Publish and be damned!

Many an editor all over the world has been faced with the dilemma best described by the dictum 'Publish and be damned!' Others just make it their motto and live by it. What is quite interesting is that the origin of the phrase is attributed to a particular Duke of Wellington when replying to a courtesan who threatened to shame him by publishing her memoirs and his letters.

The recent publication of e-mail exchanges between Labour leader, Joseph Muscat and an RTK journalist has given rise to an interesting controversy. Labour claimed Muscat was the victim of an invasion of privacy by the publication of information obtained by illicit means. The journalist responsible for the 'scoop' insisted that the publication of the contents of these e-mails was in the public interest.

Journalists do not normally defend their actions by repeating the Duke of Wellington's retort but prefer to insist that their decision to publish private information about public figures is motivated by the public interest. This basically means that the publication serves the interest of the public. One cannot assume that whatever is published must be automatically in the public interest, but on the other hand it is very difficult to find clear and unambiguous parameters on the conditions that are a 'sine qua non' for a publication to be in the public interest. Whether the revelation of some particular information is in the public interest or not is often subjective: there are no hard and fast rules that can determine whether the 'public interest' claim is justified or not.

There is no doubt that many of the best journalistic scoops all over the world are the result of decisions taken by editors to publish information based on leaked or stolen documents. Joseph Muscat's attempt to distinguish between leaked and stolen documents is incredibly tenuous and is, for practical purposes, of no consequence to the journalist who obtains the information.

Newspapers of both the Nationalist and the Labour stables have been publishing stolen or leaked documents probably since the two political parties started their activities in the media. I have no doubt that most of these actions passed the 'public interest' test without any difficulty.

Recent controversial scoops in the independent press include the premature publication in 'The Times' of the charges that Cyrus Engerer was due to be accused with in court - a decision that the paper insisted was in the public interest. The publication of a video in which PBS chairman was captured on film in an embarrassing display at the Eurovision Song Contest's after-party in Dusseldorf was also claimed to have been in the public interest - a claim that cannot be easily dismissed, irrespective of the fact that the PBS Chairman was the unfortunate victim of a malicious plot.

The Labour Party's claim that the publication of Joseph Muscat's e-mails was not in the public interest is not tenable. Even more ludicrous is the claim that there has been an invasion of Muscat's privacy and the depiction of the incident as an indication that in Malta basic human rights are being surreptitiously eroded by some sinister official or quasi-official entity.

Revelations on the local Maltese media pale into insignificance when compared to what happens abroad. 'Wikileaks', for example, has published submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous  sources, and whistleblowers. These include a number of significant documents which have become front-page news items on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, corruption in Kenya, the Guantanamo Bay 'facility' and thousands of U.S. State department diplomatic cables. All over the world newspapers of high repute reproduced this information and commented editorially on it: whether the relevant documents were leaked or stolen, was obviously irrelevant.

Indeed the much publicised comment made to a US ambassador by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi on the limited talent in the pool from which he had to pick the Cabinet, became public as a result of a US diplomatic message being released by 'Wikileaks.' No one complained of the illegal way that the information was obtained. Neither did the PM claim an invasion of privacy.

Muscat's e-mail exchange was certainly not of a personal nature - it gave an interesting insight on his relationship with the media, and his use of insiders to know what is going on within newsrooms and to influence them. This is, of course, part of the way the game is played even though it is never acknowledged by any of the two political parties. Knowing tacitly that this sort of thing is probably happening all the time is quite different from having a written indication on how it actually happens. Hence the public interest.

In a recent study on the issue, - 'Privacy, Probity and the Public Interest' - Stephen Whittle and Glenda Cooper from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University insist that there is an important distinction between 'the public interest' and 'the public's interest':  whatever captures the attention of readers, listeners and viewers is not necessarily in the public interest. A point made in this study - that could be of interest to Malta's no-holds-barred bloggers - is that while many regard 'what happens on blogs or social network sites such as Facebook as semi-private, journalists see it as information in the public domain.'

According to the authors, 'sex and sexuality, health, family life, personal correspondence and finance' continue to be spheres essentially viewed as private 'except where public money is concerned'.

Publishing lurid details of sexual peccadilloes or perversions of public figures may well arouse the public's interest but such publications do not necessarily pass the 'public interest' test. The case of the former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), Max Mosley, is one that proves this point. The now defunct 'News of the World' exposed Mosley's involvement in a sadomasochistic sex act involving several female prostitutes by releasing a video of the incident recorded by one of the women (who was paid for doing so by the newspaper) and by publishing details of the incident. Mosley sued the paper and was awarded a record £60,000 in damages.

There was considerable interest in the case all over the world but the story was undoubtedly an invasion of privacy that could not be considered to be in the public interest by any stretch of the imagination.

However, more often than not, the clash between the right for privacy and public interest leads to grey areas. Whether the press should be given the benefit of the doubt is also a moot point.