Life too frenetic to notice reporters hacking phones – Andy Coulson’s defence
So his defence is that he was a really, really bad newspaper editor?
I’ve only edited a small regional weekly with a readership in the thousands but during that time I had to know everything my reporters were doing because IT WAS MY JOB. Not all of my job, to be sure, but a significant part of it. If a reporter had filed a story and I didn’t know the source, I would have checked because, for example, somebody might mount a legal challenge such as, I don’t know, the one Coulson is facing now.
Ignorance is no excuse. If that really is his defence, I’ll be amazed if anyone gives it any credence at all.
Because of what he did (if he is indeed guilty) the press will end up being censored by politicans.
Isn’t that a very similar defence to that which was offered a the Nuremberg trials? If so it didn’t work very well as many of them were either Hung or received very long prison sentences. Perhaps Coulsons legal time are either hanging him out to dry as the fall guy ( Fascist government deal to cover up Cameron’s activities ) or they are impossibly unbelievably naive. Personally I think its a deal because I simply don’t think the government can afford the fall out so close to an election.