news on the brink

A friend of mine rang up about half an hour ago, from one of the papers. They had had a tip — well, a suggestive silence — from a member of the Crown Appointments Commission, the committee that shortlists the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

This source had said for a fact that two names had gone up to Tony Blair after the meeting yesterday (Blair will actually choose the next Archbishop); and had suggested that they were the two favourites, Rowan Williams, and Michael Nazir-Ali. At least, the suggestive silence had come when Rowan’s name was mentioned.

So my friend wanted to know, would I run the story if I were in their position? And I thought for a bit, and decided that yes I bloody well would have done.

It’s a nice piece of journalistic ethics. The only time I ever had a tip like that, it came from my mischievous, beloved friend Bob Runcie, when I rang him once, and he said with real surprise “Oh, I thought you were going to ask me about something else”. That was all he said, but I worked out what he must have been expecting me to ring about: his old chaplain Richard Chartres had just got the job of Bishop of London.

When I told my newsdesk I had had this hint, they wouldn’t let me write it as speculation. Either I wrote a flat bald assertion that this would happen, or nothing got into the paper. I jumped. It turned out that the editor shared a cleaning lady or something equally improbable, with the Bishop, so we were able to check the story another way. It was true. It was a nice scoop. I’d have looked a fool if it wasn’t.

Of course, writing a story that says that Rowan Williams will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury is a rather smaller risk. I told my friend to do it. We’ll see in tomorrow’s papers if they did.