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Editorial confessions: phone hacking

Finance | Ian Allsop | 5 Sep 2011

Ian Allsop claims he was unaware of phone hacking when editor of Charity Finance.

It’s been a quiet period for news since I last wrote anything. Apart from all the astonishing news that has happened. When I started as a journalist, experienced hacks would talk of summer being the silly season, where tales of cats riding bicycles would take on a disproportionate level of importance to compensate for the lack of proper stories. Not anymore.

In the last couple of months the nation has been appalled at the sight of people running around out of control, breaking into where they shouldn’t and looting all they could for personal gain. The police seemingly helpless, the powers that be hapless, and with no one willing to take responsibility.

And then, once the phone hacking story had gone quiet, there were the riots (more on them later).

I want to go on record straightaway and say that during my five-year tenure as editor of Charity Finance I was not aware of phone hacking. I certainly never did it, mainly because I wouldn’t have known how to, and I never authorised my staff to do it or knowingly published a story based on illegally-obtained information. If it did happen it was solely down to rogue freelancers acting on their own initiative and not my responsibility. (I believe that covers the standard line for editors in this situation).

One of the things that the phone hacking scandal has illustrated is an unenviable model of leadership – just how little knowledge of what goes on in their organisation certain people are happy to admit to if it suits them, and how limited the responsibility they are prepared to take. It would be a very poorly-led charity indeed, and one subject to rightful criticism, if any immoral – let alone illegal – activity happened without the CEO knowing, or seemingly caring about it.

I would also like to confirm that I have never looted – those plasma TVs really are heavy for one thing. And, as I write, I am aware of the crushing weight of the words others have produced on this much more complex issue, in a race to justify, rationalise, understand, explain, condemn and seek populist justice.

Leadership from our elected leaders has largely comprised of cutting short holidays and hoping the “broken society”, itself a soundbite, can be taped over with further soundbites. Cameron was jerking his knee so quickly that citizens were more in danger from flying shards of patella than rioters.

The discussion needs to be far wider than simply seeking short-term retribution that may appease some of the public but makes no attempt to try and understand why the rioting happened and thus prevent, or at least reduce, the chances of it occurring again.

While charity sector leaders quickly rushed out their judgement that we shouldn’t rush to make judgements, there is undoubtedly a crucial role for civil society in the response. Camila Batmanghelidjh made some valid points – I believe there is a byelaw that means she is legally obliged to comment in situations such as this – but cuts are only part of a complex problem.

Charities working in disadvantaged communities with disaffected youth will have plenty to contribute, especially as there is a danger of tarring a whole generation when the numbers involved were, lest we forget, a barely significant percentage of the population.

Emotive language

And charities will need to wade through the negative, emotive, derogatory language being used, such as “underclass”, “sick society”, “feral” and “moral collapse” (which obviously only applies to the disadvantaged and not those, for example, in banking, claiming expenses from public money or running media empires).

Inevitably the Big Society will crop up in the debate, though I am sure that when Dave dreamed of empowering communities to unite and volunteer to help themselves this wasn’t quite what he envisaged. And while the groups of people clutching brooms, sweeping up, was a positive demonstration of collective civil action it wasn’t Big Society. It was people clutching brooms, sweeping up.

Yes, everyone has to take some responsibility for their own actions and display leadership in their own lives. But charities have been working in these communities for decades, and know at first hand what the underlying issues are, far more than armchair experts lazily blaming single parents or gang culture.

Charities need to show leadership and continue to be at the forefront of highlighting and appropriately addressing the interwoven problems that have for too long been ignored under the leadership of many ‘editors’ in successive governments. 

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Who's Who: Camila Batmanghelidjh | Ian Allsop