The managing editor of the Sun has accused the Guardian of  “sexing up” its coverage of the phone hacking scandal and its editor Alan Rusbridger of having an “agenda” against the tabloid press, reports Press Gazette.

Richard Caseby, also former editor of the News of the World, told the Joint Committee on Privacy Injunctions that it was “now clear that Alan Rusbridger has effectively sexed up his investigation into phone-hacking and the wider issue of wrongdoing in the media”.

The Guardian‘s coverage has come under scrutiny after the Metropolitan police claimed it was “unlikely” that the News of the World had deliberately deleted messages on Milly Dowler’s phone, which gave her parents “false hope” that she was still alive.

With the police in the process of informing other hacking targets, such as families of military personnel and other victims of crime, the News of the World closed three days later.

“Let me be clear: phonehacking by the NoW was wrong and it is rightfully condemned by all,” said Caseby.

“But the Guardian‘s statement of fact, in I think it was 34 articles, that the paper had given the parents false hope is quite another matter – because that accusation turned what was natural condemnation into a wave of such utter public revulsion that the NoW couldn’t really function as a going concern any more and it had to be shut down.

“I can see that Alan Rusbridger is still finding it hard to acknowledge how seriously this repeated error has undermined his paper’s authority.

“In fact he tried to justify it yesterday, saying that his paper reported the facts as they were known at the time.

“The trouble is they were never facts. They were only ever allegations.”

He claimed Rusbridger had now “turned his attention to the Sun” and had an “agenda against the popular press”.

“He tried, I believe, to capitalise on public revulsion and close another News International title,” he claimed.

The Guardian has issued two apologies to the Sun this year. Its front page claim in July that the Sun‘s exclusive on the illness of Gordon Brown’s infant son had been accessed via medical records was disproved when a member of the public, whose son suffered from the same condition, admitted to being the source of the story.

It apologised again last month after the false claim that a Sun reporter had doorstepped a barrister involved in the Leveson inquiry.

Caseby added: “Mr Rusbridger has shown a pattern of behaviour that poses a serious question over his motivations.

“He has an agenda against the popular press, a section of the media he clearly holds in contempt.”

(Source: Press Gazette)

No related posts.