New Statesman censored

Index on Censorship reports that the New Statesman has censored the blog of Martin Bright, after a threat of legal action from Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.

Wikileaks are unhappy about this and have posted the before and after versions of Bright's blog.

In the censored version, Bright removed the titles of various Guardian and Observer articles:

Here is the full list of the six:

1. "Labour blocks extradition of Iraqi tycoon" Observer, 2 February 2003
2. "Billionaire linked to Labour arrested in London" Guardian, 2 April 2003
3. "So, Norman, any regrets this time?" Observer, 6 April 2003
4. "Tycoon in quiz over ties to Labour" Observer, 6 April 2003
5. "Politics of sleaze" Observer, 16 November 2003
6. "MP questions Iraq role of Briton tainted over Elf"(this has also been titled "British fraudster to profit from Iraq contract")Observer, 16 November 2003

Government bottles it over Pasquill

Today's great news is that the government has dropped the prosecution of Derek Pasquill, who leaked a number of great stories to Martin Bright at the Observer and the New Statesman.

Bright has been running campaigns all over the place to get the case dropped and seems to have succeeded, although it is interesting to note the prosecution's stated reason, that documents that would have had to be disclosed undermined its case that Pasquill's disclosures would have been damaging.

Anyway, congratulations to Bright and Pasquill. Now something must be done about the Official Secrets Act.

Blowing the whistle

There has been limited press coverage over the decision to charge Derek Pasquill, said to be the source of various stories by Martin Bright, first in the Observer and then in the New Statesman, under the Official Secrets Act.

Interestingly, both the Times and the Guardian (online) reported it as a news story (today and yesterday respectively), although Pasquill was charged on 27 September and this was cited in an Observer piece on Sunday by Henry Porter.

The New Statesman's editor John Kampfner made a strong statement on the NS website, calling the episode "an abuse of state power".

Is the less spin spin true?

An interesting comment from Martin Bright (my collaborator on Iraq dossier stories) in the New Statesman:

With briefings now at a minimum, political journalists have to spend their time speculating about what they genuinely don't know, rather than pretending to speculate about what they have already been told in advance.

Bright thinks this is a good thing and I agree. Are we any worse off for finding stuff out a bit later? Obviously the only things that journalists find out when they are fed stories are the things that the feeders want us to know, and on the feeders' own terms.

Bright's Blog goes cryptic

Martin Bright, who broke my story on the Iraq dossier, has started to blog more frequently and to good effect.

In one piece An outrageous judgement he fiercely criticises the ongoing reporting restrictions on the recent trial of two men over a leaked memo. He notes that

in a bizarre twist, the judge has stated that the contents of the leak -- which is thought to involve a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush -- can be reported as long as they are not linked to the case and appear on a separate page of the newspaper involved.

On a different post, on a separate page, A missile for Al-Jazeera he reports an issue that he does not link to the leaked memo story at all. Apparently George Bush had a plan to bomb the Arabic television station al-Jazeera. Bright links to Richard Norton-Taylor's Guardian piece on the missile for al-jazeera story.