Government minister accused of bullying and intimidating journalist after FOI revelations
An editor has called on Rishi Sunak to take action after a minister launched a scathing attack on a regional journalist.
Levelling Up minister Jacob Young branded a Yorkshire Post journalist a ‘crank journalist’ on Facebook last week after objecting to questions over whether he should have attended a meeting with British Steel over its plans for Teesside.
Previously, Mr Young had recused himself from any meetings about British Steel after the company announced plans to create jobs in his Redcar constituency, to avoid a conflict of interest between his role as a constituency MP and his Levelling Up ministerial brief.
Reporter Leigh Jones uncovered details of the meeting in a trove of FOI documents released to Private Eye, and wrote this story about it.
Mr Young was quoted explaining how he came to be at the meeting — but the article still provoked a remarkable response from the MP.
On Facebook, he accused Leigh of being a ‘crank journalist’ and suggested he was a conspiracy theorist.
The slurs continued in comments prompted by his post. A man named Stan Glover asks the Minister: ‘He’s an investigative journalist. Why label him a crank?’ The Yorkshire Post has thrown a clear light on Teesworks.’
The Minister replied, saying: ‘He’s not a journalist, he is a conspiracy theorist.’
Fellow Tory MP Mark Jenkinson then piled in, accusing Leigh of being ‘delusional’. He went on to suggest journalism done by the Yorkshire Post team is ‘the worst form of clickbait’.
This all came just days before PM Rishi Sunak made a surprise appearance at the Society of Editors conference and defended the need for journalism critical of politicians as part of a functioning democracy.
Writing in his weekly newsletter to subscribers, YP editor James Mitchinson said: “What he [Jacob Young] did was and remains utterly deplorable. Unacceptable of anyone, let alone a Government Minister. Unbelievably, he took it upon himself to attack my reporter — your reporter, in truth — personally, repeatedly and to incite others to do the same.
“He bullied him. There’s no better word. He insulted him. He sought to damage his reputation and his character, both of which could harm his future employment prospects and cause those who know him to think worse of him.
“The M.O in a nutshell: attack, intimidate, insult and demean the individual whilst denigrating and undermining the journalism in the hope of discrediting it, suppressing it.
“Powerful, influential men whose salary comes from the public purse behaving like pack-hound bullies, braying at a truth-teller for telling the truth.
“I feel I must make representations to both Rishi Sunak and to the office of the Speaker of the House.“
Leigh said: “I was incredibly surprised to see a government minister take to different social media platforms last week to launch a personal attack against me for an article to which he had voluntarily contributed.
“His attacks on me were sustained and continued the next day, with another MP joining in to call me “delusional” — this appears to be a deliberate and intentional ploy to bully me for simply doing my job.
