986moorePilger.

qxp

16/10/2007

20:24

Page 33

Truth,
lies and

fools
By Brian Cathcart
Piers Morgan, writing in the New Statesman a
couple of years ago, looked back upon his departure from the Daily Mirror, when he was sacked
after his paper published fake photographs of
British soldiers mistreating Iraqis. Pointing out
that other evidence had subsequently emerged
of British abuses in Iraq, and that no one had
ever been convicted of perpetrating the hoax that
fooled him, Morgan declared: I wonder sometimes if it would be impertinent to ask for my
old job back.
It is not the only occasion on which he has aired
the idea that events had justified his decision to
publish the photos, even though almost no one
seriously contends today that they were genuine.
Morgans view seems to be that it can be right to
make an assertion in print based on bad evidence
providing other, better evidence eventually
comes along to support the assertion. In other
words, he got it wrong but he was right anyway.
Similar arguments are sometimes heard in
support of the Andrew Gilligan news reports on
the sexing up of the Iraq dossier, and they are
topical again today. With Al Gore found guilty
by a high court judge of nine errors of fact in An
Inconvenient Truth, with Michael Moores hotly
contested health-care documentary Sicko opening here, and with the Court of Appeal pronouncing on a landmark case about journalistic
responsibility, right and wrong and fact and fiction are suddenly on the agenda.
The anger generated by these debates can be
terrifying. Dip into the internet for guidance on
how far you can trust Sicko and you will be
caught in a blizzard of detailed accusation and
counter-accusation on such matters as the cost
of Cuban health care, Canadian hospital waiting
lists and the privatisation of the NHS.
And the outrage can have an almost drunken
quality, with the entire credibility of an argument supposedly hanging on the smallest detail
of disputed evidence. It calls to mind Christopher Hitchenss sweeping verdict on Moores
Fahrenheit 9/11: To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote
those terms to the level of respectability. To

describe this film as a piece of crap would be to

run the risk of a discourse that would never again
rise above the excremental.
Behind such polemics is an assumption that
seems like nothing more than a piece of common
sense: that people should get their facts right.
Journalism and documentary-making are about
the truth otherwise they would be called fiction and if either of them presents untrue information, it is betraying its reason for being.
Al Gore, as he basks in his Nobel glow, should
be thinking about this. When someone with his
resources makes nine certifiable errors, most of
them of overstatement, there can be no excuse,
and along with his scientific advisers and researchers he has to take responsibility for any
damage to his cause. Gore may console himself
that Mr Justice Barton said the film was still
broadly accurate and with caveats could be
shown in schools, but he knows that its impact is
blunted and he cant blame his critics for that.

Life is complicated
Yet the idea that people must always get their
facts right, like almost everything that is labelled
common sense, is incomplete and unsatisfactory. Life is more complicated than that, so, perhaps surprisingly, there are grey areas between
right and wrong.
For one thing, journalism inevitably makes
mistakes: producing large newspapers every day
or every week is not like producing Faberg eggs,
and readers and lawyers have to understand that
you cant hang around until every detail is perfect. In that context, it is normal to get things
wrong occasionally. For another, if someone is
withholding information on a matter of public
interest without adequate explanation, then
speculative journalism based on the available
facts is perfectly justified, indeed natural even
if it may eventually prove to be wrong.
By way of example, the early years of the Deepcut scandal, involving the deaths of young soldiers in a training camp, were marked by excessive official secrecy. Some stories published in the
press on the basis of the few facts available were

wrong, but they ultimately performed the useful

purpose of pushing the Ministry of Defence into
greater openness. Its not a general licence to
make things up, but its a case where a greater
good can be served by speculative reporting.
The courts, too, have found that journalists
can be right and wrong at the same time. In the
past fortnight, the Court of Appeal broke new
ground by upholding what is called a Reynolds
defence in a defamation case brought against the
author Graeme McLagan over a book about police
corruption called Bent Coppers.
The judges ruled that McLagan had the right
to publish certain allegations, even though he
could not be sure they were true, because it was a
matter of public interest and he could show he
had behaved responsibly. The Reynolds defence
had previously been used successfully by newspaper journalists, and this ruling set aside an
objection that the authors of books had the time
to get all their facts right.
Does all of this mean that Piers Morgan should
get his job back at the Mirror? No. As he well
knows, he gambled on the validity of those photographs, lost, and paid an appropriate price for
the damage to his papers reputation. Only if he
were to prove that the pictures are real could he
expect his case to be reopened, and he cant.
The test in all these grey areas between right
and wrong, as the judge who first upheld the
Reynolds defence in 1999 laid down, is whether
the wrong thing is stated knowingly or with
malice or recklessness, and whether the journalist has acted conscientiously or responsibly.
Lord Nicholls went on to provide a helpful list
of ways of judging the latter. Was enough done
to test the quality of the information? Was there
an urgent need to publish? Did the writer or
newspaper present it as fact, or with caveats?
Was the other side of the story presented?
Piers Morgan would not pass those tests. Nor
would Al Gore (he would fail on the first). Nor, in
my view, would Andrew Gilligan in the sexedup dossier case. But Graeme McLagan passed
them all, proving that in the right circumstances
we have a right to be wrong. l
22 OCTOBER 2007 | NEW STATESMAN | 33

KOICHI KAMOSHIDA/GETTY IMAGES

Inconvenient
untruths: was
Gore wrong,
but right
anyway?