The SAS officer, MPs and the Press
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • May 18th, 2009 • Category: JournalismAm I alone in smelling a red herring being dragged through London newsrooms? The revelation that an ex-SAS officer, John Wick, was the man who hawked the MP’s expenses data just seems too contrived.
The story first appeared on Friday in the Wall Street Journal. It is all too easy to start developing conspiracy theories, but it does look as if someone wanted this information to come out.
The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday followed-up with stories yesterday. Both referred to discs but today in the Guardian it has become one disc (a portable hard drive), a significant difference.
According the The Guardian there was one terabyte (1,024 gigabytes) of information. A CD-rom has a maximum capacity of 900MB (Wikipedia) while while DVDs have capacities of up to 18.08 gigabytes (most half that or less).
Of the four stories mentioned, the Mail on Sunday is alone in pointing a tentative finger at the original source of the Telegraph’s scoop. It says: “The House of Commons has recently employed former soldiers as ‘data controllers’ to prevent MPs’ personal information being leaked. It would be ironic if the decision to beef up security in this way led to information being passed to Mr Wick.”
What all this means, I have no idea but the pattern so far suggests someone is seeking to get information out. Whether it is accurate or a red herring is another matter.
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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