Words have value, as is shown in an unexpected way by a strange case concerning the king of Morocco and two French journalists.
The publishing industry, almost as often as newspapers, is said to be in crisis. Yet the industry still produces staggering sums in advances on books considered seriously marketable. Only a few authors qualify, but their good fortune serves as general encouragement.
Every reporter in the world probably perked up at news of Stephanie Clifford, a journalist at The New York Times, collecting a seven-figure sum (that’s seven figures in dollars, not dirhams) for her debut novel Everybody Rise.
Clifford’s newspaper had already covered the story of a waitress’s book attracting a “high-six-figure advance”. The former British prime minister and Middle East peace mediator Tony Blair was paid a £4.6 million (Dh25.84m) advance for his memoirs, though he pledged the fee and royalties to a sports centre for injured soldiers.
But what about the value of stopping words appearing at all?
France is agog at revelations about two hitherto respected journalists, Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet. They stand accused of trying to blackmail King Mohammed VI of Morocco by offering, in return for the royal sum of €3 million (Dh12.42m), to abandon a contentious book about the North African state, its rulers and its relations with France.
Both deny wrongdoing. But prosecutors have obtained damaging recordings of conversations between them and a lawyer representing the monarch. There is evidence they left the last such meeting with cash down-payments of €40,000 each, the price of silence having been negotiated down to €2m.
For their part, the journalists claim to be the victims of an elaborate sting designed to discredit and incriminate them and make it unlikely their publisher would touch the book with a bargepole. Laurent has further argued that it was his right to choose whether or not to publish his work, implying it was a commercial or even editorial decision, not remotely criminal in intent.
Even if we draw our own conclusions on ethical considerations, purely on undisputed facts, the legal issues will doubtless be judged in court.
Most journalists see out their careers without being offered money, or inviting its payment. In my own case, I have often been threatened, sometimes been subjected to minor assault and occasionally felt in graver danger, but have only once been offered cash. To my lasting regret, I accepted.
Fifty years ago, as a local newspaper cub reporter, I was sent to write about a reformed safecracker’s legitimate new venture, a coffee bar. As I rose to leave, the owner caught me off guard, pressing into my palm not a million or two British pounds but a 10 shilling note, only 50 pence in sterling but having an equivalent purchasing power of just over £8, or about Dh45, today.
“Make sure you write a nice piece,” he said. But this was already guaranteed; the project was an advertising feature and he was paying the newspaper to publish it. Journalists detested such work but it was a job requirement.
I was quickly overcome by guilt, though not quickly enough to avoid blowing my bribe on cigarettes, magazines and confectionery. Back at the office, I confessed to the chief reporter and was ordered to return the money immediately. He may have clipped my ear, too; he certainly had to lend me the 10 shillings to restore a shred of integrity.
Was it a lucky escape from ruin, or a minor, easily remedied folly of youth? Mark my words, it was a lesson I never forgot. Perhaps even Laurent and Graciet might have taken it as a cautionary tale.
Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National
