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| is to give a voice to the voiceless, | to campaign vigorously. for the causes and beliefs that lie at its heart, and, - fundamentally, to entertain, engage, inform its readers, and, of course, above all, i try and sell as many - newspapers as we can or attract as many eyeballs as we can online - whilst sticking to ourjournalistic integrity, our beliefs, and the passion would try and bring to every story, i whether it s light or shade. i mean, the great newspapers, the great interviewers humphreys, paxman, dimbleby they sniff out lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, corruption. does that sum up, do you think, part of the role of the mail in society? absolutely. well, following on from| the matt hancock story, we had a bold front page with, how can he cling on? - which i think is people s instinctive reaction, - other than, bizarrely, - the prime minister and the former health secretary. so i think it s headlines like that, projected with vigour, ....
And the images appear to have been taken from cctv footage filmed in mr hancock s government office. victoria newton, simple question how did the sun get the story? we were contacted by a whistle blower who said he had information about mr hancock having an illicit affair with an aide. and the whistle blower was outraged at his behaviour there s parts of that i can t tell you why but the hypocrisy he felt he was seeing, was that this is a man who d been on national tv, stared down the barrel of the tv lens and said, you must stay at home, protect lives, protect the nhs and we d had 18 months of social distancing rules that he himself was not following. so that was how the whistle blower got in touch with us. did you have any qualms about the story, and, in particular, using the video? yes, of course. i mean, we believe in responsible journalism, and my first thought ....
Where there is no shame any more? she chuckles i don t know. i think some of the other stores you re referring to, things like the scandal around whether priti patel bullied her staff, you have thejenrick scandal. thejenrick one was really complicated, i think, for the public to understand. a lot of detail. and in terms of the priti patel one, it wasn t something that affected the whole country. it was a row about how she was treating civil servants, so it didn t affect everybody up and down the country in the way this story did. i think that s why it got the cut through, because lockdown has affected every single one of us in the way nobody has ever lived through anything like this. i think that s the difference. 0k. i m interested now in how scoops might help the bottom line. victoria, in the olden days, a scoop like yours would ve had people rushing to the newsstands to get their copy of the newspaper, to see those pictures. it did. i suspect there was a lot of traffic to the websit ....
Well, in a way, that comes back to the point i was talking - about earlier, which is that, - in regards to the hancock story, was that clearly the view had been taken in downing street, - which was symptomatic of a widerl feeling, i think, in downing street, that they re going to try and out ride the media. j they re going to carry on doing what they want, not to be held to account by the press or by broadcast media. | and i think they were proved humiliatingly wrong - in this instance. the leaders across fleet streetl were universally condemnatory. 0urfront page, i repeat, how can he cling on? i lo and behold, within 24 hours, he hadn t. i it had been the hope, i think, - in downing street, no great secret, that it would be a three day wonder and we could all move on, - but they were very, very wrong. and they paid a heavy| political price for that. victoria, do you think it s trickier for scoops to really land these days, because of what some people suggest is an age ....
But you did set a hare running there, and emily decides what she ll do and tobyn and his folks decide what they re going to do, but you set the hare running. do you feel comfortable about that when it comes to the kids and martha? well, there s always the decision you have to make when you weigh up do the public have a right to know how their health secretary has been behaving versus the right to privacy of his family. i felt strongly and i think everybody s agreed with me the lord chiefjustice, the justice secretary, the lord chancellor have all agreeed that the story was in the public interest. so, that s what you weigh up on a daily basis on stories. yeah, of course. let s broaden the discussion a little bit. tobyn, the mail turns a century and a quarter old this year. sum up its role in public life, if you could particularly in the digital age. well, i think fundamentally its role ....