Brooks Newmark sex sting: Guido Fawkes blog defends its reporter’s story

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/30/brooks-newmark-sex-sting-guido-fawkes-sunday-mirror

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The Guido Fawkes blog has defended reporter Alex Wickham’s Brooks Newmark sex sting for the Sunday Mirror, saying it was “no fishing operation”.

In a Tuesday afternoon blogpost confirming for the first time that Wickham was the freelance journalist behind the Sunday Mirror story, Guido, owned by Paul Staines, said the “narrowly targeted effort” aimed at uncovering evidence that an MP was “exploiting his position for carnal gain”.

“For the record and the avoidance of doubt, Alex Wickham – better known to our readers as WikiGuido – is a fine young journalist with more front-page splashes to his name than some of his critics have had in their entire careers,” the Guido post said.

“His so-called sting – which was actually evidence gathering – was not an unauthorised operation. There will be no ‘rogue reporter defence’, it was an agreed plan.”

Guido added that the fake Twitter account purporting to belong to Tory-supporting PR Sophie Wittams used by Wickham to make contact with Newmark followed almost 100 MPs, including prime minister David Cameron and women, “not to target them ... it was part of the cover story”.

The post said: “This was no fishing operation, it was a narrowly targeted effort.”

Guido added that if new press regulator Ipso found against the Mirror over the story, “it won’t prove it has teeth, it will prove as we told the Leveson inquiry, that ‘media standards’ are really a form of censorship that will protect the powerful from having their wrongdoings uncovered”.

The post concluded: “This blog will never bow to the censors – we will continue to use subterfuge and clandestine methods to go after wrong ’uns – there is no other way.”

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