06 Oct 11 | Leveson Inquiry
I’ve just got back from the first session of the Leveson Inquiry seminars, designed to allow interested parties to debate the issues that will be at stake in the Inquiry itself and to give the Inquiry’s panellists an education (Index chief exec John Kampfner will be giving his submission next week).
There was a massive array of speakers, including pretty much every national newspaper editor in the country, and masses of contributions (after brief presentations, the rest of the day was Town-Hall style, with the Inquiry panellists Sir David Bell, Elinor Goodman and George Jones calling on contributions). A few key themes emerged:
– Commercial pressures cannot be blamed for unethical practice. Journalists are competitive, newsrooms are competitive, editors are demanding – but these are newsroom cultures which are separate from commerce. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger pointed out that the newspaper market is not a true market anyway – in that many titles (his own included) are essentially subsidised by proprietors or trusts.
– There seems to be an odd belief at large that bloggers are not subject to the same legal impediments as newspapers. There was a lot of discussion of how if newspapers didn’t get stories, the stories would circulate online anyway. While say, the breaking of the Ryan Giggs injunction may seem a case in point, the fact is that in terms of what they publish, newspapers face the exact same laws as bloggers, Facebook users, tweeters etc. If something is libellous, it is libellous. If something is in contempt of court, it is in contempt of court.
– Everyone’s still struggling with how to get the web to pay. Media analyst Claire Enders told the room that £1 billion has been knocked off regional newspaper classified revenue since 2008. Alun Edwards, editor of the Western Mail, suggested that targeted online behavioural advertising might help replace this.
– Encouragingly, the morning session didn’t turn into qualities vs tabloids. Though former Daily Star hack Richard Peppiat painted a grim picture of the tabloid newsroom, most were keen to stress that as the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Wright pointed, “It is not intrinsically better to write about the crisis in the Eurozone than it is to write about last night’s big football match.” Steven Barnett of Westminster University expanded on this, saying we should “not confuse news values and news gathering techniques”.
The seminars continue this afternoon and on 12 October
03 Oct 11 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
This post was originally published in the MediaGuardian section of The Guardian on Monday 3 October.
The putdown was exquisite and, one assumes, designed to make a point. When the Metropolitan police’s barrister told Lord Justice Leveson he was representing acting commissioner “Mr Tim Goodwin”, the judge looked up and said, after a studied pause, “I think you’ll find the name of your client is Godwin.” The laconic wit contained a message: you might not be on top of your brief, but I am.
The early signs from the Leveson Inquiry are good. The first year of his deliberations will stretch far and wide, covering everything from the ethics to the economics of the media. Each hearing will be conducted in the open. Whatever his eventual judgments, he wants even his potential detractors to acknowledge that this was a job thoroughly done.
A number of the key issues are clear. These include: how can you separate “proper” investigative journalism from “prurience”? When are underhand methods – secret filming, recording, impersonation, and, yes, phone hacking – justified? What are the lines of accountability when such operations are carried out?
Much of the argument will involve the twin unresolved questions of privacy and public interest. In spite of the best efforts of judges to interpret article 8 of the Human Rights Act, defining the public interest defence in these cases remains problematic. Time needs to be spent on this. The issues are often, wrongly, reduced to the rights of celebrities.
Celebrity influence
At the Liberal Democrats’ conference, Hugh Grant argued that the famous had every right to determine when and how their private lives should remain private. In other words, it is private unless or until they sell their wedding photographs to Hello! magazine. To adapt that old adage: what is the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance? Having a good accountant. What is the difference between profiting from your private life and complaining about intrusion? Having a good agent.
Politicians who have dined with Grant, beguiled by his charm, accept his utterances about journalism unquestioningly. Many — including some who have argued for libel reform — appear now to accept a “control” agenda. This starts from some powerful assumptions: that Tony Blair’s description of the press as feral beasts is broadly correct; only statutory regulation, including fines and licensing, can tame these animals; and it is easy to differentiate between good journalism (broadsheet, usually liberal) and bad journalism (tabloid and mid-market, usually rabidly rightwing).
At the party conferences, delegates have queued up to denounce the media. The convoluted motion passed by the Liberal Democrats was regarded by Nick Clegg’s office as excessive, and that was after they had managed to tone it down. At Labour’s conference, Ed Miliband distanced himself from Ivan Lewis’s suggestion of a mechanism for “striking off” journalists. At the top of the parties there appears to be a greater understanding of the need for a proportionate response.
The motives among MPs appear mixed. For some, it is revenge for the expenses scandal. For those whose phones were hacked it is understandable fury. For others, notably on the left, it is pay-back time after years of Blair/Brown fawning at the feet of the Murdoch empire. For many it is none of the above, more of an inchoate sense that something must be done.
In broad terms there is, even at this early stage, consensus on the following: those involved in the industrial-scale hacking of not just celebrities but victims of crime should be prosecuted and feel the full weight of the law. Cross-media ownership laws should be tightened considerably to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of certain moguls. The Press Complaints Commission, which failed not just on phone hacking but on the media’s conduct towards the McCanns and other high-profile cases, needs radical reform.
Much of the work is likely to be focused on this area. The terms self-regulation, independent regulation and statutory have become highly charged. How, for example, do you license newspapers and not bloggers? Who is forced to abide by which rules? And how can the rules prevent governments from punishing coverage they dislike? This is much easier said than done. Remember Kate Adie’s reports on the US bombing of Libya in 1986 and Norman Tebbit’s response? Within a few months the BBC director general was gone. Remember Alastair’s Campbell’s assault on the BBC and the Hutton report? Within a few days of its publication, the director general was gone, the organisation became more pliant and relations “improved”. With the right levers in place, governments can effortlessly cow journalists and their managers.
As ever in British public life, international perspectives are rare. A few close to home might be helpful. France’s strict privacy laws not only protect the rich and famous from unfair intrusion; they have successfully been used on many occasions to prevent investigation into the public activities of politicians. Currently a French judge stands accused of hacking into the phones of reporters at Le Monde who were digging for information about the finances of a Nicolas Sarkozy ally. Do we want to emulate this?
Take Hungary, another EU member. Its new media law, passed in 2010, attacks a free press by imposing state control over public service broadcasters and the right to levy fines on publishers. Hungary is perhaps the most dangerous example, but there are others too. In Italy, editors are regularly dismissed for getting on the wrong side of Silvio Berlusconi.
The challenge for Leveson is to tighten procedures that help prevent wrongdoing without killing an already sickly patient. To say so is not to defend an industry or a vested interest, but to protect one of the few checks and balances against untrammelled authority.
Investigative decline
Look back over the past decade — to the road to war in Iraq, to the behaviour of bankers and more — and ask yourself, have journalists found out too much about the activities of those with power or too little? Open any newspaper and search hard for unvarnished and unspun insights. During a decade in the Westminster lobby I saw more stenography than journalism.
Hacks do the bidding of politicians, business leaders and football managers in order to preserve good access. Next time you see the word “scoop”, perhaps it might be better to substitute the word “plant”.
Leveson has made clear that among the many subjects he wants to look into is the economics of journalism. It is important he does. Investigative teams are expensive and in decline. Reporters rewrite press releases partly out of laziness, mainly because they have to fill papers. In short, journalism – for all the outrageous behaviour unearthed in Hackgate and other scandals – is too weak, not too strong.
The English libel laws, which Index on Censorship has been at the heart of reforming, have stopped many important investigations over the years. They are so draconian that the US Congress passed legislation protecting its citizens from our courts. It is important the UK government does not dilute its commitment to introduce the full defamation bill in 2012.
The Leveson Inquiry is timely. British journalism must improve. But it is important to remember that a perfect press does not exist anywhere. One that is raucous and troublesome is better than the malleable alternative. Be careful what you wish for.
28 Sep 11 | Leveson Inquiry
Index attended this morning’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in which Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers expressed concern that the six-strong panel in the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking lacks tabloid or regional newspaper experience.
Associated legal team argued that the panel, members of which Lord Justice Leveson stressed were appointed due to their expertise in a specific field, may be partial and “filter” their prejudices into judgments made throughout the inquiry. Leveson responded that the panel’s role is merely an advisory one, and that any conclusion of the inquiry “will be mine and mine alone”.
With the backing of Trinity Mirror, the Newspaper Publishers’ Association and Guardian News & Media, the publisher also argued that the panel should have more members, noting that the inquiry would “benefit from experts across the industry” that would “fill the gap” left by the lack of representation of mid-market or tabloid papers. A solicitor representing Associated said the omission of such bodies would be “unfortunate in such a major inquiry”.
Leveson’s six advisers are Sir David Bell, former chairman of the Financial Times; Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty; Lord David Currie, former chairman of Ofcom; Elinor Goodman, former political editor of Channel 4 News; George Jones, former political editor of the Daily Telegraph; and Sir Paul Scott-Lee, former chief constable of West Midlands police.
Leveson argued that the essence of the panel, as well as upcoming seminars attended by core participants and non-core participants alike, was to encourage debate and provide a balance of views. He stressed,
“I am very conscious that I am stepping into a profession that is not the one that I spent 40 years of life in. It is critical that I obtain advice from those who have made their life in this area, not least because I would be keen to understand any flaws that I might have because of lack of experience.”
He concluded he would reserve a ruling on the application to invite further assessors and would provide a decision in due course.
Index will be tweeting from throughout the inquiry at @IndexLeveson
22 May 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has repeated his wish for his Inquiry into press ethics not to be a “footnote in history”.
“I can live with something short of perfect,” Leveson said while discussing press regulation with former culture secretary Lord Smith this afternoon. “But I would find it difficult to live with improving things for two years,” he added, noting that public money and effort would have been put into “not very much”.
“Two years for me would represent a real failure,” he said.
Smith and Leveson spent most of the afternoon debating how to improve press standards. Smith, who was culture secretary from 1997-2001, described the Advertising Standards Authority’s regulatory system, but stressed it would be difficult to translate it to the press.
“The most obvious one [sanction] would be a requirement for equal prominence,” Smith said. “A system of fines of some kind has been mooted many times,” he added, noting it would be “hard to put in place but should be considered as a way of toughening the ability” of the Press Complaints Commission’s successor to make a newspaper recognise any mistakes it had made.
He added that there had been “palpable” improvements in press standards — notably in techniques used by paparazzi — following the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Smith said he received 1,200 letters of complaint deploring press intrusion.
However, Leveson suggested the changes were not enduring, referring to the “calamity of press behaviour” in the princess’s death followed by the use of private investigators revealed by Operation Motorman and the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed News International.
“How many more times can we do this?” he asked.
The judge said he did not accept that “there would be any curtailment on freedom of press to hold all those in office to account (…) or to indulge in investigative journalism is imperiled by a system that prevents type of behaviour I’ve heard so much about in last few months.”
Smith, meanwhile, warned strongly against state involvement in regulating the British press. “Decisions about applying public interest, plurality tests shouldn’t rest with a secretary of state,” he said.
“These decisions shouldn’t rest with a political figure, however honourable they may be.”
Smith said he recognised the scope for a “statutory backstop” to assist with enforcing decisions, but emphasised that the decisions themselves made by a body that is voluntarily put together by the press, rather than imposed upon them.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
