The long awaited Leveson report is now out. Not unsurprisingly, it has caused come controversy. Some of this has been cause by (deliberate?) misreadings of it.
I think it is worth pointing out that the enquiry looked at all sides of the various arguments, heard a lot of evidence form various people, and drew conclusions and proposals on the basis of this evidence. This is good scientific process, and it means that if you want to argue against the conclusions or recommendations, then it should be done by re-visiting the evidence, assessing it differently, and putting other arguments from the evidence.
It should not be argued against because "It doesn't seem like the right way forward".
What is more, David Cameron did state that as long as the recommendations were not "bonkers", he would implement them. The recommendations are not bonkers, so he should implement them - although that was a rather naive promise to make.
I was also interested by comments from Ian Hislop on "Have I got news for you", where he argues - not unsurprisingly - against any more regulation of the press. He makes two point, quite good ones, that a) the activities were already illegal, and so there is already legal recourse against what they did and b) if you break the law, you should expect to pay the consequences. As he has done on numerous occasions.
I think it is worth mentioning that nobody wants a state controlled press. That is a bad situation all around, and in this country, we have a long tradition of the media as a whole playing the fool to the authorities. It is an important aspect of our culture that those in authority can do stupid things, but they should expect to be pilloried in public by our comedians and have questions raised by our journalists. That is one of the core balances in our system, and it is critical to keep this, to ensure that those who have power are also subject to ridicule and challenge. State controlled media would kill that, and would be a disaster for everyone.
On the other hand, self regulation is not working and has not worked. The "hands off" approach had meant that serious abuses have been endemic in the industry. I heard Ruth Gledhill at Greenbelt this year explaining that she had no idea about phone hacking from within the business, implying that it was not as widespread as suggested. My suspicion is that Ruth may have been unaware because those around her knew she would have a problem with it - something that is not uncommon in work environments - and because she was not working on areas where this would have been used. But I don't know, and Ruth is quite welcome to respond on this. I suspect that it was widespread enough that it was considered a tool available for use by those journalists who would do anything for a story.
What I understand Lord Leveson to be suggesting (and I have not read the entire report, nor do I intend to) if for an independent body to oversee the press. That seems a good idea, someone to watch over the self-regulation to make sure it works. And that this is underpinned by statute seems to be a necessity, otherwise it has no teeth. The report could have been a whole lot harsher. the job now is to implement it, to put the British press back on the road to being trusted, at least to a greater extent than currently.
If not, then clearly government control of the press is already happening, and we should all be scared.
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Hi. Thank you for this. Of course you realise that under the new statutory based regulation of the Press, anyone who can't spell Leveson will go to prison for a minimum of ten years.
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Just kidding. Or perhaps I'm not....
Seriously, I can put my hand on my heart and say hacking was not widespread on The Times, in fact did not happen at all apart from one sad well-documented case that we all know about.
People seem to imagine we are all computer and technological wizz kids, but I promise you, many of us would be more than happy if we could go back to our old clanking black steel typewriters with the blacks and the wires and clips on the ceiling to take stories written par by par on flimsy bits of paper down to the subs and the composing rooms. I am not saying we would have hacked if we could have, I am saying we didn't know how and even if we had known how, we would not have wanted to. That's not how we work, not on The Times at least.
One page on the internet was it? One page. None denies there have been problems with our industry but still. The internet. Some of us oldies - I collect a long long service award today - might have embraced it a bit reluctantly but we at least understand what it does and what it represents. To more or less ignore it altogether is seriously questionable.
But I have great faith in Robert Thompson. We all do. At The Times, we now sell more copies online via the paywall than the Indy sells of its print edition. Just you wait and see what Robert does with our company. We will move on, we will learn from these disasters that Leveson necessarily investigates. We are doing good.
Thank you for the mention.
I will write out 100 times "Leveson". Doh.
DeleteI do accept your point that it was not common on the Times. My only question is whether your lack of knowledge was representing the real situation or just the areas that you worked in. That may be something you will never know, because people are not likely to admit it.
There is a part of me that hopes very much that you are right. The problem is that you - the plural, the industry as a whole, not you individually - have to regain the trust that you have lost. In the meantime, there is a starting point of mistrust.
Finally, it always cheers me to know that there are people like you who have integrity in the heart of the industry. I know that it cannot be easy, but it is good that you are there. It gives me hope.