20 June 2022
The pulling by the Times of the ‘Chief of Staff’ story about Boris and Carrie Johnson is interesting in many ways – and this post explains why it is interesting from a media lawyer’s perspective.
As a preliminary point, however, I must mention I have no private information about any of this – this post is based entirely on information in the public domain.
And this post is not about the details about the story, of which I have no knowledge – it is instead an account of how decisions are made and not made to publish and pull such stories.
(By way of background – part of my own legal practice is media defence, protecting journalists and publications from legal threats.)
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From a media lawyer’s perspective, there are two key decisions here.
The first was the decision to publish.
For a well-resourced, well-lawyered news title like the Times, things are not published casually in their print editions.
There is an internal editorial and often legal process that is followed.
The published article is often like stage five of a process, and not stage one.
And this is especially the case when the reporter in question is experienced and competent.
There will be a lot of source-checking and verification by the reporter themselves.
Sometimes corners are cut and mistakes made – and ‘online’ stories often do not have the same care.
But stories in print editions of well-resourced, well-lawyered news titles like the Times are not published by accident.
This means that it was believed that the story “stood up” before it was published – and that the serious allegation made in the story was sufficiently grounded so as to minimise or eliminate legal risk.
It also means (usually) that the targets of the serious allegation have had an opportunity to have the allegations put to them before publication – or at least should have done.
And this pre-publication stage would have been the time for any legal threats aimed at preventing publication.
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The second is the decision to pull the story.
Here I will put forward the perhaps unpopular view that there is nothing wrong with a story being pulled from later print editions (and from the internet) if it becomes obvious that the story no longer stands up.
Indeed, it is a pity that does not happen more often – but most editors are reluctant to pull something once published.
But if new information comes to light so it is plain that the story published is not correct, or if it becomes apparent that legal wrong has been committed in how the story was put together, then pulling the story can be an appropriate and responsible thing to do.
It is, however, exceptional.
The new information must be substantial, or the crystallised legal risk must be overwhelming.
As to pull a story is a serious thing to do.
Especially when that story stood up after the editing and (what is called) ‘lawyering‘ process.
And for a story to be pulled rapidly implies that the process before publication had failed.
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So when this story was pulled, I assumed that something had come to light that meant that the story no longer stood up.
This was unlikely, in the circumstances, given the seniority and reputation of the journalist involved.
But other possibilities seemed even more unlikely.
Some on Twitter speculated wildly and breathlessly about ‘super-injunctions’ and ‘D-Noticies’ – but neither made sense in these circumstances, not least because that would not explain the decision to publish, as both such an injunction or a D-Notice would usually have been served once those against whom the allegations were being made were approached for prior comment.
And the subject matter of the story also did not lend itself to ‘super-injunctions’ and ‘D-Noticies’– it was about public money (not an entirely private matter) and there was no obvious, serious issue of national security.
(‘Super-injunctions’ are also now almost impossible to obtain.)
So, ruling out a ‘super-injunction’ and a ‘D-Noticie’ left only the mundane explanation that the story no longer stood up – notwithstanding the pre-publication process and the standing of the journalist.
This sort of thing happens – and there is nothing wrong with pulling a story that no longer stands up.
But.
The journalist then stated that he did stand by the story – meaning that, as far as he was concerned, the story still stood up.
And many of the details of the story had already been published in a book – and this made it difficult to see how the story was legally problematic.
So there was not a journalistic reason for pulling the story.
And there was not a legal reason for pulling the story.
This meant that the story may have been pulled for another reason – a non-journalistic, non-legal explanation.
How curious.
Downing Street did speak to the Times in between them publishing the story about Boris Johnson and Carrie and the paper taking it down, his spokesman suggests.
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 20, 2022
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Sam Freedman on Twitter, yesterday, Sunday 20th June …
“I’ve been puzzling about that Carrie/foreign office SPAD story the Times because I was sure I’d seen it before.
And then I realised I had because it was in the serialisation of Ashcroft’s Carrie book in the Mail, which is still online.”
And …
“In late 2017, civil servants at the Foreign Office advised Johnson to appoint a chief of staff. Installing somebody of the highest competence would, they believed, ease their collective post-Brexit burden. This suggestion seemed at first to fall on deaf ears.
But by the beginning of the following year, Johnson seemed keener on the plan. The person he had in mind for the plum, six-figure role? Carrie Symonds.
His allies were ‘aghast’, according to one source. She would have been out of her depth in such a senior post, they felt, with potentially disastrous consequences.
‘Everyone advised him not to do it,’ says a source. ‘They told him she had been over-promoted and that making her his chief of staff was ridiculous.’
By the spring of 2018, a small number of Johnson’s staff had become aware the couple were having an affair. Some were dismayed that he had betrayed his wife, Marina, whom they knew and liked. Others took the view that it was none of their business.
All now understood why Johnson had been so keen to hire Carrie as his chief of staff.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10480695/Carrie-Johnson-uncovered-Book-LORD-ASHCROFT-thats-set-Westminster-alight.html
This was the first comment on DAG’s article, followed by a dozen or so more most of which are looking for some deep conspiracy. Perhaps DAG accumulates comments and publishes them in batches, so the later writers will not have had the benefit of reading this earlier one from John Turner. Sam Freedman’s Twitter post invites a conclusion that the story is already old news, and the Times was exposing itself to ridicule or even a charge of plagiarism by trotting it out again.
No conspiracy. Move on, as they say.
Possibly, but…
The reason I had conflicting feelings was that I assumed that the Times would fact check – and surely that would have brought up previous items.
It’s not anticipating that removing the article would make it more noteworthy that takes me by surprise.
Maybe newspapers have lost the staff with the skills to do that.
It is slightly odd how the Times publishing and then pulling this story has given it greater prominence than it achieved when it was published in the Daily Mail in February, or in black and white in Ashcroft’s book. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aiZdEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT83
Both that account, and the pulled Times report, include the detail that Ben Gascoigne threatened to resign if Carrie Symonds (as she then was) were to be appointed as Chief of Staff. Gascoigne is still on the PM’s team at Number 10.
Well, Lord Ashcroft’s book was I gather written without the co-operation of its subject.
Whereas, The Times had four credible independent sources for its ‘Chief of Staff’ report.
I think editors do like to have at least two such sources before considering running a story likely to cause controversy.
From The New European on Saturday 18th June …
“The Daily Mail was offered it, but turned it down, with the tipster being told it didn’t accord with the newspaper’s “general point of view”. Rupert Murdoch’s Times was next on the tipster’s list. Their journalist, Simon Walters, was put on the story and he promptly identified four allies of Johnson who confirmed it to him.”
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/boris-johnson-wanted-to-give-carrie-symonds-a-100000-downing-street-role/
Indeed, fact checking is a good thing, and also the political situation in June is different to February. The Times reported an MP saying Ashcroft’s version was “20 per cent right”, but their report seems to have repeated almost all of this account.
BBC is now reporting one spokesman at Number 10 saying other people there have “made clear” that it is “not true”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61869650
So now we have to decide whether to believe a respected journalist with several separate sources standing up a story, or the team of politician who has a long record of shameless lies (including being sacked at least twice for his lies).
OK as far as this goes, but please be more careful with your orthography.
“… most editors are loath to pull something once published.”
Now ‘reluctant’
Much better!
Congratulations and admiration for everything else.
“…but there are arguably grounds to investigate whether there might be a perhaps reasonable suspicion that one or more non-culpable persons allegedly perceived as said to be connected with the so-called editorial profession would unwittingly be understandably ‘reluctant’ to in an innocuous sense pull a putative thing were such a thing to have apparently been reported as published, or not, in my opinion.”
“This meant that the story may have been pulled for another reason – a non-journalistic, non-legal explanation.”
That just leaves a political and/or a financial explanation, doesn’t it?
Or maybe the story that replaced it in the later editions (some guff about Priti Patel claiming the lefty lawyers who got the Rwanda flight stopped were a bunch of racists) was considered so important that it necessitated bumping the Johnson/Carrie story entirely from the paper? Yes, I’m sure that’s it – purely an editorial decision…
I tend to agree. It seems that Johnson has a very thin skin where adverse stories about him are circulated. It was reported that being booed as he and Carrie entered Westminster Abbey ( oh, the symbolism of that hat!) upset him. Also, the story followed straight after his visit to Ukraine, where, IMO, he is ingratiating himself with Zelinsky to convey his ‘Churchill’ credentials. Not a good look for a man desperate to be seen as ‘solving’ the Ukrainian war!!!
My evil twin with a taste for conspiracies did think that publishing a story and then taking it down was an excellent way to maximise the publicity.
My saner self decided against it.
My evil twin then wondered if the Times might have been worried about stealing its own thunder – and that it has a bigger story of which that is only a part.
Again, my saner self prevailed.
It all feels very strange and once it was out there, trying to withdraw it was always going to be a losing battle – so why risk it?
The most extraordinary aspect of this, to my mind, is that if Downing Street did pressure the Times into withdrawing the story, why did nobody foresee that doing so would make the story grow larger and more widely?
Although I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of the original scoop, it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to have a huge public impact outside of political circles (at least, not to anything like the same extent as the covid parties). But an attempted cover-up involving a paper of record is a bigger mainstream story, a bit like how the attempt to get Owen Paterson off the hook was a bigger mainstream story than his original offence.
And this was completely predictable, for anyone who has used the internet in the past quarter century. I understand that MPs often lack understanding of this, but surely the Downing Street media team know better.
(Allowing, of course, for the possibility that they *did* know better, but their objections were ignored. Which seems more plausible, but we will likely never know.)
Fascinating.
But not surprising.
Can any reader opine – and I guess this question is Times-specific in one sense, News UK in another – would be whether one would expect a correction or retraction to be issued in the event that an error was found after publication?
I see this all the time on US based media web sites (“This article has been updated to reflect…” or similar). It is not clear whether that has happened here.
In the event that such a correction is offered, then, if that can be taken at face value, “Nothing to see here; move along, move along”. On the other hand, if no justification for the retraction is forthcoming, or if one is offered but does not stand up to scrutiny, then I would have to agree.
One of the most troublesome elements of political reporting is the “scoop effect”. The spinmeisters at PartyHQ, or No. 10 for the party in power of course, have incredible power when it comes to keeping news outlets “on side”. There’s access to “unofficial comments”, officially un-official leaks, invitations to join a minister for a trip, potentially even interview time for any journalist planning a biography and so on. All of which is used to tremendous effect to keep the press under control.
How many times, for example, have you heard a BBC announcer declare solemnly that, “later today…” (minister for something) “… will announce that…” (they really felt the need to hear their name on the news)? It goes on so pervasively we become blind to it.
Look at the cosy relationship between Murdoch’s “Fox” outfit in the states and the last Republican administration and you can absolutely see that his UK newspaper business would want the same thing from No. 10.
Well worth trying to get someone on the record over this, methinks.
It would have been foreseeable that to pull the story in this way might cause a Streisand effect. So it is equally possible that the person or entity which caused it to be pulled wished to (a) suppress, or (b) promote, the story
A bizarrre aspect was how BBC Radio 4’s World at One covered the story today. It was at the end of the programme where they usually put quirky but not very newsworthy pieces. They ran it as an example of the Streisand Effect and about how trying to stop publication of something increases public interest in said something. The facts were presented accurately but without any discussion of conflict of interest or corruption or interference in reporting. I wonder if this was the only safe way to comment on the events without attracting approbrium from management?
The BBC treatment of the story not it’s finist hour, they are not behaving in a way that repairs their reputation for serious coverage of UK politics.
I’m not sure if this is entirely fair… but if you want critical reporting of a government in office, then for a Conservative government pick the left-wing press; for a Labour government pick the right wing press… and avoid the BBC for small your political coverage requirements.
The problem with Aunty is that for at least the last 20 years – likely a lot longer the party in power uses the License Fee to basically force the BBC to “toe the line”. Directors – and Producers/Reporters/etc – come and go… but the relationship between the BBC and the administration of the day endures.
Even their most robust and apparently independent reporting – your citing of program such as “The World at One” and “Today” on Radio 4 being good examples – is far from immune to that influence.
With Johnson the sniff test seems to be most reliable.
My feeling is it’s not just the pulling of this story that is of interest, but also what it was replaced with. A story which reflects badly on the Prime Minister’s behaviour in terms of governance while he was Foreign secretary was replaced by a story which amounts to Government spin against the ECtHR and critics of the Rwanda deportation agreement.
Seems to me someone very senior at News UK wanted to spike the criticism of a beleaguered PM and replace it with support for the government.
Your usual measured and thought proving take on reporting of allegations of serious misconduct in high public office. Grossly defamatory if untrue so it’s puzzling why no legal action has been forthcoming.
I have nothing to add except to ask do you have any Barbara Streisand records in your collection?
The Guardian covered this story today, including both the allegation and the behaviour of the Times. Am I right in assuming this must have been passed by their lawyers? If so it adds credence to the allegation against Johnson.
Clearly I have no idea whether the facts as reported are true or not, but this strikes me as almost a perfect example of the Streisand effect. Imagine if the story had simply run. Some people pick it up on social media. They get told “yes, we know. It was in Ashcroft’s book. So what?” They also get told that treating news of Johnson being less than scrupulously honest as in any way newsworthy suggests they’ve been living under a rock for a very long time. The story makes few ripples, and fades. Just another in the long line of stories about dreadful behaviour Johnson has got away with.
I think this may be a key point in why I find Johnson so intensely annoying – it’s not just that he covers his failings as PM by manipulating people, it’s that he isn’t even any good at that. He gets away with it purely because his parliamentary colleagues choose to let him.
WOW! fancy being able to take a story down like that early on a Sunday morning – phone call to Murdoch himself?
Call me not surprised when No10 earlier admitted they spoke to The Times.
Given they are paid by public purse can they substantiate what they did was in public interest.
I suspect it was a warning shot from Murdoch. To print such a story, in the UK paper of record acts as a stark reminder to the occupant and the staff of number 10, of what Murdoch can and will do. It’s a “remember what powers we have” act, that can easily be repeated if the Govt. is not seen to follow the Murdoch line sufficiently, or quickly enough. With the stories they’ll already have up their sleeve and given the PM’s proclivities and disregard for rules, they’ll be ready to deploy another one when the occasion arises.
Tonight is Murdoch’s summer party, to which the entire cabinet have been invited (as per Alastair Campbell) so a convenient opportunity to enforce the line.
Is the UK “paper of record” the first or last edition each day?
If the last, the “record” could omit this story!
An injunction would at least have provided incontrovertible evidence that the government is quite happy to gag the media. Instead we have incontrovertible evidence that a newspaper is perfectly happy to do the government’s bidding. So much for the “free press”.
Spokespersons for the PM and his wife are now saying the story is untrue. Let’s accept that for the sake of argument. Why wouldn’t they have denied it when the journalist gave them a chance? Perhaps because they thought that allowing publication and then denying it (and getting it removed) would create another juicy distraction story that would run for a few days..?
A side note on “immediate publication”…
Although this doesn’t necessarily apply in the instant case, it might be worth mentioning that some (very few) journalists might in fact have a “right to publish” directly to their employer’s platform.
I first came across this idea with Glenn Greenwald, first of the Guardian, then The Intercept and Substack. One of the interesting little twists to the Edward Snowden story stemmed from the fact that three journalists met with the former NSA employee in Hong Kong: Glenn, film-maker Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill. The original plan had been for Snowden to travel on from Hong Kong (to I believe Ecuador) where he would apply for Asylum. But Greenwald and MacAskill, both wanting the plaudits and fearful of being scooped by the other, went to print while Snowden was still in Hong Kong, which is why he’s now stuck in Moscow.
Anyway, one of the things that Snowden asked of the Guardian at around that time was “right to publish”, meaning specifically the right to take a draft of an article and publish it to the Guardian web site without having to clear it with the Editorial Desk first and without having it “edited”. As I understood what I read at the time, Greenwald was one of a very few journalists that could literally press-to-publish without first seeking editorial approval. Here’s a follow-up on what happened when he demanded the same of the Intercept, where he went after leaving the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/29/journalist-glenn-greenwald-resigns-the-intercept
I have no idea whether or not that is an accepted practice in either Fleet Street or with the web sites supporting television news outlets (such as the BBC in the UK or CNN, MSNBC, etc., in the US).
But what little I learned of the publication process through reading up on Greenwald’s tussles with the Guardian and his subsequent departure – all of which left me with the distinct impression that the news outlets themselves (no doubt with thoughts of the likely court cases that could follow), generally put in the diligence before they go to print.
In today’s litigious world, who can blame them.
No. 10 concedes it spoke to the Times about the story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61869650
Complete surprise, obviously…
In the wake of this, Alistair Campbell called Boris Johnson a ‘liar and crook’.
No hint of BJ issuing a libel writ in response.
If he did, AC probably would not have much difficulty in substantiating the liar limb of the jibe; with respect to ‘crook’, which suggests criminality on top of dishonesty, he probably would; insofar that a person in a position of seniority attempting to secure a lucrative position for a relative or lover in way contrary to proper and prescribed organisational procedure, prima facie is committing an act of gross misconduct, rather than a crime, unless threats or bribes were involved – I am not a lawyer, though, and happy to be corrected.
But at the end of day, it does appear that a formerly historically respected print newspaper pulled the story for political self-serving reasons, which should attract a frenzy of concern and criticism.
It probably will not, however, as British institutions have progressively become institutionally corrupt – or, perhaps – given corruption implies criminality – more blatantly and shamelessly devoid of previously accepted public realm morals and values.
Perhaps, then, Johnson is a PM for our times.
If so, the prospects for Great Britain are dire.
Isn’t the most serious aspect of this the fact that *at the time* this would have been an **undeclared** conflict of interest?
It seems that when he made the suggestion, Boris was engaged in conduct unbecoming with Ms Symonds at a time when no-one knew about it. It would be bad enough if he had made that suggestion about his then-wife; making it about his mistress – allowing them to work together while conducting an affair and paying her £100,000 pa for work she wasn’t qualified for nor experienced in – would have been just flat-out dishonest.
Like the conflict of interest he had as Mayor of London with Jennifer Arcuri, given funding and access in return for “IT lessons” at her apartment?
Nothing sticks to our Teflon coated PM.
Yes, we all know that Boris is dishonest – the issue that concerns me is when does dishonesty slide into criminality. Was it fair of AC to call him a crook – not in the sense that you could be called a ‘crook’ in exaggerated and inappropriate political discourse if, say, you espoused levels of taxation on social justice grounds that others might define as confiscatory, but in a legal sense.
I just think this is outrageous. Would the Times and the Mail be as acquiescenct if Labour had rung to pull a story about Starmer? That’s the question. If the answer is the same as Johnson’s if not then we’re down the road of a dictatorship
Don’t forget that there are two (critical) byelections this week and Bojo is certain to lose Wakefield and might lose Honiton. Further embarrassment on his sleazier activities (this week) could tip the balance against “him” in Devon. Also, the perfectly legal, but distasteful, tax arrangements of the Sunaks in the press would seem to have put paid to the Chancellor’s chances of becomming PM (and who leaked that one?), so I imagine favours were belatedly called in.
Did I hear that Geidt has written in the Telegraph that the Carrie job story may be a matter for investigation? Where next or perhaps what next?
I would have been amazed if the story had been pulled for any reason other than action by Tony Gallager, formerly of the Mail, and Johnson crony. Shamefully, this is how the Tory press/Tory government nexus operates in this country. The only question is how did it come to be in the ppaer in the first place (albeit very briefly). But what’s interesting is how this story was covered by the newspaper review on the Today programme at 7.40 this morning. Normally this is where editorialisng from the Tory press is simply given airtime which it doesn’t deserve, as it’s not “news” as properly understood. However, this morning Robinson and Rajan actually analysed how the story was presented in different papers, and did so in an illuminating way, too.
As a general principle, stories should never be removed. If they are found to be wrong, they should be amended to start with suitable wording explaining the truth. For example, “We now realise that Joe Bloggs is not a bank robber, but published the following article on “. To the extent that libel laws may make that impossible in some situations, they should be fixed.