In the UK we serve our readers and not our leaders

Published on Tuesday 11 March 2008 20:54

APPARENTLY I better not come to America, because I am in "big trouble". At least, that is what the caller who claimed to work for the justice department said when he phoned me on Saturday. The reason for his anger and menace was down to an on-the-record article I had published in The Scotsman last Friday, in which one of Barack Obama's advisers, Samantha Power, described Hillary Clinton as a "monster", before hastily adding that quote had to be off the record.

This sparked a wave of hysteria on American websites, was seized on by the Clinton campaign and led to the resignation of Ms Power as his foreign-policy adviser.

But the most remarkable revelation to ensue from publication concerned the howls of indignation from American journalists about the lack of censorship. This, from journalists who represent the country that enshrines free speech in its constitution.

The hand-wringing debate has also underscored how hierarchical and deferential the US press can be.

It was laughable when an NBC host, Tucker Carlson, put it to me that he would not take lectures on journalism from a Scotsman journalist, as standards in Britain were so much lower than in the United States.

He questioned the relationship between the press and the powerful and appeared incredulous at the idea that a journalist would not allow someone to pull a quote that they belatedly decided they did not want to get out.

I was sorry to hear that Mr Carlson's show was cancelled several hours after our interview. Many commentators believe he betrayed how supine the American press is.

As I am a former political refugee, born on the "wrong" side of the Iron Curtain, the idea that many Americans believe that an on-the-record interview should be censored is staggering. My parents fled just this sort of censorship.

I hasten to add that many American journalists and readers have written in support of The Scotsman's decision to "publish and be damned". They, like most of the British press, recognise that an on-the-record interview is just that.

Can a public figure attempt to withdraw a comment when the cameras are rolling for a TV show? Then why should the same not apply for newspaper journalists.

Indiscretion can often have unintended consequences. An off-the-cuff remark in an on- the-record interview inadvertently cost Ms Power her job. Something I wrongly predicted would not happen and personally wish had not.

But in a professional capacity I have no regrets that we published the story. Let us be clear: I never set out to claim a scalp, let alone a halo. Good luck to those who try to paint me as a pro-war right-winger: having lived in Iraq, I did not buy into the weapons of mass destruction claim.

I can understand the depth of anger about Ms Power's remarks, given the tense nature of the contest. Indeed, this was what I was attempting to illustrate for our largely Scottish audience. The fact that American websites and campaigners picked it up in a fit of hysteria ultimately cost Ms Power her job.

There are many predictions that I will lose all my political contacts because somehow I set out to "burn" a source.

There are others who believe that British journalism is some kind of guerrilla operation, which attempts to lob grenades to flush out the enemy. Not so. There are clear rules of engagement in the UK, and in particular in the parliamentary press gallery.

Most of my conversations are indeed off the record. But this principle is decided in advance, not half way through an interview.

When someone is doing a European tour to plug a book, and waits for you to turn on the tape recorder before volunteering their take on the campaign, are you supposed to ignore it?

American editors may want to ask why they are paying salaries to staff who think so. There is another factor of course: culture. We have to serve our readers, not our leaders. Enter any newsagent's in Scotland and you are in the most competitive market in the world. Across the UK, newspaper readership per capita is approximately fivefold of that in the US.

Never in recent history have so many British journalists covered the American elections, encroaching on domestic hacks' territory. So far, the only real scoops from the campaign have been broken by foreign press.

Nothing illustrates the difference between the approaches to journalism on the two sides of the Atlantic as when the US president and the British prime minister hold joint press conferences. In true North Korean style, one side of the room stands up, the other remains firmly seated.

Maybe if they were a little less supine and a little more suspicious, deployed more inquisition and less acquiescence, American journalists could have probed their president properly ahead of the Iraq war.

As Helen Thomas, the veteran White House journalist – (it's easy to spot her, she asks the awkward questions) – said: "The press corps lost its way. We gave up our one weapon, which was scepticism."