17 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told the Leveson Inquiry today the British newspaper industry has been “under-regulated and over-legislated.”
Rusbridger urged for a greater balance between the two, but praised the Inquiry for bringing about more nuanced questions about regulation and statute.
He said he “wouldn’t be against the use of statute” if a new regulatory body could enforce its powers to deal with early-stage libel claims, adding that statutory underpinning of a new adjudication system would make settling libel and privacy cases cheaper and easier.
He said the Press Complaints Commission’s 2009 report into phone hacking was “worse than a whitewash” and “undermined the principle of self-regulation”. In the report the PCC concluded there was no evidence it had been misled over phone hacking by the News of the World, which closed last summer in the wake of further hacking revelations.
“Even when they were lied to by the most powerful media player,” Rusbridger said, “there was nothing they could even do about that. Its inadequecies were fatally exposed”.
Also speaking this afternoon was Sunday Times editor John Witherow, who shared concerns expressed earlier today by James Harding that statutory backing may lead to political interference in the press.
Witherow said the reputation of the UK press abroad needed to be taken into consideration: “Our libel laws have created a lot of controversy around the world,” he said, adding that “if we moved to a statutory body, it would send a message worldwide that we’re taking a tougher stance on the media.”
Witherow also admitted that his paper tried to blag details of Gordon Brown’s mortgage from Abbey National by calling the bank and posing as the former prime minister.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from magazine and regional editors.
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17 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has spoken out against further press regulation, arguing that “if the state regulates the press then the press no longer regulates the state”.
Hislop told the Leveson Inquiry that the British press faces substantial regulation, adding that the worst excesses of the press occurred due to poor enforcement. He highlighted that many of the “heinous crimes” addressed by the Inquiry, namely phone hacking and contempt of court, are already illegal.
“I believe in a free press and I don’t think it should be regulated, but it should abide by law,” he said.
Hislop also lamented the “deeply embedded” involvment among senior politicians and News International, and urged Lord Justice Leveson to call the Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to give evidence.
During his evidence, which at times resembled a debate than testimony, he alluded to France’s stringent privacy law, which he labelled “draconian”. The French “are catching up with two decades of news because of the reluctance to look at private lives of people who ran them”, he said.
Hislop also spoke out against prior notification, detailing how, when stopped from running a story about Law Society president Michael Napier, his magazine spent £350,000 while the application for an injunction went through. “The lesson I learned was not to give prior notification,” he said, adding later that privacy had become “more of a problem than libel” in the UK.
Yet he called libel arbitration a “waste of time”, noting he would “rather end up in the courts because that’s where you end up anyway.” He told the Inquiry that, since 2000, his magazine has faced 40 libel actions.
Also speaking this morning was News International CEO Tom Mockridge, who took over from former chief Rebekah Brooks in the wake of the phone hacking scandal last summer. Mockridge upheld the British press for “its extent of competition, choice and ability to report with freedom”, noting that many outside the country look at the press with “jealousy”.
Following a discussion of the regulatory models of Italy and Hong Kong, Mockridge disagreed with Lord Justice Leveson’s distinction between state regulation and a mechanism of statutory backing in a self-regulatory body. “If the state intervenes, the state intervenes,” he said, noting that it would “diminish a free press”.
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16 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The CEO of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey, told the Leveson Inquiry today that she has seen no evidence of phone hacking at Trinity Mirror, only “unsubstantiated allegations”.
When pressed by counsel David Barr why the group had not conducted a detailed investigation, Bailey argued that by investigating claims without evidence of hacking was not a way to run a healthy organisation.
She called claims made by a BBC Newsnight programme that the practice took place at the Sunday Mirror a “terrible piece of journalism”.
Bailey said she had heard the evidence of ex-Mirror reporter James Hipwell, who told the Inquiry that phone hacking was a “bog-standard journalistic tool” used by the paper, but added she was “not sure” whether she knew of his allegations at the time.
In her testimony Bailey also detailed the “intense cyclical pressure” facing her company. “It’s like a falling knife that is getting sharper on the way down,” she said, noting the collapse in recruitment advertising and increasing pressure from digital news platforms. “Our strategy is to build a growing multi-platform business,” she said.
Also speaking today, Tina Weaver, editor of the Sunday Mirror, said privacy injunctions brought by rich, powerful men “rained down on us like confetti” a year ago.
Weaver said she “wrestled with competing tensions” over a kiss and tell story published in the paper involving Rio Ferdinand in April 2010. She said editors now spend a “disproportionate” amount of time balancing Article 8 (private life) and Article 10 (freedom of expression), to which Leveson asked, “isn’t that exactly what you should be doing?” Weaver agreed it was.
“It’s where the line is being drawn that concerns me,” Weaver told the Inquiry.
Weaver added that she felt the perception of public interest was at times too narrow. “I think what readers deem to be in the public interest is deemed by judges to be private,” she said.
The Mirror’s investigations editor Andrew Penman discussed his reservations about prior notification. He told the Inquiry he feared the policy becoming compulsory, leading to crooks and fraudsters becoming “the ones you can’t write about.”
He added he believed in a right to “publicity”.
“If the press are stifled, the public is stifled,” he said.
Editor of the People Lloyd Embley told the Inquiry that the varied nature of stories meant he could not see prior notification working in practice.
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16 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The editor of the Daily Mirror told the Leveson Inquiry he believes there is a “willingness” for online news providers to sign up to a regulatory framework.
Richard Wallace, who has edited the paper since 2004, said that “legitimate” online news providers would want to join a new regulatory body because “it gives them a lot of cachet”.
He said that “responsible” online news sources would be more successful. “The out and out cowboys, I don’t see in the long term they can survive,” he said, adding that “people want information that is competent and true.”
Asked about press tycoon Richard Desmond’s view that having current editors serve on the Press Complaints Commission creates rivalry, Wallace said that serving editors should play only an “advisory role” in a new body. He suggested former editors and ex-lawyers should serve, enabling the new body to call editors to account.
Discussing the relationship between the press and the political sphere in the UK, Wallace said that he did not believe the media were too close to politicians, but said News International had “particular influence”.
“The reason Rupert Murdoch has so much power is because we choose to give it to him,” he said, arguing that “politicians should have shown a lot more backbone”.
“They’re there to look after the welfare of the people, not the welfare of a media organisation,” he said.
He was also quizzed over the Mirror’s inaccurate stories about Chris Jefferies, the former teacher wrongly arrested in late 2010 on suspicion of murdering his tenant Joanna Yeates. Wallace told the Inquiry that off-the-record briefings from Avon & Somerset police, who said they were “confident” that Jefferies was “the right man”, “coloured” his judgement.
He called the episode a “black mark” on his editing record and expressed “sincere regret” to Jefferies and his friends and family. “Jefferies’ name will for ever more be printed on my mind,” he said.
The Daily Mirror was fined £50,000 for contempt of court over its coverage of the former teacher.
Meanwhile, on phone hacking, Wallace said he did not believe the practice had occurred, but added it “might well have been” hidden from him.
He added that he had never heard the Paul McCartney voicemail message to Heather Mills that former Mirror editor Piers Morgan told the Inquiry he himself had listened to.
Discussing the departure of his predecessor, Wallace said Morgan was dismissed over the publication of a series of hoax Iraqi prisoner abuse pictures. “It was a catastrophic error of judgement and he paid the price,” Wallace said.
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