Kelvin MacKenzie on ethics and justice... really?

Former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie has hit out at The Guardian and investigative reporter Nick Davies in light of suggestions the News Of The World merely hacked Milly Dowler's voicemail but may not have deleted any messages as The Guardian had originally reported:

MacKenzie begins:

"Welcome to the world of journalism, Nick Davies. So the cops in Surrey told you the story was true... But there was a problem... The Milly Dowler story... was untrue: there is no evidence to show that the News of the World deleted Milly's voicemails."

Anybody familiar with Kelvin MacKenzie's career will no doubt hear the twin alarm bells of irony and hypocrisy chiming loudly as he attempts to take the high ground on issues such as editorial accuracy, ethics and accountability.

It has been 22 years since MacKenzie presided over The Sun's entirely fictitious claims about the Hillsborough disaster. And while we know The Guardian's source was Surrey Police, as MacKenzie reminds us, he has never been so forthcoming about whose account of Hillsborough he based his paper's "malicious lies" upon.

MacKenzie continues:

"So what price has Nick Davies paid... None at all. Not suspended. Not sacked. What price... Alan Rusbridger... You might think they’d call an emergency Board meeting, and sling him out for a mistake of this magnitude."

It was a full five years after his Hillsborough 'exclusive' that MacKenzie finally left The Sun. You'd have thought they'd call an emergency Board meeting in the immediate aftermath, and sling him out for a mistake of that magnitude, but no, Murdoch actually gave him another, albeit shortlived job, elsewhere in the empire.

Which at least explains his loyalty to Murdoch:

"There are other victims of this reporting scandal. Rupert Murdoch is one of them... I happen to know that Rupert was a reduced man because of Dowler. At 81 he still has remarkable energy but the whole affair had exhausted him, and continues to exhaust."

Spare a thought then for the families of 96 football fans who have been campaigning for 22 years now to get honest answers and a meaningful apology out of Kelvin MacKenzie and Rupert Murdoch.

Imagine how exhausting that must be.

Comments

[Paul McGlade]

I do admire the shift in the same breath from "was untrue" to "there is no evidence" as if they are the same thing.

[Norock]

Worth remembering that Kelvin's rant is in The Spectator, edited by Fraser Nelson who remained on a columnist in the paper until it closed rather than severing ties with the title.

[@lakey]

Smoke = fire. "May not have" isn't the same as "definitely didn't". Might be "probably did".