Was Telegraph's O'Reilly article a payback for Glover's column? Certainly not, says editor

There is a fascinating sub-text to the article published in yesterday's Daily Telegraph about Tony O'Reilly, The Celtic tiger reduced to pussycat. I raised my eyebrows at its appearance in a posting yesterday, O'Reilly suffers negative coverage, and a commenter, DoctorFegg, responded:

"Of course, only a true cynic would suggest that the Barclays ordered such a piece as a response to Stephen Glover's increasingly caustic commentary of their 'stewardship' of the Telegraph."

Well, evidence now reaches me that gives more than a little credence to that comment. This odd saga began on December 22 with Stephen Glover's column in The Independent, What's happening to The Daily Telegraph is a national tragedy. (This appears to have been taken down - hat tip, TerryCollmann - but the Google cached version is here)

Glover is a noted critic of the Telegraph, and we know that Telegraph bosses don't like it. There was an infamous occasion back in July 2006 when the Telegraph Media Group's chief executive Murdoch MacLennan made a concerted effort to persuade Independent bosses to censor Glover. That failed because the editor-in-chief, Simon Kelner, refused to curb his columnist.

Anyway, Glover's latest sally certainly upset MacLennan. He responded by calling Gavin O'Reilly, chief operating officer of Independent News & Media (INM), to protest. It was an acerbic call in which, rather bafflingly, MacLennan declared: "It is all over." O'Reilly was probably uncertain what "it" was.

A clue was offered in a separate move that day when the PR who acts for the Telegraph group, Nick Lloyd, emailed The Independent's editor, Roger Alton, to complain about Glover's "vicious, outrageous and over-the-top attack" on the Telegraph, its editor Will Lewis, MacLennan and the group's owners, the Barclay brothers.

But I understand that the message also contained a threat about the likelihood of there being "a close examination of the mess that the Indy and its owners are in" with a further remark about "more unpleasantness."

It has been further suggested that, on the same day, Lewis called INM's PR, Rory Godson, to air his feelings about the matter. However, both men - while admitting that they are friends and do talk regularly - strenuously deny claims that Lewis also made a threat.

So we come to yesterday's article by one of the Telegraph's chief writers, Andrew Pierce, which is regarded within INM as a hatchet job on O'Reilly senior and a thinly-veiled "payback" for the Glover article. Was it what MacLennan and Lloyd meant in their December 22 responses? Did MacLennan and/or the Barclays order its publication?

Lewis unequivocally rejects that charge. In a passionate defence of the piece, he told me:

"It was my idea and I commissioned it. There was a proper news peg because of Waterford-Wedgwood going into administration and I knew just how important and emotional such an event would be for O'Reilly.

"I even tipped those shares when I was business editor of the Sunday Times. I knew about O'Reilly's personal commitment to the company. It was a totally justifiable news feature."

I pointed out that during my own unhappy period as media columnist at the Daily Telegraph, I was told that no critical article could be written about a rival newspaper owner. The Barclays disapproved of such things.

"Well, time has moved on since then," said Lewis. "I am being as explicit as possible in telling you that the article was my idea, no-one else's."

So the mystery of the MacLennan call and Lloyd email remains. What did their vague threats mean? Were they just spontaneous hot air? Was Lewis's decision to commission and publish an unsympathetic full page about O'Reilly just a coincidence?

What this story about the reaction to Glover reveals, yet again, is that the Telegraph bosses are far too thin-skinned. When the original attempt to muzzle Glover emerged I urged MacLennan (and, by proxy, the Barclays) to accept the slings and arrows that go with the territory. As newspaper bosses they should bolster press freedom, not restrict it. When will they ever learn?