The dark arts of the media and how I never got the hang of it
The techniques employed by journalists to be the first to the story are in the spotlight at the moment more than ever due to the allegations of phone hacking by News of the World journalists.
Phone hacking, the old-fashioned way
Leaving that specific case behind, as I can’t afford to fight any possible legal battles, it has made me think about the kind of things that my former colleagues, and myself, would get up to in order to get that all-important exclusive.
Stories about phone hacking have been around since Alexander Graham Bell wondered why details of his private life were the talk of Victorian London, possibly.
Some of the older members of the noble profession will tell you about being able to bung a few quid to the old-fashioned telephone operators to be able to listen in on the line to certain conversations.
I have heard of newsrooms where a police radio scanner was used to listen out for incidents, with the result that every now and again a journalist or photographer would turn up moments before the police or ambulance, which is potentially awkward.
You might also occasionally ‘forget to mention’ you work for the press if you turn up at a crime scene and start idly chatting with the copper on the line in the hope he might let something slip, which you would of course then have to verify with the corporate communications officer.
To be honest I was never very good at subterfuge and was once sent to a pub in a rough part of Bristol to attempt to infiltrate a gang of racists who were allegedly using the pub as a recruiting ground for their vile neo-Nazi ideals.
Somehow my well-fed frame and slightly plumby middle class accent didn’t help to back up the cover story that I was a hard-bitten racist from the streets. For that same reason I was never sent out to infiltrate drug gangs or the criminal underworld in some of the more dangerous public houses in the city, for fear I would get to the bar and ask for a glass of Chablis, slightly chilled and an amuse bouche, preferably something with oysters.
I think the closest I ever got to the dark arts was sitting on the loo and overhearing a conversation between two city councillors which made a mildly interesting ‘news in brief’ story for page 28 one slow news day at the Evening Post.
But it always makes me laugh when people talk about journalists working in PR as moving ‘to the dark side’, as I have never seen anybody in PR paying a policeman or criminal for information, walking round the office drunk at midday, tapping into a celebrity’s voicemail or sticking cameras up pop star’s skirts as they get out of taxis. Perhaps they should?