Interesting the public
The MPs’ expenses story upset a lot of them, and there are questions about how the information got out. But no‑one has questioned that the exposure was justified.
MANY OF THE ethical conundrums journalists face involve balancing freedom of speech against someone else’s rights to reputation, privacy or a fair trial. The NUJ’s Code of Conduct does this by identifying whether the story is in the public interest.
The public interest is one of those things that can be difficult to describe. But you know it when you see it. It’s certainly not whatever interests the public — although what is in the public interest ought to interest them. Lord Chief Justice Woolf once said that it’s often in the public interest to interest the public. Essentially a story in the public interest should have some benefit for the public; a story they need to know.
The Metropolitan Police decided not to pursue the source of the MPs’ expenses stories because a prosecution would not be in the public interest.
The NUJ Code avoids spelling it out but does not quarrel with media regulator Ofcom and the Press Complaints Commission who both define the public interest as: detecting crime or serious impropriety; protecting public health and safety; and preventing the public from being misled.
Ofcom adds “disclosing incompetence that affects the public”, while the PCC says there is a public interest in freedom of expression itself, something that Daily Mail editor and PCC code committee chair Paul Dacre certainly supports with his calls last year for newspapers to be a modern pillory to publicly shame those who offend public standards of decency “and hold the transgressors up to public condemnation”.
The public interest is important to investigative journalism that exposes unacceptable standards of public behaviour and assists the public in identifying wrongdoing. But all too often it is abused to defend kiss-and-tell exposés published merely to boost circulation.
Have you got a professional or ethical dilemma? Ring the NUJ’s confidential Ethics Hotline on 0845 45 00 864