17 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told the Leveson Inquiry today the British newspaper industry has been “under-regulated and over-legislated.”
Rusbridger urged for a greater balance between the two, but praised the Inquiry for bringing about more nuanced questions about regulation and statute.
He said he “wouldn’t be against the use of statute” if a new regulatory body could enforce its powers to deal with early-stage libel claims, adding that statutory underpinning of a new adjudication system would make settling libel and privacy cases cheaper and easier.
He said the Press Complaints Commission’s 2009 report into phone hacking was “worse than a whitewash” and “undermined the principle of self-regulation”. In the report the PCC concluded there was no evidence it had been misled over phone hacking by the News of the World, which closed last summer in the wake of further hacking revelations.
“Even when they were lied to by the most powerful media player,” Rusbridger said, “there was nothing they could even do about that. Its inadequecies were fatally exposed”.
Also speaking this afternoon was Sunday Times editor John Witherow, who shared concerns expressed earlier today by James Harding that statutory backing may lead to political interference in the press.
Witherow said the reputation of the UK press abroad needed to be taken into consideration: “Our libel laws have created a lot of controversy around the world,” he said, adding that “if we moved to a statutory body, it would send a message worldwide that we’re taking a tougher stance on the media.”
Witherow also admitted that his paper tried to blag details of Gordon Brown’s mortgage from Abbey National by calling the bank and posing as the former prime minister.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from magazine and regional editors.
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17 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has today made suggestions that a new model may need statutory backing in order to “give some authority to independent regulation”.
The judge made the remarks while discussing today’s Times leader article defending a free press with the paper’s editor James Harding at the Leveson Inquiry.
While in favour of a “sufficiently robust” system, Harding expressed concerns that a “‘Leveson act’ would give politicians the ability to loom over press coverage”, which he said would have a “chilling effect” on press freedom.
“I do not want journalists from The Times, years from now, walking into the offices of politicians and behaving in a certain way,” he added later, reiterating his fear of reporters submitting to political influence.
Leveson was blunt: “Watch my lips”, he told Harding, adding that his mind was not yet made up. He said that the issue of regulation needed to be solved suitably by the press, adding, “it’s got to work for the public as well.”
Leveson also made it abundantly clear more than once today that he was not looking into mandatory prior notification.
Earlier in his testimony, Harding also said his proprietors “never raised a finger” to stop the Murdoch-owned title covering the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the News of the World last summer.
When asked if The Times was slow to cover the phone-hacking scandal perhaps due to external pressures, Harding said that his paper followed up on the Guardian’s original story in summer 2009.
Following last summer’s revelations over the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone, Harding said the Times featured the story “on the front page for about three weeks”, criticising the News of the World and News International.
Harding added: “Looking back I certainly wish we’d got on the story harder, earlier. The reality is that both the police and News International poured cold water on the story.”
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17 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has spoken out against further press regulation, arguing that “if the state regulates the press then the press no longer regulates the state”.
Hislop told the Leveson Inquiry that the British press faces substantial regulation, adding that the worst excesses of the press occurred due to poor enforcement. He highlighted that many of the “heinous crimes” addressed by the Inquiry, namely phone hacking and contempt of court, are already illegal.
“I believe in a free press and I don’t think it should be regulated, but it should abide by law,” he said.
Hislop also lamented the “deeply embedded” involvment among senior politicians and News International, and urged Lord Justice Leveson to call the Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to give evidence.
During his evidence, which at times resembled a debate than testimony, he alluded to France’s stringent privacy law, which he labelled “draconian”. The French “are catching up with two decades of news because of the reluctance to look at private lives of people who ran them”, he said.
Hislop also spoke out against prior notification, detailing how, when stopped from running a story about Law Society president Michael Napier, his magazine spent £350,000 while the application for an injunction went through. “The lesson I learned was not to give prior notification,” he said, adding later that privacy had become “more of a problem than libel” in the UK.
Yet he called libel arbitration a “waste of time”, noting he would “rather end up in the courts because that’s where you end up anyway.” He told the Inquiry that, since 2000, his magazine has faced 40 libel actions.
Also speaking this morning was News International CEO Tom Mockridge, who took over from former chief Rebekah Brooks in the wake of the phone hacking scandal last summer. Mockridge upheld the British press for “its extent of competition, choice and ability to report with freedom”, noting that many outside the country look at the press with “jealousy”.
Following a discussion of the regulatory models of Italy and Hong Kong, Mockridge disagreed with Lord Justice Leveson’s distinction between state regulation and a mechanism of statutory backing in a self-regulatory body. “If the state intervenes, the state intervenes,” he said, noting that it would “diminish a free press”.
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16 Jan 12 | Leveson Inquiry
The CEO of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey, told the Leveson Inquiry today that she has seen no evidence of phone hacking at Trinity Mirror, only “unsubstantiated allegations”.
When pressed by counsel David Barr why the group had not conducted a detailed investigation, Bailey argued that by investigating claims without evidence of hacking was not a way to run a healthy organisation.
She called claims made by a BBC Newsnight programme that the practice took place at the Sunday Mirror a “terrible piece of journalism”.
Bailey said she had heard the evidence of ex-Mirror reporter James Hipwell, who told the Inquiry that phone hacking was a “bog-standard journalistic tool” used by the paper, but added she was “not sure” whether she knew of his allegations at the time.
In her testimony Bailey also detailed the “intense cyclical pressure” facing her company. “It’s like a falling knife that is getting sharper on the way down,” she said, noting the collapse in recruitment advertising and increasing pressure from digital news platforms. “Our strategy is to build a growing multi-platform business,” she said.
Also speaking today, Tina Weaver, editor of the Sunday Mirror, said privacy injunctions brought by rich, powerful men “rained down on us like confetti” a year ago.
Weaver said she “wrestled with competing tensions” over a kiss and tell story published in the paper involving Rio Ferdinand in April 2010. She said editors now spend a “disproportionate” amount of time balancing Article 8 (private life) and Article 10 (freedom of expression), to which Leveson asked, “isn’t that exactly what you should be doing?” Weaver agreed it was.
“It’s where the line is being drawn that concerns me,” Weaver told the Inquiry.
Weaver added that she felt the perception of public interest was at times too narrow. “I think what readers deem to be in the public interest is deemed by judges to be private,” she said.
The Mirror’s investigations editor Andrew Penman discussed his reservations about prior notification. He told the Inquiry he feared the policy becoming compulsory, leading to crooks and fraudsters becoming “the ones you can’t write about.”
He added he believed in a right to “publicity”.
“If the press are stifled, the public is stifled,” he said.
Editor of the People Lloyd Embley told the Inquiry that the varied nature of stories meant he could not see prior notification working in practice.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
