What qualifies Roy Greenslade to lecture students on media ethics? It certainly doesn’t appear to be his own attitude towards telling the truth. When he taught me at City, Greenslade liked to hold forth on the vices of the tabloid press. He was quieter on his own red top past, neglecting to often mention his rise to the top of the ranks at the Sun and the Daily Mirror. Nor, too, did he talk much about allegedly having a hand in faking a spot the ball competition.
It is now clear there was something else Greenslade was eager not to talk about during his long career in journalism: his secret support of the IRA.
For years, Greenslade kept quiet. To be fair to him, he is no longer reticent about his reasons for doing so: he had a mortgage to pay. ‘Better, then,’ he says, ‘to button my lip and carry on’.
But this admission – which comes after years of mutterings about Greenslade’s political leanings – is too little, too late.
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