Index, for our part, welcomed the rejection of the government’s royal charter, while still being opposed to the papers’ royal charter.

Why? Well, there’s the issue that Index doesn’t really want there to be any royal charter, at all, no matter who’s dreamt it up. It still creates the prospect of external political approval of press regulation.

There’s also a problem that the papers’ version of the charter gives them a veto over appointments to the regulatory board, which risks the regulator being seen as a tool of the industry, just as the PCC was perceived to be.

Then there’s the issue that it doesn’t really address the problem of the threat of exemplary damages for those outside the regulator, one of Index’s key concerns.

And it leaves us none the wiser as to the whole “What’s a newspaper/journalist/website/blog?” question, which has been the cause of some confusion (as illustrated by Martin Belam‘s satirical take on the government’s explanatory flowchart below).

Still, the rejection is the interesting part. And the furore over the rejection has somewhat undermined the claims made by government and campaigners that they believed in a wholly voluntary system.

What happens next? By Leveson’s own admission, if a substantial part of the industry refuses to sign up, then the regulator has failed before it has even begun. That is where we seem to be now.

It was interesting to note that in his interview on BBC radio’s World At One yesterday, Peter Wright, who has been leading the discussion for Associated, Telegraph and News International publications, said that the other papers who are not part of that group saw the alternative royal charter proposal as a way to “get the ball rolling again” on negotiations over reform. That would suggest that even Wright sees this merely as the opening gambit in fresh negotiations.

So perhaps now we can start discussing the terms of a new, genuinely independent and voluntary regulator, without the mad rush that led to the government’s ultimately botched effort.

The post The newspapers’ royal regulation gambit appeared first on Index on Censorship.

In response to this week’s deal on press regulation, Index on Censorship chief executive Kirsty Hughes said:

“Index is against the introduction of a Royal Charter that determines the details of establishing a press regulator in the UK — the involvement of politicians undermines the fundamental principle that the press holds politicians to account. Politicians have now stepped in as ringmaster and our democracy is tarnished as a result.”

In spite of David Cameron’s claims, there can be no doubt that what has been established is statutory underpinning of the press regulator. This introduces a layer of political control that is extremely undesirable. On this sad day, Britain has abandoned a democratic principle.

But beyond that, the Royal Charter’s loose definition of a ‘relevant publisher’ as a ‘website containing news-related material’ means blogs could be regulated under this new law as well. This will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on everyday people’s web use.

Bloggers could find themselves subject to exemplary damages in court, due to the fact that they were not part of a regulator that was not intended for them in the first place. This mess of legislation has been thrown together with alarming haste: there’s little doubt we’ll repent for a while to come.”

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The proposed powers of a new regulator seem unworkable, says Padraig Reidy

On BBC News yesterday, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop outlined his concerns about the new press regulator. Hislop, whose publication was not part of the Press Complaints Commission, said he was concerned that publications outside the regulator (and the debate still rages over who is and isn’t supposed to be inside the regulator) would face not only exemplary damages, but also possibly have to pay the costs of any case even if they won.

Clause NC27A of the Crime and Courts bill, which sets out the costs regime does state that the defendant must pay costs in any case, unless the judge believes the case could not possibly have been settled by the regulator’s arbitration wing – i.e. if this would have ended up in court anyway.

This is quite definitely “Leveson Compliant”, (see par 67 and 68 of the Executive Summary of Lord Justice Leveson’s report and is essentially punitive. One wonders would it pass the test of a “fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”, as laid out in article of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is extremely likely that a case following this procedure will end up in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And quite rightly so. It’s bizarre, unjust and coercive.

There are also concerns about the proposed regulator’s power to “direct” the placement of apologies.

Again, this is “Leveson compliant” — the Lord Justice himself stated “The power to direct the nature, extent and placement of apologies should lie with the Board”.

This is also really problematic, suggesting as it does that a Quango can determine what is and isn’t published in newspapers, and where. This may seem angel-on-pinhead stuff, but there is a world of difference between “direct” and “require”. While apologies may be desirable, it’s simply not safe to give an external power with state underpinning the power to tell editors what to put in papers. Forced publication is a sinister perversion of free expression, and has no place in the British press or anywhere else.

The post Leveson fiasco: costs and other questions appeared first on Index on Censorship.

‘The Prime Minister is right not to have made a shoddy compromise with Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, which would have meant statutory underpinning of press regulation. Politicians should not pass laws that specifically control the press if those politicians are to be held to account by a free press.

“The Royal Charter is itself a compromise as it does mean some political involvement – which Index opposes. It is also quite wrong to say – as supporters of the statutory route have –  that David Cameron is doing what the press barons want. A tough new independent regulator whether set up by Royal Charter, or preferably by a route with no political involvement at all,  is a big step forward compared to the previous system of self-regulation, which doubtless many of the press barons would still prefer.

“Cameron’s decision to put the Royal Charter approach to a vote is a risky one – and Index is concerned to see MPs voting in even this form on press regulation. But Cameron’s decision to go to a vote has clearly been forced by the threat of wrecking amendments being added into several bills, including one that is already threatening the passage of the Defamation Bill, which Leveson himself said should be kept separate from his work.”

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This letter appeared in the Financial Times on 14 March 

Sir,

It is a sad day when the Financial Times changes its principled and welcome defence of press freedom in the UK to one of pragmatic compromise  (“Time for Sensible Press Compromise” 11/3/13). Your own prior editorials on this issue tell us clearly why this shift from principle to pragmatism is wrong.

Print media are not and should not be above the law. But nor should politicians make laws — or define regulators — that are specifically for the press. The principles are clear. Politicians are in a position of power while newspapers like the FT both hold politicians to account for their exercise of that power through independent, high quality journalism, and they endorse or oppose particular policies, government strategies and advise readers on who they would vote for when elections come round. For all these reasons and more, politicians have every motive to want to influence and control the press (more so than broadcasters who have to remain impartial and balanced).

Statutory underpinning of the detailed characteristics a supposedly “independent” regulator must meet breaches this clear principle of keeping the print media free from political interference. The FT has been a welcome and staunch defender of this principle first when Leveson came out, insisting on the avoidance of a “press law by the back door” (29/11/12), and secondly, when the royal charter was first mooted by David Cameron “well-meaning reform must not unwittingly open the door to state interference in the press” (12/2/13), going on to say that the royal charter would not “banish the shadow of state interference.”

The FT has now moved to the fudge that it rejected a month ago, a fudge Index on Censorship still rejects for reasons we cannot put any  better than you did then: “While some may see such a fudge as a better expedient than statutory control, this newspaper [delete newspaper, replace with Index] continues to favour credible independent regulation at arm’s length from the state.”

Kirsty Hughes

Chief Executive

Index on Censorship

London EC1

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Will a new Director General be enough to save the BBC asks Index’s Kirsty Hughes

In a nutshell, the BBC first spiked what by all accounts was a piece of very serious journalism on alleged child abuse by a leading national figure, Jimmy Savile — leaving rivals ITV to broadcast the story first — and then it let through a piece of shoddy journalism on child abuse wrongly implicating, albeit anonymously (’til Twitter got to work), another national figure. While some have suggested the second, lax editorial signoff two weeks ago may actually show that caution over the Savile story was appropriate, this looks like the wrong conclusion.

Only some insiders know the full story of both process and content. But we do know that in the Savile case substantial evidence had been gathered, and five women were interviewed on camera about their allegations. Whether there was pressure from above, fear of libel, a casual attitude to child abuse involving young teenage girls or all these and more, the decision not to broadcast looks wrong — and has led to a storm of criticism since the story broke at the start of October. The BBC’s subsequent crisis management was inept — Entwistle sounding inadequately informed and turning in a weak performance before MPs, while Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, who shelved the programme, had to amend his blog post on how the decision was taken to correct inaccuracies.

A month after the Saville fiasco broke, Newsnight then broadcast its programme interviewing Steve Messham who alleged child abuse at a North Wales home in the 1970s by a senior Conservative politician. On Monday evening, the BBC issued a summary of its internal report confirming that Newsnight neither showed Messham a photo of the politician — nor put the allegations to that politician.  Lord McAlpine – mentioned in a series of tweets by a range of people after the Newsnight broadcast — has threatened legal action. Messham came out publicly after the programme and said McAlpine was not the person whose photo the police had shown him in the 1990s, and apologised. The BBC also apologised. Entwistle resigned, as did the director of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Iain Overton, the Bureau having been involved in making the programme.  As the summary BBC report says some “basic journalistic checks were not completed.”

Some suggest a libel action from McAlpine against Newsnight may fail, as the peer was not named in the programme. But wherever the legal case goes, the journalism looks shoddy and the editorial judgement in broadcasting the programme a bad call.

Perhaps one of the few brighter points of this dismal tale is that the most senior people in the two organisations resigned so fast — a lesson that ought not to be lost on hesitant politicians, heads of banks and others in recent years who have failed to step up and take responsibility for failures on their watch, or only reluctantly, slowly and after continuous pressure. But the large pay-off announced for Entwistle has rather diminished some of the impact of the honourable rapid resignation.

In a trenchant statement, Newsnight’s leading presenter, Jeremy Paxman blamed the post-Hutton inquiry BBC culture of appointing “biddable” people and “bloating” management at the expense of programme budgets. This sounds like the NHS, that other British icon, where years of changing reforms have repeatedly seemed to prioritise managers over medical staff. But if biddable managers is the problem, that can explain the Savile case — not taking a risk — but not the McAlpine case — taking a risk in spite of inadequate journalistic output. And it is how the BBC learns the lessons of these two opposite failures that will determine the eventual outcome of this crisis.

In the short term, the BBC will surely ride the crisis out. Chris Patten, heading up the BBC Trust, is right to be moving quickly to appoint what will have to be a top quality, credible new Director General.

But the BBC cannot afford another scandal of this sort soon. And the danger must be that serious, high quality, challenging journalism will be held back. If a battered, bruised and risk-averse BBC chooses to avoid any repetition of the second Newsnight weak journalism scandal, or holds back on anything risky as a second line of defence, then the crisis will have done real damage. If the BBC loses its courage on decent investigative journalism, this might create a false sense of calm for a while, but at the cost of undermining its reputation in the longer term. Steering between the twin hazards of weak editorial control and risk averse editorial control will be the test for the BBC and its next Director General.

Kirsty Hughes is Index’s chief executive

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This article originally appeared on Comment is Free on guardian.co.uk

Poor practice tends to get in the way of good intentions. During a meeting at the foreign office a few weeks ago, I gently reminded the decent-minded mandarins that they had a problem: Britain’s role in pushing internet freedom, and freedom of expression more generally, was being undermined by our own government departments. Trouble with rioters last summer? Well, go after BlackBerry messengers, David Cameron suggested, until it was pointed out to him that this was exactly the sort of thing the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes tried to do during the Arab spring.

Now, Britain’s parliamentarians, in all their familiar bluster, have come up with a new wheeze: why not order search engines to go on a giant trawl and delete – not only from their searches but from the internet itself – any material that is deemed to invade privacy?

“Google and other search engines should take steps to ensure that their websites are not used as vehicles to breach the law and should actively develop and use such technology,” reads the report published today by the joint Lords and Commons committee on privacy and injunctions. Translate these words into Russian or Mandarin and you can imagine the uproar.

Just in case these uppity tech firms don’t get the point, our MPs and peers recommend that if they refuse to censor voluntarily, they should be forced to do so through legislation. Our traditionally insular parliamentarians had, at least, the foresight to acknowledge that such “pro-active monitoring … may not be consistent” with the EU’s directive on e-commerce, but what the heck, why not give it a go?

The government is likely to thank the committee for its deliberations, and then give them a wide berth. In any case, everyone is waiting on Lord Justice Leveson’s hacking inquiry this autumn. The questioning I received in January at the hands of Leveson’s leading QC was more arduous, and informed, than the grand-standing of the committee. I was struck, when giving evidence in parliament in November, by their ignorance about the digital world. One of the few MPs who understands the issues, the Lib Dems’ Martin Horwood, tweeted straight after that session about the “embarrassing rudeness” and “ignorance about internet” from his “colleagues”.

Google (who, to declare an interest, I now advise part-time on freedom of expression) already complies with “take-down” requests by national authorities. However, if the content is legal in another state, it remains visible in that nation. These requests are now listed in a regular “transparency report“. What Google do not do is embark on giant fishing expeditions, acting as the global censor of taste, decency, legality and privacy.

Max Mosley, who successfully sued the News of the World over his privacy – appears to have seduced the committee. Not only have they bought completely his complaints that search engines have failed to erase in perpetuity all “offending pictures” of him, but they nearly bought his idea that all journalists be legally obliged to give prior notification to anyone they might be planning to write or broadcast about. His application was resoundingly thrown out by the European court of human rights – Index on Censorship was among those objecting to the application – but still the committee has recommended that Britain’s new beefed-up press regulator should require prior notification, “unless there are compelling reasons not to”.

The one, and perhaps only, innovative idea in this copious report is to put the onus on newspaper company directors to take responsibility for standards. One of the points that seems to be lost in the phone-hacking privacy maelstrom is that this has been much more a problem of the nexus between politicians, police and media moguls than it is about day-to-day journalism.

It is perhaps no surprise that parliamentarians are no great fans of the fourth estate. It was they who, still smarting after the expenses scandal, sought to exempt the issue from freedom of information scrutiny.

The UK needs a more professional and rigorous regulatory system. It needs executives and non-executives to be held more accountable for their actions. But this country already has some of the most restrictive laws in the democratic world, particularly when it comes to defamation and surveillance.

This report is replete with affirmations about the importance of free expression. MPs and peers talk a good talk, but fail to understand that – while improvements must be made to standards – the only people who benefit from a clampdown are the rich and powerful. Look at Hungary’s hideous new press law, with its statutes on licensing and other measures that some of the witnesses to Leveson have advocated. Look at France, where generations of politicians have claimed privacy to evade scrutiny on their financial misdemeanours. Ask yourself: does our media find out too much or too little about what is done in our name? It is no wonder that our politicians then seek to tame these feral beasts.

John Kampfner is the outgoing chief executive of Index

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