Trinity Mirror boss defends Brooks Newmark sex sting story

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/02/trinity-mirror-simon-fox-brooks-newmark-sex-sting

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The chief executive of the Sunday Mirror’s publisher has defended the paper’s Brooks Newmark sex sting story, saying it was in the public interest.

Simon Fox, Trinity Mirror chief executive, said that Newmark, a Conservative MP, was a minister with security clearance and involved in an initiative to get more women into politics.

Fox took a swipe at rival news organisations’ coverage of the resulting controversy over the story, saying it gave a “very wrong impression” of what was published.

He also denied Trinity Mirror has taken an “ostrich-like approach” to allegations of phone hacking by its papers, a week after the company agreed to pay compensation to 10 individuals over alleged voicemail interception.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation, the new industry regulator which replaced the Press Complaints Commission earlier this month, is considering a formal complaint from another Tory MP that the Sunday Mirror used entrapment against Newmark, who resigned his ministerial post when the story broke at the weekend.

“We were back in the headlines this weekend when we broke the story about the MP Mr Brooks Newmark,” Fox said in an email to staff on Thursday. “Whilst this has attracted a barrage of negative comment and the threat of an Ipso investigation, we believe that we were right to publish this story on public interest grounds.

“If you have only read or heard the coverage rather than read the Sunday Mirror itself, you will have been left with a very wrong impression of what we did.

“Most importantly we did not publish any photographs of the women in the story. Nor did we list any names of any MPs other than Brooks Newmark. The images of the women that you have seen widely reproduced were put there by other publications. The same goes for other MPs including those who have said that they will complain to Ipso.”

The sting was carried out by Alex Wickham, a reporter who works for the Guido Fawkes political blog, who sold the story to the Sunday Mirror. The Sun and Mail on Sunday turned the story down before it was published by the Sunday Mirror.

Fox said that Newmark was “not just an MP” and his campaigning work for women in particular made it a story in the public interest.

“Mr Brooks Newmark was not just an MP but a minister (for civil society), with security clearance who took a role in foreign affairs and was co-founder for the campaign group ‘Women2Win’, an initiative designed to get more women into politics,” he said.

Fox said that the fake Twitter user set up by Wickham, for Tory-supporting PR woman Sophie Wittams, followed a number of MPs, celebrities and news organisations but that it was only Newmark who pursued the relationship.

Wickham followed almost 100 MPs, including prime minister David Cameron, via the fake Wittams account, according to a Guido Fawkes blog post on Tuesday.

“It is significant that it was Brooks Newmark who initiated the move away from the public forum and into private communication with ‘Sophie’,” he said. “Since publication of our story and his resignation Mr Newmark has said that he ‘has nobody to blame but himself’.”

Fox admitted that the publisher thought that the photos purporting to be of Wittams used on Twitter and other digital media were “posed by models” and did not know some were of real people and used without permission.

“When we discovered the truth we recognised that the use of these pictures had been wrong and issued an apology to the women involved,” he said. “We have been in contact with one of them and indeed she will be telling us her side of the story in next weekend’s paper.”

Lloyd Embley, Sunday Mirror editor-in-chief, apologised to two women for the unauthorised use of their pictures earlier this week.

Fox also addressed the criticism the company has received over its handling of accusations of phone hacking.

Last week Trinity Mirror agreed to pay £125,000 to settle six compensation claims over alleged phone hacking by its papers and has admitted liability in four other cases where the payout has yet to be agreed. It emerged during a high court hearing on Friday that the publisher faces nearly 50 claims in total.

“It has been suggested that we have adopted an ostrich like approach to hacking – if we ignored it, it would go away and that we have not held any proper form of investigation,” he said. “This could not be further from the truth. We have conducted a very extensive investigation, and, short of ripping up the floorboards in a way that would disrupt the running of the Group, we have done everything that could have been done.”

He said that the company has hired independent external consultants, including e-forensic experts and lawyers, who have reviewed “many tens of millions of pieces of data”.

Fox said that the £4m the company set aside for pay outs and costs will be “appropriate and sufficient”.

“Where we believe – on good evidence – [hacking] has happened, we will apologise and compensate those affected,” he said. “In our half-year financial accounts, we set aside money to deal with the costs of settling these actions and we continue to believe that these sums are appropriate and sufficient.”

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