Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Isabel Oakeshott & Matt Hancock: not only does betraying a confidential source damage journalism, it is also a threat to public health.

Oakeshott's claims about leaking the WhatsApp messages in the name of 'public interest' are highly suspect.

theconversation.com/oakeshott-and-…

Many scandals - including #Watergate & the MP's expenses scandal - help us to understand the vital importance of preserving source confidentiality.

These & m any others would have seen the light of day if the original source had not trusted guarantees of anonymity.

What, then, do we make of the decision by journalist Isabel Oakeshott to present the Telegraph with the complete cache of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages confidentially given to her by Matt Hancock, for which she signed a non-disclosure agreement?

Interviewed on the @BBC, Oakeshott claimed an “overwhelming national interest” in breaching journalism's golden rule. “Millions… were adversely affected by the catastrophic decision to lockdown this country repeatedly on the flimsiest of evidence, often for political reasons.”

There are three reasons for casting severe doubt on Oakeshott's stated rationale.

First, she spent a year collaborating with Hancock on a book that was published three months ago. Since she had access to his messages at least 15 months ago, why did she wait so long?

Oakeshott said that the cache of messages represented more than 2.3 million words and that the book she and Hancock were collaborating on was twice as long as the average political memoir. So her claim appears to be that she had simply not had time to do so.

Second, she deliberately chose the highly partisan Boris Johnson & Tory-supporting billionaire-owned Telegraph for her exclusive, a paper which is known, as is Oakeshott herself, for its profound editorial hostility to – and partisan coverage of – the scale of lockdown measures.

It would surely have been more responsible, having decided to break an agreement of confidentiality on the grounds of public interest, to do so via a non-partisan broadcaster or to make the messages available online for everyone to make their own judgment.

Third, a full public inquiry into the pandemic has been established. Led by Baroness Hallett, its remit is designed precisely to examine responses to the pandemic both by health authorities and by the government.

A genuine public interest response to any concerns raised by Hancock’s messages would surely be to hand them over to that inquiry where they could be properly contextualised and analysed, rather than allow them to be selectively quoted in pursuit of a journalistic agenda.

Instead, we are now seeing cherrypicked messages published piecemeal to further support the Telegraph’s own editorial position.

Crucially, they are being published without any input from the scientific community about its expert advice on the urgent need for intervention.

Rather than serving the public interest, these revelations are more likely to cause longer-term damage both to public health and to journalism.

Selective publication of Hancock’s messages has successfully raised doubts about the wisdom and effectiveness of government lockdown measures without any counterarguments from medical experts or scientists.

Should we be exposed to another full-scale public health crisis which requires government action on the advice of those experts, we will surely have less faith in any restrictions imposed by politicians.

Such resistance would no doubt delight the libertarians, but could have dire consequences for public health and safety.

But the damage to journalism could be even greater.

Next time someone discovers corruption or wrongdoing at the highest level and wants to blow the whistle on, say, a Govt Minister or wealthy industrialist at significant personal risk to themselves, will they be quite so ready to trust a journalist’s promise of confidentiality?

At the very least, Isabel Oakeshott’s apparent readiness to betray her source – whatever her stated justification – is likely to generate even more cynicism about an industry that already struggles to command public confidence.

We can be fairly confident that any whistleblower will stay very clear of Oakeshott who – we should not forget – has form in giving up sources in the Chris Huhne-Vicky Pryce affair which ended in the pair both being jailed for perverting the course of justice.

But high-profile incidents like these will surely make it less likely that such public-spirited individuals will be prepared to risk their own livelihood in the public interest. The only beneficiaries will be the rich and powerful who will continue to escape proper scrutiny.