British press is 'frankly putrid' says Alastair Campbell

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL has told the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics that the British press has become "frankly putrid in many of its elements". He believes the whole newspaper industry has moved downmarket, aping celebrity magazines in an attempt to increase circulation.

Campbell, a former Daily Mirror journalist who became Tony Blair's spin doctor, believes investigative journalism is "dying". He said budget cuts mean journalists are now largely desk-bound and rely on private investigators to get stories.

"[Private investigators] can get information more quickly, and can do things that journalists do not do, would not do or would not know how to do," he said.

Often, Campbell says, private investigators present a completed story to a newspaper. "In most of the newsrooms, there are fewer [journalists] with more pages and online space to fill, and less time to do it," he said. "These are important factors, but they should not be excuses to let standards and ethics slip."

Campbell told Leveson that editors may not even know if stories in their newspapers break the law. "Do they know? Do they ask where they came from? When [Daily Mail editor] Paul Dacre told the House of Lords committee that he had never published a story based on illegally-obtained information, does he really know that?"

Leveson asked Campbell how he thought his written evidence might have been leaked to the political blogger Guido Fawkes, who published a link to it at the weekend.

Campbell said he had shown drafts to lawyers, politicians and three friends in the media and was confident none of them would have leaked it.

Paul Staines, who writes the Guido Fawkes blog, and is due to give evidence tomorrow, tweeted: "On weekend Alastair Campbell said he was 'shocked' that someone had leaked it... after he gave it to three journalists. Shocking, shocking."

Sources: The Daily Telegraph, BBC news. ·