I was guilty of accidental phone hacking courtesy of a crossed line (From Watford Observer)

I was guilty of accidental phone hacking courtesy of a crossed line

1:30pm Thursday 29th December 2011

• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

By Oliver Phillips »

I MUST confess to phone-hacking, accidentally. I picked up the phone one morning back in 1965 and dialled 21759 which was the number for Watford FC. The phone clicked and I heard the familiar tones of someone speaking. I was just about to reply when I began to suspect I had a crossed line. Then I realised it was the club chairman Jim Bonser and he was talking to manager Ken Furphy.

I asked them if I had a crossed line, but they did not hear me. Within 45 seconds of making the connection, their conversation ended but there was quite an animated discussion as to the morality of it all at coffee break that morning. As it was, the unintended eaves-dropping provided nothing in the nature of news, only a brief feel as to the relationship between the two.

I was that naive that I still held onto the phone after their conversation ended, and when Ken picked it up and spoke, I said I had just heard him saying goodbye to Bonser courtesy of a crossed line.

He was amused, nothing more.

I know many former colleagues who earn an honest living writing for national newspapers over the years. I am also aware that many great pieces of investigative journalism have shaken the corridors of power.

The Watergate investigation was one such example, but even then, as the plot unfolded, one of the duo involved managed to get hold of the wrong end of the stick resulting in The Washington Post pointing the finger at the wrong man.

It jeopardised the entire investigation until the informant, “Deep Throat”, after giving the reporter a suitable telling off, put him on the right track. When the story finally unfolded and President Nixon resigned, I don’t recall too many people pointing the finger at the two heroic journalists and citing the example where they mistakenly embroiled the wrong man in the affair.

A classic case of ends justifying the means but it is drawing the line that is difficult. We need an unfettered Press but a responsible one and it seems the reconciling of those two aims is likely to be elusive where cash and circulation figures are the yardstick..

It is a far more cut-throat world out there now but it also more open. There are even fewer secrets and those in the public eye have to watch their step with even more care than was the case 30 or 40 years ago.

Personally I have always believed that a stint on a provincial newspaper is an advantage. Many have profited from such an experience, the discipline and responsibility for reflecting a community in which they operated and then moved on and reached the top of their profession. Long after I entered the profession, I noted that those with university degrees would join local newspapers and serve a shorter apprenticeship, the reasoning for such I could never fathom. Then national newspapers started to take on university graduates, with little in the way of basic journalistic training. But then again, I could be accused of sour grapes or old fashioned views but just as I do not see how attending university means you can serve a shorter apprenticeship in order to become an electrician/plumber/toolmaker, the same goes for hournalism.

Perhaps the training and the mores were different back when I started out. One of my first duties was to write obituaries and that involved calling at undertakers, finding out who had died, visiting their homes (often finding that my call was welcome) and attempting to obtain an obituary on the deceased’s life.

Politeness, deference, sympathy and understanding were needed, especially in the case where the deceased had been born, married, had children, worked and died without causing a local ripple. That could be called embryonic investigative journalism for you had to come with 200 words on this less than fascinating life. But, it also taught you, there is always a story in everyone no matter how uninspiring the initial facts might seem.

As for quoting people, I remember there was this post box in Watford Heath, with the aperture facing away from the pavement. You had to step off the pavement and onto a worn grassy bank in order to post your letter. I was writing a diary page at the time and I discovered the Post Office had planned this inconvenience because the prevailing weather might send rain into the box if it were facing the pavement.

I wrote about bizarre fixtures and fittings in the locality and so I put a piece together on this letter box. The Editor, the late Brian Urage, enjoyed it but asked¨”What is the name of the young man who you quote as saying: ‘Posting a letter! It plays hell on your suede’s during the winter’?”

I smiled happily : “No one. I made it up,” I conceded, proud of the manufactured but non-attributed quote, which I felt leant the right tone to the bizarre subject.

The Editor promptly read the Riot Act. His message was simple: “You never make up quotes, even in fun. You state who you are and whom you represent before eliciting any quotes.”

Adopting a doctor’s disguise or phone hacking: it never crossed the mind. But then as I said at the outset, my career was relatively cosseted in the backwater of Watford.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here