By Nicholas JonesWhen the News of the World phone hacking trial opens at the Old Bailey in early September, it will highlight one of the great taboos of British journalism. How much freedom – if any – should reporters have to pay for the information which they think they might need for their stories? And perhaps more importantly, should they be able to finance others to potentially break the law on their behalf?Within the news media there is possibly no starker ethical split than the divide between those journalists who are – or certainly have been – happy to hand over cash for information, even perhaps purchasing data gained by illicit means, and on the other hand, those reporters who under no circumstances would agree to fund such transactions.Most journalists rarely speak openly about their sources of information; their relationship with their informants is usually a closed book even to colleagues and friends.But as the evidence presented to the Leveson Inquiry demonstrated so clearly Rupert Murdoch’s journalists did have access to what Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers described as a cash payment process which allowed for the delivery of “regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money” to their sources of information. She told the Leveson Inquiry such payments were authorised at “a very senior level” in News International.Sue Akers’ public confirmation of what appeared to have become custom and practice at the Sun and the News of the World touched on one of the great unmentionables of Fleet Street journalism.Such is the strength of competition in the popular press that it was often the case that the newspapers which paid the highest prices were able to secure the most sensational exclusives.Tabloid editors have fiercely defended such payments in the past on the grounds that their newspapers have always tried to serve the public interest and that on occasion this may have required providing a tip-off fee for a public official or possibly hiring the services of a private investigator.Perhaps it was no wonder that over the years the hidden culture of paying for unauthorised disclosures did eventually morph into financing the cost of intercepting voicemails.Precisely this defence of serving the public interest was used by the Daily Telegraph in 2009 to justify its payment of £110,000 for an unauthorised House of Commons computer disk which contained four million separate items including receipts, claim forms, letters etc going back over a four-year period, the confidential data which allowed the newspaper to expose the scandal over MPs’ expenses.Such was the public outcry against MPs’ behaviour that the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service accepted there was no chance of a successful prosecution – and few if any journalists have ever been prepared to publicly criticise the Daily Telegraph for having potentially broken the law by purchasing an illicit disk containing the kind of confidential data which resulted in four MPs going to prison on fraud charges.While allowing reporters the freedom to use whatever means they think necessary in order to obtain private or secret information might be a notion that is acceptable among tabloid editors, who then justify publication on the grounds of public interest, the same argument does not hold true for all national newspapers and most certainly does not relate to daily life in the provincial press or among those who work in radio and television.Rupert Murdoch could hardly have been more forthright in his defence of the principle of cash payments when he was secretly taped in March 2013 at a question and answer session with Sun journalists. He claimed that the culture of paying public officials for stories “existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street.”One Sun journalist argued that because this was a working practice which he had inherited rather than instigated, and which predated the start of his employment at the paper, he considered the staff had every reason to feel they were being made scapegoats.Murdoch admitted that he only became aware of the 1906 Prevention of Corruption Act (superseded by the 2010 Bribery Act) a few weeks prior to his meeting with the staff and realised lawyers would say it was News International’s fault.“But this situation existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street; long since forgotten. But absolutely it was the culture of Fleet Street...We’re talking about payments for news tips from cops. That’s been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn’t instigate it.” (Channel 4 News, 3.7.2013; transcript at investigative website www.exaronews.com).Murdoch’s claim that this practice existed at “every newspaper in Fleet Street paper” brought a swift riposte from the former Guardian editor, Peter Preston. “Was he right to say that editors pay informants on all papers? That was never true on the Guardian and surely is not on many more.” (Observer, 14.7.2013)Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow was equally categorical when interviewing Neil Wallis, a former executive editor at the News of the World, who was arrested by the Metropolitan Police during the phone hacking investigation but who was not charged by the Crown Prosecution Service.Snow insisted there were no circumstances under which he would ever pay for information. “I have never paid for stories, I never would.” But Wallis asked how Snow would respond if an informant asked for £500 to reveal something about a cabinet minister. “I would say (to this person) you are a squalid individual, get stuffed. I would find another way of doing it.” (Channel 4 News 4.7.2013)The certainty of the responses of Preston and Snow mirrors my own experience. There are thousands of journalists who have never paid for stories in the way Rupert Murdoch suggested, including four generations of my own family who I would maintain got their stories through hard work and endeavour.But journalists should always be on their guard against sounding holier than thou and I am sure, like countless other reporters, I do not have an entirely clean charge sheet when it comes to my attempts to garner information from the Police.As a newly indentured reporter on The News, Portsmouth, I did buy a round of drinks at Cowes Police Ball (circa 1961) and in 1997, when a BBC political correspondent, I did end up footing the bill for a boozy lunch for a clutch of Scotland Yard detectives investigating the grisly tale of how the butler murdered a former government minister and his wife.My attempt to emulate the bravado of renowned crime reporters in Fleet Street was a pathetic failure and I got nowhere in my attempt to discover the inside track on the butler’s killing spree.Countless journalists on provincial newspapers up and down the country would have similar tales to tell of handing over a couple of bottles of whisky at the local Police station each Christmas or of giving a box of chocolates to the telephone operators at the ambulance or fire headquarters.But our paltry expense claims never ran to a wad of cash to pay an informant, nor would our editors ever have approved such claims.If in September Rupert Murdoch is called to give further to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, I do hope he is asked by MPs whether he thinks News International’s culture of paying cash for information for stories has been progressively poisoning the well of British journalism.Nicholas Jones has spent forty years chronicling the news media’s relationship with politicians, trade union leaders and other prominent people. After serving a long apprenticeship on local and national newspapers (The News, Portsmouth, Oxford Mail and The Times), Jones spent thirty years as a BBC industrial and political correspondent (1972-2002). He has authored a range of books including Soundbites and Spin Doctors (1995), Sultans of Spin (1999) and Trading Information: Leaks, Lies and Tip-offs(2006) and is an active campaigner in groups which promote high journalistic standards and the widest possible spread of media ownership. This article was first published on http://www.nicholasjones.org.uk/ and is reproduced with the author's permission.NotesOn September 9 the trial is due to start at the Old Bailey of five members of the editorial staff of the former News of the World, including former editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, who have all pleaded not guilty to charges of “conspiring to intercept communications in the course of their transmission without lawful authority.”Illustrations: News of the World 10.7.2011; Sun, 8.7.2011; The Times, 16.7.2011.