euro-moderate?
Ms Wade: I do not know. I am trying to think
about what David Yelland's view was. Mr Murdoch appointed me to
edit his newspapers and we know each other pretty well. I have
worked for him for 12 years, as I said, at a senior level. You
really would have to ask him that.
Chairman: We have asked him. That is
why I am quoting to you. It is exactly what he told us.
Q1468 Lord Inglewood:
You have talked about the relationship between yourself and The
Sun readership and then about yourself and your proprietor.
Who is leading whom about what? Are The Sun readers reading
The Sun because it tells them the kinds of things they
like, or are you printing what you put in The Sun because
that is what you think or you think they want? Or is it everybody,
as it were, stroking each other's fur?
Ms Wade: Again, just trying to explain the process
at The Sun, obviously as an editor my job is to edit The
Sun and the projection of stories is my decision; but in mind
I always have The Sun readers. For example, we had an interview
with Gordon Brown in Monday's newspaper. My political editor did
the interview at Chequers; I read the copy on Sunday and, talking
to George, I felt that, although the Peter Hain stuff was quite
interesting in the Westminster village kind of way, Gordon's announcement
on the change in legislation on knife crime was something that
my readers would be much more interested in; and so that was page
1 of The Sun on Monday. We have had that knife campaign
running in the paper for such a long time now that this was actually
a victory, I felt, for Sun readers and I wanted to tell
them; so I projected it pretty big. It was page 1 and it was in
8-9 of the paper. The Prime Minister talked about a lot of stuff,
but I thought that his organ donations copy was also a very interesting
debate for the reader. I thought they would want to know that;
they would want to know this change of policy; they would want
to know about the opt-out instead of an opting-in; so we went
to great lengths to explain that. As an editor, I will obviously
read copy, look at it and make a judgment on what I think is interesting.
If we come back to the knife crime, we have this mechanic in The
Sun called "You The Jury" or, when we do Europe,
it is "EU The Jury". It is often a very simple question:
a "yes" or "no". We were asking them. We asked
them, "This is the policy at the moment. This is what we
think it should be. Do you agree/disagree?". On the European
Constitution, as you know, we campaigned very heavily to have
a referendum put into the 2005 manifesto. Again, that was borne
out by the reaction of Sun readers. I think that it was
at the end of 2004I can get it for you exactly after thiswe
launched a bit of a campaign on the constitution and we ran an
"EU The Jury" and, by 8.30 that morning, 108,000 Sun
readers had rung the phone line. That is huge. The last time we
got something like that it was on fuel pricesfuel tax.
Q1469 Lord King of Bridgwater:
I was interested in your argument about Rupert Murdoch's involvement,
as though you were rather playing it down, were embarrassed about
it and thought these were awkward questions. What is wrong with
him actually running your newspaper, in terms of the major policy
decisions? He is a major international figure; he has very substantial
interests in television and in the media generally, throughout
the world. He has a global involvement. Is it not rather excellent
that he has this direct involvement to run the overall policy
of The Sun?
Ms Wade: I am not sure how you can take embarrassment
from the fact that I said I think I am extremely lucky to have
a person of Mr Murdoch's distinction as my proprietor. I am not
sure what part of "embarrassment" that is; but, just
to reiterate, I am very fortunate to have a proprietor like Mr
Murdoch. As you say, not only does he run a global media company
but he is an incredibly good journalist, and probably one of the
most supportive proprietors that you can ask for. In any kind
of crisis, he is always there, as I said earlier, with his very
calm, exemplary advice. So I am not sure why you think I have
shown embarrassment; it is the opposite. Absolutely, he is someone
whose advice I would seek on all manner of subjectsbecause
of his experience and because of what he has done. Mr Murdoch
runs a global media company with vast interests all around the
world. He travels all the time. He is a very hands-on, not "proprietor",
but he is very hands-on in the way he runs his business, which
is why it is so successful. So the idea that I talk to him about
everything is inconceivable.
Q1470 Lord King of Bridgwater:
How often do you think you speak to him?
Ms Wade: I think that the contact varies. If
I give you an example of a recent conversation with Mr Murdoch,
perhaps that will give you a bit of an insight into what kind
of conversations they are. The other day we had the New Hampshire
primaries. I think it is fair to say that every single UK newspaper
went to press with Obama to win. In fact, the idea that Hillary
Clinton could make a comeback was inconceivable. The Sun,
like the Telegraph and The Times, all had an "Obama
Set to Storm" win. At about 1.30 that morning or maybe a
bit later, Mr Murdoch called me, just to say, "Are you on
the case? Have you seen what's happened? It's an amazing story",
which it wasan amazing news story. I said, "Yes, we're
on the case. We're changing up. It's very exciting", and
we had a conversation about world events; we had a conversation
about the reliance on exit polls. I asked him what he thought,
why it had happened. He said, "It's really early days";
he was watching it in America.
Q1471 Lord King of Bridgwater:
Okay, that is a very good illustration. Can I just ask you this?
You talked about his tremendous global involvement, and he is
obviously an extremely busy man. He obviously cannot keep completely
in touch with what is happening in this country. You have a huge
responsibility. My Lord Chairman has pointed out the enormous
circulation that you have. Notwithstanding your suggestion that
the policy is determined by all your readers, I think that there
are many here on this Committee who would believe that actually
you have huge influence and power and it was correctly described
in that headline. In that circumstance, what do you think about
somebody who is an American citizen, from Australia, trying to
cover the world, and trying to have major influence on British
political development?
Ms Wade: I am afraid you are the one who is
now sounding embarrassed. Yes, we have a huge readership, and
I can tell you that every single person on The Sun puts
the readers' best interests at heart. I have a very, very good
political team. Most of you know Trevor Kavanagh and my political
editor George Pascal Watson. They are very talented and they have
their finger on the pulse of Westminster; they are able to spot
a policy that will be of interest to our readers, or the opposite:
spot a policy which will be very negative for our readers. We
all take that responsibility of explaining the Westminster world
to 7.7 million Sun readers very, very seriously, and I
think that we do a pretty good job.
Q1472 Chairman:
The point that Lord King is makingwhich I am not sure you
have quite addressed at the momentis that you have a US
citizen exercising an enormous amount of influence over British
newspapers like your own. Do you regard that as acceptable? Do
you regard that as a desirable thing to have taken place? Do you
think that, if it was the other way round, the American population
would all think that that was a tremendously good idea?
Ms Wade: Just to explain to you, if we take
the four newspapers that Mr Murdoch has here, as Robert Thomson
explained his appointmentand that obviously goes for
Q1473 Chairman:
Yes, we know that.
Ms Wade: You know that. Mr Murdoch appointed
me to edit The Sun and the News of the World, and
that is what I do. It is my job. I cannot remember an occasion
where I have discussed with Mr Murdoch tomorrow's newspaper in
the censorial sense that you keep saying exists and I am telling
you that it does not. Obviously I have a regular contact with
my proprietor. I discuss all manner of things with him. A lot
of those things are commercial things. If you think about it,
Mr Murdochwhat has he done for the newspaper industry?
Without him, we would see a very different picture. He has invested
this year £650 million in new presses.
Q1474 Lord King of Bridgwater:
In which countries?
Ms Wade: Here.
Q1475 Lord King of Bridgwater:
In the UK?
Ms Wade: Yes, just last year.
Q1476 Lord King of Bridgwater:
£650 million?
Ms Wade: £650 million, yes. Not only that,
he invests in journalism. There are other newspaper groups in
this country that are cutting editorial; I am given a very, very
good budget for investigative journalism and for journalists as
a whole. We have more journalists now than we have probably ever
had. We have specialist journalists; we have a team in Westminster
bigger than we ever had; we have political columnists. I have
a budget to spend and hire the best quality.
Q1477 Baroness Thornton:
I think that we are still trying to get an answer to the question
posed by Lord King. Perhaps I could put it in a different way.
Over the next two or three years leading up to the next general
election, there is probably going to be a certain amount of competition
for Mr Murdoch's attention from the two major parties. If he decides
to support David Cameron, will you do so as well?
Ms Wade: I am sorry, it is a completely hypothetical
question.
Q1478 Baroness Thornton:
What is the process that will be followed then?
Ms Wade: Shall I say what I am doing right now?
We had the election-that-never-was in September. I do not know
when the next election is and I am sure that no one here knows
when it will be. What we are doing at the moment is looking at
every initiative that David Cameron or the Prime Minister or any
of the Cabinet is releasing, and we are looking at it in terms
of benefit to Sun readers. For example, out of the two
inheritance tax policies that came out within a week of each other,
on balance we felt that George Osborne's was better than Alistair
Darling's. When we looked at it carefully and tried to think of
the balance for Sun readers, we thought it was a clearer
and simpler way and we backed that; and we thought that George
Osborne and the Tories had done a very good job. Recently, as
I said, on Monday we had an interview with the Prime Minister
and we were delighted that the knife legislation had gone through;
that it was a brilliant piece of legislation and something our
readers had been fighting for, or we have been campaigning for
and they have been very interested in. So the process will be,
for me and my political teamand also my health team, my
crime editorthat we look at everything and see who is going
to be the best candidate for Sun readers, whenever the
election will be.
Q1479 Chairman:
We have been talking about Rupert Murdoch all this time, but it
was two months ago that James Murdoch was appointed Chairman and
Chief Executive of the European arm of News Corporation. Presumably
you work to James Murdoch now, as opposed to Rupert Murdoch.
Ms Wade: James has taken over from where Les
Hinton, our Executive Chairman, was and, yes, I will. It is not
two months actually; he only started at the end of December. However,
yes, I had a very strong relationship with Les Hinton and I will
work closely with James Murdoch.
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