The umpteenth round in the Finance Week versus Times Media wrangle has once again come to naught, writes Jacquie Golding- Duffy
FINANCE WEEK made a cheeky attempt to nail Jim Jones, editor of its rival, Business Day, by placing an advertisement in the daily publication which attacked Jones and other Times Media Limited editors but it was quashed at the last minute when Jones decided the advertisement was defamatory.
The controversial advert was also turned down by Business Report editor James Lamont who said he was not prepared to “run something that we will be liable for”.
Lamont says Business Report, part of the Independent Newspaper group, is an “observer” in what has become a personal vendetta between FW’s editor Nigel Bruce and Jones.
Bruce this week said he did not understand Jones’s reluctance to run the advertisement as it “certainly was not defamatory”, but was “telling our version of events.
“It is our side of the story that we wanted readers to understand.”
The advert, which has caused the ruckus, centres mostly on new Financial Mail editor Peter Bruce who allegedly leaked files which he had found stashed in his office, to a Business Day writer. This is how FW has pieced the puzzle together which led to several stories accusing its owner, David Gleason, of allegedly acting improperly by trying to influence Rand Merchant Bank.
The story has been bandied about, written about and talked about and now legal action is being considered by all and sundry. Peter Bruce refused, on legal advice, to comment.
Independent Newspapers’ columnist and editorial director Ivan Fallon wrote about the saga last week. Nigel Bruce responded: “As columnists go, he [Fallon] is not widely read … I did not get the point of what he was trying to say.”
Fallon retaliated: “I found it strange that in the week of the Budget he [Bruce] devoted more words to a miserable domestic dispute in his financial publication than to the Budget itself.”
Last week Nigel Bruce wrote a lengthy editorial on “editors and ethics” arguing that the more complacent [Peter] Bruce remains, the more his complicity is likely to be assumed.
On Jones, Nigel Bruce said there was an “absence of scruples” when Jones agreed to publish the confidential information.
Business Day deputy editor Alan Fine said Bruce had ample opportunity to state his side of things when the newspaper ran its original story. Nigel Bruce this week said no attempt will be made to run the advert again as it “would be pointless”.