Sir David Calcutt<\/a>\u00a0proposed in the early 1990s.\u00a0“But not by statute,” Hunt emphasised.<\/p>\nHe also held the view that the PCC was not a regulator, arguing that it had been “unfairly criticised for failing to exercise powers it never had in the first place”.<\/p>\n
He said there was an urgent need for a new body and that the Inquiry was a key factor in there being “wide consensus for radical reform”. He argued that a new regulator should have two arms — one for handling complaints and mediation, and the other for auditing and enforcing standards.<\/p>\n
Hunt also revealed that\u00a0Northern and Shell boss Richard Desmond, who withdrew from the PCC last year, has agreed to sign up to his newly proposed press regulator. Hunt repeated that there was a “real appetite” for change and proposed a five-year rolling contract for publishers to sign up to.<\/p>\n
Earlier today, serving PCC commissioner Lord Grade said he did\u00a0not believe that statutory regulation would have a chilling effect on investigative journalism, which he said was “alive and well” in broadcasting despite being “heavily regulated”.<\/p>\n
Yet he took issue with statutory regulation raising the prospect of judicial review and a slower complaints process, and had concerns over the powers of a statutory body\u00a0to intervene with\u00a0newspapers\u00a0prior to publication.<\/p>\n
Grade said a new, improved regulator should have “visible, painful, tangible powers of sanction”, and that statutory recognition of a body that is \u00a0independent of politicians and proprietors seemed to be a “very important way forward”.<\/p>\n
He added that current PCC staff were “underpaid, overworked, overstretched”,\u00a0 and that the body barely had enough resources to do more than be a “complaints resolution vehicle”.<\/p>\n
The Inquiry continues today, with evidence from Ofcom, the Advertising Standards Agency and PressBoF.<\/p>\n
Follow Index on Censorship\u2019s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter \u2013\u00a0@IndexLeveson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marta Cooper<\/strong>: Hunt warns against MPs’ move for statutory press regulation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3815],"tags":[7427,14441,14442,7358,1759,3351,2469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109252,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93502\/revisions\/109252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}