Scoops from trash

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, APRIL 1. He is every journalist's dream and some of the ``scoops'' in the London press should be carrying his byline but he is happy simply supplying the information - and most often without even claiming a service charge. But what happens when the word gets out that a story, shortlisted for the ``scoop of the year'' award, actually came from him and not the newspaper's ``investigative team''?

Meet Mr. Benjamin Pell, London's most famous rubbish collector and popularly known as ``Benji the Binman''. He specialises in picking up rubbish from high-profile addresses in the city and when he stumbles upon something newsworthy, passes it on to newspapers though how exactly he decides which bit of rubbish should go to which newspaper is not clear. One leading newspaper reportedly has a financial arrangement with him and is said to have paid over £ 3,000 to Mr. Pell for three stories he supplied to them in 1999.

Recently, Mr. Pell found himself at the centre of headlines as it emerged that a Sunday Times story, shortlisted for the ``scoop of the year'' prize for the British Press Awards, was supplied by him rather than the newspaper's Insight investigative team. The whistle was inadvertently blown by none other than a Times journalist who told a German TV channel that the story was based on documents provided by Mr. Pell.

The story published on June 11 last year quoted a memo from the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair's pollster, Mr. Philip Gould, warning Mr. Blair that he was seen as being ``out of touch'' with the people. The memo was written on the eve of Mr. Blair's speech to a women's gathering and - as predicted by Mr.

Gould - it turned out to be a disaster with the audience greeting him with a humiliating slow handclap. This was first of a series of ``confidential'' memos frontpaged by The Sunday Times that caused a huge political embarrassment to the Blair Government and earned the newspaper the envy of its rivals.

Whether Mr. Pell picked up the memos from Mr. Gould's bin after they were rubbished or someone gave them to him is not clear but according to The Times' whistle-blower, they came from him. Mr. Pell appeared to confirm that he was the source when he told The Guardian that in the event of The Sunday Times winning the prize he should be the one receiving it - just as well, that it didn't.

Mr. Pell (36), claims to have contributed to the professional rise of a number of prominent journalists by feeding them his rubbish. ``We all know I'm the best thing that's happened to Fleet Street for the last 150 years...''.

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