The Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press

[Stavros]

Those of you who have been following the hearings in London known as The Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press, will I am sure have your favourite moments, and may also be disturbed by what has been said -or not.
Ex-News of the World features writer Paul McMullan has given an 'heroic' defence of the right of the press to publish stories that 'tell the truth' about the private lives of public people, saying that if the public do not want to read it, they would not buy the papers that print it. Without the press engaging in the pursuit of what McMullan, with no sense of irony, calls 'the truth', uncovering secrets would be restricted to MI5 and MI6 -as he said

'Privacy is for Pedos'


What is most likely to happen after this is that the self-regulation of the press will be scrutinised, and law may change the right of the press to publish whatever they like -as far as I know at the moment there is no legal obligation on a newspaper to print the truth, and it is up to an individual to take the paper to court if they think they have been defamed.

Is this a watershed moment for the press?

Should newspapers be allowed to print what they like?

Are there limited areas of someone's private life that should not be breached by reporters?

Or is this just the airing of grievances we have known about for years and is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

[russtafa]

:smhour government has opened an inquiry about the newspapers that critical of the government lol

[Prospero]

All the laws needed to ensure that the press report fairly and objectively and do not indulge in practices such as phone tapping, computer hacking and so forth already exist - but they are not enforced. The police and media regulatory bodies need to do their job.
The notion of the Government introducing new rules to limit the right of the media to investigate is scarey. Without such freedom would Watergate have been revealed - or many other wrong doings by those in power. Censorship is a weapon for repressive governments of any ilk to ensure critics and dissent is silenced. Not a path we should go down. (Russtafa suggests the government in Australia are already looking in this direction.)

[russtafa]

All the laws needed to ensure that the press report fairly and objectively and do not indulge in practices such as phone tapping, computer hacking and so forth already exist - but they are not enforced. The police and media regulatory bodies need to do their job.
The notion of the Government introducing new rules to limit the right of the media to investigate is scarey. Without such freedom would Watergate have been revealed - or many other wrong doings by those in power. Censorship is a weapon for repressive governments of any ilk to ensure critics and dissent is silenced. Not a path we should go down. (Russtafa suggests the government in Australia are already looking in this direction.)The government is calling media criticism "the hate media" and those papers that are pro government have not come under scrutiny

[Prospero]

Very worrying Russtafa...

[Stavros]

if the Press Complaints Commission has failed to use its powers, then, in effect, it has none. If it has failed to call newspapers to account because it is scared of them, it is a useless organisation. This suggests either that the PCC needs new leadership prepared to use existing law to enforce standards on newspapers, or a new law is needed, although that will just create another commission to do what the PCC is supposed to be doing now.

I think there is a difference between Politics and society -most of the celebrities mentioned in this inquiry I barely know, I don't know who Kelly Brook is and I only know Charlotte Church as a dreadful singer I avoid at all times. But even in the case of political issues it can be argued that we have a Freedom of Information Act, and that a lot of the Wikileaks materials and other leaks could have been gained legally through the Act, but requests were denied, possiby because the govt just didn't want the facts published, rather than any genuine fear of breach of security. Whether or not we would have got details on MP's expenses from the Freedom of Information Act I don't know, but at some point also, the fact that there are police service personnel selling confidental information is something this mess has to deal with, though it is tangential to the issue of the press.

The system is broke, and yes, the potential outcome is one that would benefit secrecy rather than transparency, but if we can no longer control a press that is breaking the law and acting with impunity, and if it is 'our fault' as McMullan would argue, for buying newspaper in the first place, then we have passed the inititiative to the government.

Maybe newspapers will go into decline over the next 10 years anyway in the UK, as online news -from all kinds of sources- appeals more to a younger generation; and that is where a lot of the issues on truth, fiction and the law are hard to police.

[Faldur]

“The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every free man has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this is to destroy the freedom of the press; but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity.”
Blackstone’s Commentaries 1765

[Stavros]

Admirable sentiments, Faldur....but....who decides what it is that is improper, and what the consequences should be, whatever and wherever it is that is published?

[Stavros]

Among the many astonishing things that people in the press have said to defend their so-called stories, is this from Colin Myler today; last editor of the News of the World that published the Max Mosley story -

Myler said he thought the News of the World's story on Mosley was justified.
"Mr Mosley was the head of the richest sport in the world. It had a global membership of 120m including the Automobile Association," said Myler.
"As head of that he presided over a huge expansion programme. He should have displayed ethical standards … taking part in orgies that were brutal and depraved and included paying women for sex was not [behaviour] the FIA could reasonably accept."


I am amazed at this, because what Mosley did was done in private. If Myler's principle is taken as the basis for judging people in public office, then surely we would have a right to know what sexual practices they engage in with their partners -?? This obsession with sex and lies was part of the cause of its demise, but to justify it seems to me to me beyond acceptability in Mosley's case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/14/leveson-now-email-max-mosley