Will the Press be regulated in UK? Should it be?

[Frecossais]

The Leveson Enquiry publishes tomorrow, and according to what I've been reading and hearing, will call for some kind of regulation of the Press. Of course newspapers are up in arms about any formal, ie legal regulation; at least one paper has been doing its best to cry bias by Leveson himself, while the PM is said to be between a rock and a hard place on the subject, what with MPs feeling quite liberal on the subject and the Great British Public seeming to be all for regulation.

Personally I don't want a Press that kow-tows to the people in charge, or is any more sycophantic than it already is, and I want it to continue to disclose wrong-doing when that has been purposefully hidden, but I do hate the means that have recently been used.

I also feel that the phrase "in the public interest" could do with re-defining. Is it in the public interest to know that some celebrity (and I use the term loosely,) or other has had a boob job?

What would you do if you had to decide: self regulation with strings, (because I think there will at least be some qualifications if we go down that road) or more stringent actual rules?

[woolybanana]

An appropriate and sensible regulation, yes. Control NO.

[Quillan]

This is something I have been following with great interest and have a few views on but I won't do a 'War and Peace' job on it.

The thing that frightens me most is the thought of a state controlled press.

We already have libel laws which should be sufficient in 99% of cases. We don't need everything to be read by a third party prior to printing or broadcasting. What we do need is a completely independent body, not controlled by either the government or the press. It also need some teeth, some serious teeth. One option I would like to see them have is the ability to sanction the press by suspending say a newspaper from publishing for a set period. The loss of income would be massive and taking the money out of a publishers pocket by making them pay compensation in the past has shown this is a excellent way to deal with them. Couple that with loss of income from advertisements for a period with teach them to be more careful in future.

As Hugh Grant said this morning they should also have to publish retractions and apologies matching in size the misinformation or libel they print i.e. if they use the whole front page and it is wrong then they must use the whole front page to apologise and put it right. Four lines on the bottom of page 24 is not good enough.

[PaulT]

Think Mr Grant is still upset about the reporting of the he being caught in the US that tarnished his image.

I personally do not care if Miss X has had a boob job or Mr Y has been having an affair behind his wifes back with Ms Z or even Mr Z.

The press seldom pick up what is really important with the exception of Private Eye. Yes, they sometimes get things wrong such as when they printed that Maxwell had his hands in the pension fund [;-)] and PE had to pay a lot of money. They do expose a lot of things that the mainstream press either pick up on months later or do not cover.

For me government controlled press may not make much difference to the mainstream just less of the trviality of so called celebrity lives, but could harm the watchful eye that PE keeps.

[NickP]

I must agree with most of what  PaulT say, but I don't understand what all the fuss is about, there has always been a press complaints commission and all the publishers employ hoards of libel lawyers. What we don't want is a government led regulatory body, otherwise how would we find out about MP's expenses fiddling etc.. I feel that a lot of the flack the UK press has been getting is because they embarrassed the Westminster fiddlers; both kinds, and although some of the phone message scandals are outrageous, I'm amazed that so called intelligent people don't know that you have to protect your messages with a security system.

I don't suppose for one moment anybody will be taken to task for allowing the disgustingly large Liberal to get away with what he did. Imagine what they would cover up with a government regulated press. If the press break the law, like us let them be taken to court and dealt with under the existing laws. Unfortunately there has been too much cosying up between the press and politicians, make that illegal; and you might find that the press do a better job and don't try their luck so much because their mates in high places have no favours to return.

[Rabbie]

Yes we need an effective independent body to make sure the Press does not print false information about people. Not everybody can afford to sue for libel. A fact that RobertMaxwell exploited.

We do not need government control over the press which would be another step away from a free society. The best solution would be for the press to act sensibly in what they report and avoid prejudicing any future trials. Not publishing the names of those "helping police with their inquiries" might be a good idea.

[PaulT]

[quote user="Rabbie"]

Yes we need an effective independent body to make sure the Press does not print false information about people. Not everybody can afford to sue for libel. A fact that RobertMaxwell exploited.

[/quote]

But Maxwell sued Private Eye over publishing that he had his hand in the Mirror pension fund. PE defended but it was found in favour of Maxwell and he got a large payout. Obviously, Maxwells pockets were deep especially thanks to the pension fund so at times it is not a case of whether you are guilty or not but the ability to buy an outcome.

[Hoddy]

I am worried about this and I don't think there us a completely satisfactory answer.

I certainly do not want the government controlling the press.

I do want the press to behave in a more responsible way. For example, a friend of mine was killed in a helicopter crash. He led an unremarkable life, running a village shop and trying to grow a wine importing business. At the time of his death his wife was pregnant with her fourth child. She was struggling desperately to keep the shop, her only source of income, going. Her father, who was helping her, went into the back yard to discover a reporter going through their bin. Even if she had the energy, the time and the money there was nothing to be done.

Somehow we need to be able to separate cases like this one from things like the MPs expenses scandal.

I subscribe to Private Eye and get depressed about what is not reported in the ordinary press.

Hoddy

[Gardengirl]

Like the rest of you, I would hate the press to be under government control. Somebody was saying on R4 last night that the press had been given chance upon chance to rein back on their excesses and now it was time to muzzle them - slightly! I'm not at all sure how you can muzzle them slightly! But somehow they need a light touch control, with huge penalties as mentioned already. What has happened in the past was truly awful, but the press must stay free. I'm very worried about what Cameron might try to bring in - yet close friends of his were hugely involved. A worrying time.

[Thibault]

What is the situation in France?  Is the French press controlled?  I gather there is some sort of privacy law which prevents discussion of politicians' private lives but I am unsure of the extent.

 

I heard the R4 interview yesterday and the point was stressed several times that the press had had self-regulation for years, yet that didn't prevent the phone hacking stuff from happening.

 

I don't think anyone wants a state controlled press like they have in other countries where democracy is a dirty word, but how can the excesses of the press be curbed?  Someone mentioned earlier that 'the public interest' needs to be redefined.  It seems to me that the tabloid papers often use this defence to publish all sorts of stuff that have no link to 'the public interest' - naked pictures of celebs, for example, or stories that some footballer or other is having an affair - how are those things in the public interest?  Now MPs expenses, that is a different matter. 

 

The difficulty, it seems to me, is how to allow one, but curb the other.  I don't think we can rely on the press to regulate itself - it has shown itself remarkably reluctant to do so effectively for the past 20 years or so.

[Russethouse]

I think the sight of Rebecca Brooks etc going to jail might do a lot to curb the excesses of the press. IF of course she is found guilty......

[Quillan]

Did anyone see the documentary on C4 last night on this subject? The two opposites, both rather extreme in their views on this subject were Boris Johnson and Hugh Grant. I am afraid that Huh Grant's arguments for state control didn't quite do it for me.

[PaulT]

[quote user="Thibault"]

I heard the R4 interview yesterday and the point was stressed several times that the press had had self-regulation for years, yet that didn't prevent the phone hacking stuff from happening.

[/quote]

But how would regulation stop phone hacking? It is a criminal offence but it did not stop them. Now, if there is a new government department 'The Ministry of Press Regulation' and they say 'DO NOT HACK PHONES' will that make the press not hack them whereas criminal law had already made it an offence but not worked.

And what about the poor celebrities who have their privacy invaded and have their affairs etc splashed across the top of some papers. Are these the same celebrities who take vast sums from the likes of Hello and OK magazine to feature their weddings etc? They need to take the rough with the smooth.

Paul

[Quillan]

I agree with Paul there are laws in place already for illegal behaviour of the press.

One minor point by the way nobody actually hacked anybodies phone, they got access to peoples voicemail, a totally different thing. In most cases it was because people were stupid enough not to change their default issued password, it's a bit like not changing the admin password on an Orange Livebox. That of course does not make what the press did right.

[Quillan]

If anyone missed the C4 documentary last night there is a review in the Guardian today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/nov/28/taking-on-the-tabloids-review

 

[idun]

The phone hacking was illegal? So any news paper being found doing anything illegal, should suffer the consequences.

I don't want too many restrictions though. There are great journalists out there, who need to be able to get to proper stories.

[YCCMB]

It's a bit sad, really, IMO. "The press" have been so successful in convincing "the public" (or, at least, enough of the public) that they are upholding or working "in the public interest", that vast numbers of people have come to believe that they DO need to know the minutiae of the lives of the rich and famous. The incidental casualties of this, such as the Dowler family or the bloke who was wrongly accused of murdering that young landscape architect have neither the public profile nor the clout to make a difference. Their 5 minutes of totally unwanted fame has cost them more dearly than most slebs, who will continue to manipulate and be manipulated by the press for years to come, whereas ordinary members of the public are used or vilified for as long as they sell papers, and then forgotten.

Slightly tongue in cheek, but given that there's much outcry at the moment about the Government's move to increase the price of alcohol in supermarkets (for our own good, of course), maybe they should set a minimum price for newspapers? This would, IMO, be in the public interest, because it would mean that many people who believe they ARE buying a newspaper for 20p would have to have a rethink if their paper actually cost the same as all the others. Would they really want to spend £1 to find out what Cheryl Cole was up to, or whether Posh and Becks were going to stay in the US?

And then there's the whole Government move to regulate the sale of tobacco products. So far, they've been moved behind closed doors in major supermarkets and larger shops. Next, there are moves afoot to make the packaging generic. Perhaps if newspapers were also to be sold with a plain or generic front page, it would cut down on the screaming headlines, designed to attract our attention from the newsagents' shelves?

[nomoss]

[quote user="Quillan"]

............... One minor point by the way nobody actually hacked anybodies phone, they got access to peoples voicemail, a totally different thing..... [/quote]

 

Nice that some people bother to actually see the facts through the smokescreen of garbage the press produce. Excuse the mixed metaphor.

 

On the occasions I have been involved, directly or indirectly, in events reported in the media, the reports had only a slight resemblance to what actually happened, to which was added a collection of inventions and outright lies. I now assume the same applies to everything I read or see.

I would be very pleased to see the introduction of some means of redress for harassment by reporters and the damage and hurt done by "creative" reporting, without the expense of going to court. That means something more than a fatuous printed apology.

 

 

[Frecossais]

It is also true that not all the newspapers were involved in the phone-hacking debacle, so enforced regulation would be yet another example of everyone being restricted for the sake of a few law-breakers.

[Benjamin]

I am starting to be very concerned at the (pre-planned?) campaign being mounted by a group of high profile, media savvy individuals, all of who have received significant libel damages, to engage the Public into bringing pressure to bear to get their way in introducing legislation to control the freedom of the UK Press.

I am no lover of bad journalism but control by law will put us in the same league as many of countries who we currently critise as not having a free Press.

[NormanH]

I think that the issue has been polarised into 'regulation' or 'non-regulation', when if you look at the main proposals of the enquiry it is clear that what is proposed is a sort of supervised self regulation, expressly constructed to be free of direct Government control.

Of course the Bullingdon bully won't implement this as it would inconvenience his chums..

An article from a source I don't usually quote

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2012/11/30/as-press-hail-camerons-courage-and-strength-they-know-his-betrayal-of-victims-was-an-act-of-weakness/

[Rabbie]

It has been suggested that if the Leveson rules were brought in then the Press investigation into MPs expenses would have been illegal. The best solution may be to enforce the existing laws properly.

[Ivor Nidea]

Sorry to add to this subject but I couldn't stifle a few sniggers upon hearing the news on the radio this morning. Apparently George Osborne (never had a proper job before becoming UKs accountant) feels that Google-Amazon-Starbucks (GAS) are immoral by legally not paying much tax.

This revelation was followed by the news that Foreign Office admin staff take an average of 5 weeks sick leave per year.

Gag the press I say, as I am fed up with hearing about things like flipping 2nd homes, duck houses and MPs spouses putting porn films on expenses.

On a slightly different note, what's the deal about Starbucks anyway? In my day a spoonful of Nescafe in a cracked mug accompanied by an egg banjo in Ted's caff was as good as it got, as long as you remembered to drink from the opposite side to the lipstick. I only visited Starbucks once and I found it a bewildering experience. It took ages to find out which one was a white coffee and it cost a fortune. Admittedly I had my name scribbled on the cup, although the non-English speaker had never heard of Aloysius!

[Benjamin]

I see, in one of Sunday's papers (can't link because I wont subscribe) that it has finally dawned on Ed Miliband and his advisors that there will be a General Election to be fought in 2015. The backpedalling has started.

Also, three of the Advisors to the Leveson enquiry were not in favour of statutory legislation.

[Rabbie]

Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty who was one of the advisors said statutory regulation would be in breach of the Human Rights Act.