Story like Levy-Condit might not have 'seen light of day' in Britain

By W. Joseph Campbell
freedomforum.org staff

08.07.01

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Media critics in the United States have roundly and routinely criticized the coverage of the case of Chandra Levy, the missing Washington intern, as excessively speculative and embarrassingly over the top.

But from London this week came a notably different, more nuanced perspective — a lawyer's view that invoked admiration for the constitutional protections granted the American press.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Duncan Lamont argued that in Britain, laws of libel and privacy and the fears of contempt of court would surely thwart the searching coverage characteristic of the Levy case and, especially, of the intern's relationship with Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif.

"What could the British press have reported had Condit been a member of parliament? Worryingly, precious little," Lamont wrote.

His commentary, which was posted yesterday on the newspaper's online site, opened with this scenario:

"Imagine the excitement in the newsroom when whispers become rumors and then are firmed up: a senior politician is having an affair with a pretty assistant, who has gone missing, maybe murdered. The police have been called and the politician is now being questioned.

"There is frantic activity, with journalists being dispatched to speak to friends and enemies of the politician, the mistress and their families. But wait. The newspaper's lawyer strides up to the news editor's desk. What hard evidence is there? Is the privacy of the politician or the mistress being invaded? Then silence. Apparently the public does not have a right to know."

Had a story similar to the Levy-Condit case unfolded in Britain, the newspaper's lawyer would before publication certainly receive "threats of exemplary damages for libel and prison for contempt of court from the politician's [lawyers] and from the attorney general," Lamont wrote.

The upshot, he added, would be that "another true story has not seen the light of day."

"Could such a scenario unfold in Britain? Unfortunately, yes. But in the United States? Most definitely not."

Lamont, a lawyer who represents British newspapers, noted that "to report here that someone has gone missing is not, of course, a problem and the fact that she was working with a politician would not be an issue either."

"But to suggest an affair? Accusing Jeffrey Archer of infidelity cost the Daily Star £500,000," or the equivalent of $700,000, in 1987. "Since then, newspapers have been rather coy about such allegations," Lamont wrote.

Archer, a best-selling author and prominent British politician, won libel damages from the Daily Star about a year after the newspaper reported that Archer had paid a prostitute for sex.

Last month, however, Archer was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice for having produced false testimony at the 1987 libel trial.

Lamont noted that in the United States, "cherished constitutional safeguards protecting freedom of speech allow the media to publish stories they believe to be true (but cannot prove) so long as they do not do so maliciously and the stories relate to a public rather than a private figure."

"Another important difference between the U.S. system and ours," Lamont wrote, "is the openness of the U.S. police about their investigations. As a result, we know that Condit has been interviewed four times — there is no way our police would give the media such information."

The British approach to the news media, he said, "can be summed up" in a quotation from one of the works of Tom Stoppard, a Czech-born British playwright:

"'I'm with you on the free press. It's the newspapers I can't stand.'"

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