UNITED KINGDOM: "MAIL ON SUNDAY" PAPER UNABLE TO PRINT STORY ABOUT GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER IN GERMAN EDITION BECAUSE OF PRIVACY LAWS

Record ID: 337929

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: "MAIL ON SUNDAY" PAPER UNABLE TO PRINT STORY ABOUT GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER IN GERMAN EDITION BECAUSE OF PRIVACY LAWS
  • Date: 25th January 2003
  • Summary: (W1) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (JANUARY 25, 2003)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS, OF THE MAIL ON SUNDAY NEWSPAPER BEING PRINTED (5 SHOTS) 0.31 2. SMV OF PETER WRIGHT (BLUE SHIRT) EDITOR OF MAIL ON SUNDAY 0.36 3. SCU SOUNDBITE (English) PETER WRIGHT, EDITOR MAIL ON SUNDAY, TALKING ABOUT PHONE LINE THAT THE MAIL ON SUNDAY SET UP IN GERMANY
  • Embargoed: 9th February 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVAEQKNG7T61OEYSY2HDZYYC3DWP
  • Story Text: The editor of the Mail on Sunday has said that he has
    had an interesting response from the paper's 'Schroeder
    hotline', set up in the wake of a recent successful injunction
    to stop the British paper's publishers from distributing
    allegations about the leader's private life on German soil.



    Peter Wright, the editor of the Mail on Sunday, told
    Reuters the response to its request that the German public
    offer the paper information regarding Gerhard Schroeder has
    been 'interesting'.

    "We've had hundreds of phone calls and e-mails,
    particularly after the number of our Schroeder hotline was
    broadcast on German radio and television and we have had a
    number of very interesting leads to follow up. We have now
    based reporters in Germany permanently to look at this. These
    things are going to require quite a lot of work because we do
    not want to publish anything that we are not completely sure
    about but it was very interesting to hear the reaction from
    Germany," said Wright.

    He said the dispute with Schroeder was part of a wider
    issue of press freedom and inconsistent privacy laws that
    disadvantaged the public in Germany.

    "Well we are trying to demonstrate to both people in
    Germany and the rest of the world, how much is not reported
    because of the existence of privacy laws. And we are trying
    to show how things that might be perfectly acceptable to
    people in many countries, in one country where there is a
    powerful politician he can prevent the media in that country
    from reporting what he is doing," Wright said.

    He praised his colleagues in the German media who he said
    had been brave in attempting to print allegations about
    Schroeder's love and he hoped that in continuing to keep the
    issue under the spotlight he might keep the type of privacy
    laws operating in Germany from being implemented Europe.

    "I salute the courage of the media in Germany who have
    tried to report this story and I send a message to the whole
    of Europe that I think this sort of legislation is a very bad
    idea and I think for those of us that are lucky enough to live
    in jurisdictions where at the moment we have a fuller freedom
    to report what our politicians get up to, we have a duty to
    try to do what we can to also report what is going on in our
    countries of our friends and neighbours," said Wright.

    Although the paper had said it would 'name names' in its
    recent issue, it instead published two blank pages with a
    message for the German people outlining what it why it was
    doing so.

    When lawyers for Schroeder obtained the injunction from a
    court in Hamburg against the Mail on Sunday, the paper was
    warned it would face a 250,000 euro fine if six contested
    allegations were repeated.

    The Britain's Mail on Sunday was the first to air the
    allegations about the Chancellor's private life, and had
    advised last Monday (January 21) he would refuse to be bound
    by the court injunction against it.

    Although the lawyers could in theory ask a British court
    to uphold the injunction, the publication on allegations in
    Britain had not yet been affected. In this weeks edition a
    story about Schroeder went out in Britain on the same pages
    that had been blanked out in Germany.




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