It isn’t.

Sunday, 21st October 2007

A number of people have expressed amazement and scorn after the revelation on the Spectator’s Coffee House blog by Neil O’Brien, the director of Open Europe, that the Independent splashed on its front page yesterday ‘Debunking the Eurosceptic myths about the European reform treaty’ without revealing that the thing was lifted virtually word for word from a Foreign Office briefing note.

The Independent has reacted bullishly, but what remains of its reputation has now been holed below the waterline by this revelation that it is so lazy and craven that it merely passes off government propaganda as its own work. The Guardian reports its editor, Simon Kellner, saying:

‘The source doesn’t really make a material difference. What matters is whether those facts are accurate or not. And no one, as far as I can see, is doubting the truth of what we printed.’

Well, these ‘facts’ are nothing of the kind; they are actually assertions which are variously tendentious, disingenuous, misleading and false. The Indie never can grasp the difference. But the real point is that this government briefing note hasn’t been used as just a ‘source’, implying that the newspaper used it as a basis for its own evaluation and work, but has merely been reproduced — a practice associated with the unfree press in totalitarian societies.

Once again, the blogosphere has shown its power to hold the mainstream media sharply to account and inflict real damage to its reputation.