BBC business editor calls for 'common decency on newspapers' amid criticism of Daily Mail for disclosing details of wife's illness
Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, has criticised the Daily Mail for revealing that his late wife had cancer without calling her to check the story and before she had told her youngest son about her condition.
His wife, the writer and film-maker Sian Busby, died in September 2012 of lung cancer unrelated to smoking.
He told an audience of journalists, academics and journalism students: "There was no public interest justification for the disclosure of Sian's serious illness … surely it would have been reasonable to ask if we wanted this very private element of our lives shouted to the world."
Peston, who was delivering the annual James Cameron memorial lecture at City University London, also pointed out that the Mail's diary item, published in January 2008, contained two major inaccuracies.
He said he accepted the fact that the paper had previously published "unpleasant features, columns and diary items" about him. "I regard myself as a fair target," he said. But the story about his wife "went beyond what I regarded as acceptable". The first they knew of the story was when Busby, a Daily Mail reader, opened the paper at breakfast.
He said: "My instinct was to complain to the Mail and its editors. Sian asked me not to, because she was frail and did not want the added stress of seeing me go to war with a powerful newspaper. So the Mail got away with it. As it often does."
A Daily Mail spokesman said: "We very much regret the distress clearly caused by our 2008 diary piece." He added it was important to understand the background, which was that the paper's diary reporter was introduced to Busby as a Daily Mail journalist and had a friendly conversation during which she volunteered information about her forthcoming book and illness and posed for a picture with her husband. "We are sorry to learn some six years later that the story was not accurate and offer our sincere apologies," the spokesman said.
In a wide-ranging speech in which he expressed his enjoyment of the "trade" of journalism, Peston said: "Some way has to be found to force improved standards of common decency on newspapers. And the essence of this is that there must be a cheap, easy, independent and reliable arbitration process to force speedy, prominent corrections on newspapers, and deliver ample compensation in a timely fashion."
But he does not favour the government's press regulation royal charter. State-underpinned regulation "would make all us poorer – and less free – in the long run", Peston said. Instead, he argued, the press had to improve its behaviour.
Rather than "invading precious privacy without good cause", he said that if newspapers "are going to defend their right to investigate free of state-empowered scrutiny, they have to do more proper investigating that's plainly in the public interest rather than just of interest to the public".
He praised the Mail on Sunday for its "pretty good scoop" on the Co-op Bank chairman, the Rev Paul Flowers, contending that it "shone a light on how an important institution … had been chronically mismanaged".
But Peston, who is soon to move to a new role as the BBC's economics editor, said such stories were the exception.
He called on editors "to shine the brightest light on the institutions of the state, and on the powerful in general … by exposing actual rot and not just hypocrisy and double standards".
He also touched on the huge changes wrought "by the advent of the 24/7, multi-platform, digital and social media world". In the past, after a big story, he said he would be on a high for several days. "Technology has changed the nature of the drug. On a big story today, you can be high – at a lower level of intensity – pretty much the whole time. Because you are always 'on', always able to get the story out – in audio, in video, in blogs, on social media, every waking minute of the day." Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, has criticised the Daily Mail for revealing that his late wife had cancer without calling her to check the story and before she had told her youngest son about her condition.
His wife, the writer and film-maker Sian Busby, died in September 2012 of lung cancer unrelated to smoking.
He told an audience of journalists, academics and journalism students: "There was no public interest justification for the disclosure of Sian's serious illness … surely it would have been reasonable to ask if we wanted this very private element of our lives shouted to the world."
Peston, who was delivering the annual James Cameron memorial lecture at City University London, also pointed out that the Mail's diary item, published in January 2008, contained two major inaccuracies.
He said he accepted the fact that the paper had previously published "unpleasant features, columns and diary items" about him. "I regard myself as a fair target," he said. But the story about his wife "went beyond what I regarded as acceptable". The first they knew of the story was when Busby, a Daily Mail reader, opened the paper at breakfast.
He said: "My instinct was to complain to the Mail and its editors. Sian asked me not to, because she was frail and did not want the added stress of seeing me go to war with a powerful newspaper. So the Mail got away with it. As it often does."
A Daily Mail spokesman said: "We very much regret the distress clearly caused by our 2008 diary piece." He added it was important to understand the background, which was that the paper's diary reporter was introduced to Busby as a Daily Mail journalist and had a friendly conversation during which she volunteered information about her forthcoming book and illness and posed for a picture with her husband. "We are sorry to learn some six years later that the story was not accurate and offer our sincere apologies," the spokesman said.
In a wide-ranging speech in which he expressed his enjoyment of the "trade" of journalism, Peston said: "Some way has to be found to force improved standards of common decency on newspapers. And the essence of this is that there must be a cheap, easy, independent and reliable arbitration process to force speedy, prominent corrections on newspapers, and deliver ample compensation in a timely fashion."
But he does not favour the government's press regulation royal charter. State-underpinned regulation "would make all us poorer – and less free – in the long run", Peston said. Instead, he argued, the press had to improve its behaviour.
Rather than "invading precious privacy without good cause", he said that if newspapers "are going to defend their right to investigate free of state-empowered scrutiny, they have to do more proper investigating that's plainly in the public interest rather than just of interest to the public".
He praised the Mail on Sunday for its "pretty good scoop" on the Co-op Bank chairman, the Rev Paul Flowers, contending that it "shone a light on how an important institution … had been chronically mismanaged".
But Peston, who is soon to move to a new role as the BBC's economics editor, said such stories were the exception.
He called on editors "to shine the brightest light on the institutions of the state, and on the powerful in general … by exposing actual rot and not just hypocrisy and double standards".
He also touched on the huge changes wrought "by the advent of the 24/7, multi-platform, digital and social media world". In the past, after a big story, he said he would be on a high for several days. "Technology has changed the nature of the drug. On a big story today, you can be high – at a lower level of intensity – pretty much the whole time. Because you are always 'on', always able to get the story out – in audio, in video, in blogs, on social media, every waking minute of the day." Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.