Johnson, Harry and the Press: ‘Exposing the Ethical Void’

There’s a memorable scene towards the end of the 1976 classic All the President’s Men when Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s source Deep Throat tells him that he’s “missing the overall”. The Watergate break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters was just the tip of the iceberg.

“They bugged offices, they followed people, planted false press leaks, passed fake letters… they investigated Democratic private lives, they planted spies, they stole documents.” The entire machinery of the White House, Deep Throat – later revealed to be former associate director of the FBI Mark Felt – says, was in on it.

Watching the film again recently, detailing the real-life reporting of Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the scandal that brought down President Nixon, we were struck by this list of unlawful activity for political gain – and how in Britain these ‘dark arts’ had largely been outsourced to sections of the established press, acting in conjunction with those in power for their mutual benefit.

One of the familiar defences of indefensible behaviour, both in the media and Parliament, is ‘well, it isn’t illegal!’ How did that happen? How did law-breaking become the baseline for accountability when it comes to our politicians or the press? 

As we saw with the phone-hacking scandal a decade ago, or ‘Partygate’ more recently, this is exactly what it takes to finally bring corrupting influences in Britain to light. And yet, the wrongs a politician or a newspaper can commit cannot only be measured by unlawful activity.

This ethical void, which sits at the heart of the established media – and so increasingly our politics – is what Prince Harry is admirably seeking to expose in his various civil claims against the most powerful tabloid newspaper groups in Britain.

As he told the court in his testimony on Mirror Group Newspapers, “democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinise and hold the government accountable, and instead choose to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo”. That it takes a prince of the realm, an establishment insider, to publicly identify how the crises in our press and politics are linked is remarkable. But so it is. 

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Imagine if, instead of investigating Nixon and his re-election committee, Woodward and Bernstein had been swapping anecdotes with its members over boozy dinners and hoping to get their own feet under the tables of the White House; picking and choosing when to hold Nixon’s feet to the fire and when to hold back for their own leverage.

In return, Nixon’s men might be dangling the reward of some well-paid government sinecure as a press spokesperson or ‘head of comms’ in return for compliance. Or, moving the other way through the revolving door, perhaps been pumping Woodward and Bernstein for some plumb columnist job or TV chat show host role over scotch and cigars.  

Such a surreal conversation might sound like satire, but that’s been the basis of press malfeasance long after the police bribes and phone-hacking scandal were closed down. A former BBC journalist-turned-GB News host, Guto Harri, is given a gong for his services to Boris Johnson in the latest