Philip Stephens
Now you know what it?s like. So a politician friend chuckled the other day after police roused several journalists from their beds for questioning about the alleged bribery of public officials. Not so long ago Britain?s parliamentarians were excoriated for fiddling their expenses. Now the nation?s press is in the dock. At Westminster you can cut the Schadenfreude with a knife.
The expenses scandal shredded the reputation of Britain?s political class. Some went to jail and others were shamed into retirement. Politicians had never been held high in public esteem but billing taxpayers for the cost of cleaning out the moat at the family estate was a claim too far.
News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp, is at the centre of the bribery scandal. A furore about voicemail interceptions has already forced the closure of the best-selling News of the World. This has merged into an even more damaging investigation into illegal payments to police officers and civil servants.
The reckoning for Mr Murdoch has been brutal. A year ago the British outpost of the mighty News Corp empire was unassailable. Politicians of all stripes and seniority doffed their caps in deference to Mr Murdoch?s power and ruthlessness. News Corp was close to securing full control of the highly profitable British Sky Broadcasting.
Now, all looks close to ruin. The political doors have slammed shut. There are questions among MPs and regulators not just about the future of the newspapers, but whether News Corp is a ?fit and proper? owner of its sizeable stake in BSkyB.
The Sun, the jewel in the empire?s tabloid crown, is under investigative siege. All in all, about 30 former and serving News International executives and journalists have been arrested. News Corp has already paid out nearly $200 million in legal fees and compensation payments to victims of phone hacking. The final figure could be many times higher.
The merciless irony of the latest arrests is that they spring from Mr Murdoch?s efforts to draw a line. The alleged bribery evidence was handed over by the independent standards committee he set up to clear up the phone-hacking affair. Journalists complain they are being thrown under a train by their own management, while confidential sources are compromised.
Humming away in the background to all this is the Leveson inquiry, the public hearings into media regulation set up by the government. This reaches beyond News Corp, and the evidence offered to the inquiry by a procession of witnesses?some celebrities, others caught by accident in the public eye?has been less than flattering. The old system of press self-regulation, where insiders and newspaper editors dominate, has been exposed as a sham.
Indignation among journalists extends beyond The Sun. Even among those eager to kick Mr Murdoch while he is down there is unease at the sight of reporters being hauled off to police stations. Isn?t that what happens in places like Russia?
When politicians were brought before the mob to explain their expenses their answer was that it had ever been thus. Governments had not raised their pay for fear of angering voters. The quid pro quo had been an overgenerous and under-policed expenses system.
Their media tormentors would have none of this. Yet now they are mounting much the same defence: handing over brown envelopes to useful contacts has happened since time immemorial. Cash for tips can be a vital lubricant of press freedom. How else can the media shine a light along the corridors of power?
This might be half convincing were it shown that bribes had been instrumental in exposing corruption and malfeasance. My hunch is that most were handed over in return for gossip about the mishaps and misdemeanours of celebrities or for the inside track on crime stories.
Politicians and the press have been caught in the same trap. The days when MPs could charge maintenance of tennis courts and duck ponds to the public purse, and reporters could pay friendly coppers are gone. It is odd that journalists should complain given the treatment they meted out to others who had imagined that things could continue as they were.
We live in an age of accountability. Standards of behaviour once deemed acceptable as long as they stayed out of sight are now beyond the pale. Even those at the sharpest end of national security?soldiers fighting foreign wars and spooks conducting clandestine operations against terrorists?find themselves under an unforgiving glare. The media has played a big part in this change, so can scarcely exempt itself.
By the time the myriad investigations end quite a few journalists may have gone to jail. The process will raise justified concerns about press freedom. For all their flaws, Britain?s rumbustious newspapers are a vital check and balance on the abuse of power. The big challenge, however, does not lie in the prosecution of those who hacked phones or paid bribes. The British media are being throttled by a draconian libel law designed to protect the rich and powerful. State regulation would tighten the noose. The economics of the digital age meanwhile conspire against expensive investigative journalism.
As for Mr Murdoch, the game is up. Investigators at The Sun are talking about ?serious suspected criminality over a sustained period?. The swashbuckling style of News International was rooted in an age when proprietors told politicians what to do, journalists did what they liked, and police officers were on cash retainers. Those days have passed. So has Mr Murdoch?s dominion. This need not mean the end of a free press.
philip.stephens@ft.com
? The Financial Times Limited 2012