Quake3World

The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril.

That was how matters stood when, on Monday of last week, BBC Panorama ran its story about HSBC and its Swiss banking arm, alleging a wide-scale tax evasion scheme, while the Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published their 'HSBC files'. All newspapers realised at once that this was a major event. The FT splashed on it for two days in a row, while the Times and the Mail gave it solid coverage spread over several pages.

You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage: nothing on Monday, six slim paragraphs at the bottom left of page two on Tuesday, seven paragraphs deep in the business pages on Wednesday. The Telegraph’s reporting only looked up when the story turned into claims that there might be questions about the tax affairs of people connected to the Labour party.

After a lot of agony I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to make all this public. There are two powerful reasons. The first concerns the future of the Telegraph under the Barclay Brothers. It might sound a pompous thing to say, but I believe the newspaper is a significant part of Britain’s civic architecture. It is the most important public voice of civilised, sceptical conservatism.

Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well-informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible. Imagine if the BBC—so often the object of Telegraph attack—had conducted itself in this way. The Telegraph would have been contemptuous. It would have insisted that heads should roll, and rightly so.

This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.

It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street.

Last week I made another discovery. Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team—the same lot who carried out the superb MPs’ expenses investigation—received a tip off about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC. After three months research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view.

Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. I have now learnt, in a remarkable departure from normal practice, that at this stage lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved. When I asked the Telegraph why the Barclay brothers were involved, it declined to comment.

This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.

Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraph journalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale.

“An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won’t be supported and will be undermined.”

When I sent detailed questions to the Telegraph this afternoon about its connections with advertisers, the paper gave the following response. "Your questions are full of inaccuracies, and we do not therefore intend to respond to them. More generally, like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary."

The evidence suggests otherwise, and the consequences of the Telegraph’s recent soft coverage of HSBC may have been profound. Would Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have been much more energetic in its own recent investigations into wide-scale tax avoidance, had the Telegraph continued to hold HSBC to account after its 2012 investigation? There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored.

losCHUNK wrote:News agencies are being run by advertisers

The world seems to think it's owed the truth. I've never understood that.

syp0s wrote:*internet grrr*

Ryoki wrote:Bringing legislation into the argument seems entirely nonsensical, noone is arguing that there's laws that say newspapers have to tell the truth.

seremtan wrote:
i haven't paid the slightest attention to this story or made a single comment on it until this thread - and for what it's worth i don't even consider it that important in the grand scheme of things. the whole issue of tax avoidance was a non-issue until the financial crisis hit; it's just another example of people having a sudden moral conniption fit over something they didn't give a shit about yesterday. i was quite content with just pointing out that pleasing their advertisers is what the media do - until you rolled in like an angry Neo to tell the world that we're all trapped in the Matrix and that you alone have seen the truth. cynicism is a steaming pile of horseshit because inside every cynic is an idiot who thinks that because he's 'seen some shit' down the rabbit hole he's smarter than everyone

serious question: why did you re-register on this forum? i really want to know. you've told us all these stories about how sweet your life is, making fat stacks, busy, starting a family etc, and how you've moved on from the days of sitting around all day smoking weed and posting on here - but you seem to be exactly the same angry person you were 10 years ago. it's weird, because you seemed pretty mellow a couple of years ago when you were posting in the photography thread. i'm just wondering what made you come back here and revert to your internet tough guy persona

Ryoki wrote:So you're basically saying all information should be distrusted since all parties supplying information have commercial interests. And since they're businesses like any other it's only natural to prioritize those commercial interests above their classic role of informing the public, people who believe otherwise are being terribly naive. Is that about right?

Gotta say that's an incredibly pessimistic way to look at media and their role in society. I fully agree with seremtan's take on this and would be interested to read an actual reply from you on his very valid point... because unless i missed it somehow, you seem to have failed to adress it. Bringing legislation into the argument seems entirely nonsensical, noone is arguing that there's laws that say newspapers have to tell the truth. It is widely expected the serious newspapers do exactly that though, for the reason seremtan provided. I'm finding it very curious you seem to think that's not the case. To me, the issue seems to be that the newspaper in question just disqualified itself from being a Serious Medium - which is a huge problem for a newspaper: no credibility = no subsciptions = no advertising revenue.

PS i too have worked for both printed media as well as content providers back in the day, so hey.

MKJ wrote:Interholy. If it weren't for raw's intercrush you would have stayed for the past decade too.

feedback wrote:For what it's worth, I wholly 100% disagree. I choose which news articles I read based on the reputation of the source. i.e. I'm not going to read articles from RT, CHINADaily, or VOA about any event even tangentially related to their interests if I can find something from a reputable source.

syp0s wrote:

feedback wrote:For what it's worth, I wholly 100% disagree. I choose which news articles I read based on the reputation of the source. i.e. I'm not going to read articles from RT, CHINADaily, or VOA about any event even tangentially related to their interests if I can find something from a reputable source.

Who sets the reputation, and how do you know what goes on behind closed doors?