After Galloway…

I’ve been waiting for the Telegraph’s response to its humiliating defeat in the libel case brought by George Galloway. In their leader today they reassert the claims made immediately outside the court that this is a black day for journalism and freedom of the press.

No, it isn’t. Whatever you may think of Galloway, and I found his sycophancy to the deposed Iraqi leader sickening, there was no evidence that he was in Saddam’s pay apart from the documents found following the fall of Baghdad. On their own, they may have seemed damning. They certainly seemed to make the basis of a good story, but, on their own they were worthless.

The journalist, David Blair may well have been acting with the best of intentions – as, indeed, may the Telegraph – but freedom of the press comes with a responsibility. That responsibility is to ensure that the facts of the story are true before going to press. The Telegraph failed to do that. That is why they lost in the courts and quite rightly too.