12 Apr 13 | Uncategorized
The Department of Culture Media and Sport this week held a “mini-consultation” with the aim of soothing fears that bloggers may find themselves caught in the net of the proposed post-Leveson press regulator.
The fears stem from the initial drafting of the scope of the new regulator, which suggested that any “relevant publisher” of “news-related” material would be expected to join the regulator, and could face the “stick” of exemplary damages if they did not have a “reasonable” excuse for not being part of the regulatory system. These definitions applies to vast swathes of the web, as well as the traditional newspaper industry.
For many, the realisation dawned that the new regulator would not simply cover the “bad guys” of the Murdoch papers and the Mail; rather, in an age when anyone can be a journalist, so too can anyone with an online presence be regarded as a publisher of “news-related material”.
The task of defining who’s in and who’s out was brought into focus when leading site Mumsnet asked the DCMS whether it would be seen as a relevant publisher of news-related material. “We don’t know”, came the reply, reflecting the ill-thought nature of the whole process. Shortly afterwards, Mumsnet were told they would “probably not” be covered, but that ultimately, it would be for the courts to decide.
The DCMS then set out to develop a list of who would not be covered: Wine magazine Decanter was mentioned as not being a news publisher. This, frankly, is an insult to Decanter, which publishes wine news for people who are interested in wine.
Then we were told individual bloggers would not be covered, but that blogs that had multiple writers, or an editorial process, might. So that’s group blogs regulated, while, for example, the extremely influential and widely-read Jack of Kent blog, run by a single person, lawyer and journalist David Allen Green, is not.
“Small-scale” blogs are now, we are told, to be protected, but how does one define this? On what scale do we measure “small”?
Confusing? Yes. Because the whole thing is confused. The entire proposal is flawed, which is why Index had no wish to take part in this week’s consultation: we believe the whole situation to be irretrievable. The principal Index has consistently held — that only non-statute based regulation can guarantee a free press — has only been reinforced by the current fiasco.
Politicians and campaigners are desperately trying to keep this ill-conceived “press reform” momentum afloat, having seen it dragged out to sea on a self-generated wave of something-must-be-donery. These blogger consultations — the latest attempts to make sense of a nonsensical law — are the actions of a government, and a movement, not waving but drowning.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship. @mePadraigReidy
27 Nov 12 | Uncategorized
Lord Justice Leveson has been dealt a bad hand. On Thursday he’ll fulfil his task of recommending a new regulatory system for the British press — that vague bunch whose boundaries and levels of entry shift with each technological innovation.
It’s possible Sir Brian’s report will have a brief life in the age of the internet: A world where we are all publishers, where citizen journalists and reporters on national papers curate and cover the same stories, where traditional models of journalism are chipped away. But Leveson is determined to recommend something that works for the public, the public who were disgusted (rightly so) at the phone hacking scandal.
So what’s on the table? The industry and the newly-formed Free Speech Network is flying the flag for improved self-regulation. Index has called for a model of tough, independent regulation free from government interference. Campaign group Hacked Off is pushing for statutory underpinning of a new independent regulator, a model the National Union of Journalists and several Tory MPs and peers defended earlier this month.
Hacked Off and its camp argue that only a dab of statute is needed for the press to get its house in order and serve the public. A new regulator would be created by parliamentary statute, but would not play a role in day-to-day operations, sitting instead at arm’s length from Westminster.
But would statute even keep up with the pace of change in the digital age? Would we see statutory definitions of privacy and the public interest as well?
Either this country has a press entirely free from government interference, or it doesn’t, quoting the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson. A new regulator might not play a part in daily operations, but, as Nelson writes, “as soon as the device of political control is created, it can be ratcheted up later.”
It is now our country’s journalists who risk paying the price for the actions not only of a few reporters but also of power-seeking politicians and police. Ordinary journalists who are, let’s not forget, already hemmed in by England’s chilling libel laws and the plethora of other criminal legislation, several areas of which do not carry a public interest defence for reporters.
And, to muddy the waters a little more, we are all journalists now, to use author Nick Cohen’s words. That’s why the hand Leveson’s been dealt is a tough one: his recommendations may not just affect the press, they could affect all of us who blog, tweet our views or share our sentiments on Facebook.
Those of us who obsess about press freedom might well have concerns about bringing statute into the game. And why shouldn’t we? Hard-won freedoms that are chipped away at, however well-intentioned, can be hard to replace.
Marta Cooper is an editorial researcher at Index on Censorship. She tweets at @martaruco
17 Sep 12 | Leveson Inquiry, Media Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom, Volume 41.03 Autumn 2012
With power comes responsibility, warns Martin Moore of the Hacked Off campaign
(more…)
13 Feb 12 | News and features, Uncategorized
Cross-posted at Hacked Off
There is fury and fear among Sun staff after the latest round of arrests by police investigating the alleged corruption of public servants by journalists, and there is more widespread alarm about the future of the press. Where will this end? Will other papers close, as the News of the World did? Is the baby of free expression about to go down the plughole with the murky bathwater of journalistic misconduct?
The anxiety is likely to increase as Rupert Murdoch visits London this week. Though he has said he has no intention of closing the Sun, he is not (how to put this?) a man distinguished by the rigid keeping of his word. It is easy to see why nerves are frayed.
But the picture is not as bleak as some fear, and News International and the Metropolitan police are only doing what they have to do in a society ruled by law. (We need to note, too, that nobody has been charged with anything.)
It is only a few months since News International was rightly lambasted for covering up evidence of, and information about, potentially criminal activities. That material, about phone hacking, had to be dragged out of the company, notably by civil litigants who for the most part have now settled their cases.
If, as seems to be the case, the company is now diligently searching its databases and handing everything suspicious that it finds to the police, then we should be grateful. Nor can we complain that junior figures are suffering the consequences while the top brass are spared: those arrested (and bailed) are for the most part big hitters.
As for the Met, it is doing its job. It may well be doing it with a special zeal, in response to criticisms about a previous absence of zeal, but we can hardly complain about that either. And it is not as though it can make up new laws. Where they have information about possible breaches of the law the police are supposed to investigate, question, search and so forth, and that is what they are doing here.
Corrupting officials matters, too. If local government officials take bribes to fix planning applications for builders, or if defence officials take bribes when awarding arms contracts, we expect prosecutions of both those who pay and those who receive. More than that, we expect the press to expose such wrongdoing, and journalists tend to take pride in the work. Corruption creates injustice and is anti-democratic.
Will the pursuit of these matters lead to unwanted consequences? Will it corrode free expression? I cant see why.
There are no grounds for Murdoch to close the Sun, and if he were to do so it would be another short-sighted, cowardly and capricious act like the closure of the News of the World. He has to take responsibility, show leadership and steer his paper (which is by any measure a national institution) through the crisis.
Does it follow that other papers are in danger? I have no idea, but if journalists on other papers have been bribing public officials (something which nobody can fail to realise is against the law) then they need to face the consequences. It is no use saying that the law is wrong or unfair; if that is the case the right course is to try to change the law, not to ignore it. (Newspapers are rarely tolerant of others who consider themselves above the law.)
The bathwater of unethical and illegal practices in journalism needs to be drained, and the Leveson process exists to do that. There is no reason to suppose that the baby of free expression will be washed away in the process. A far more realistic prospect is that, if we are persuaded to leave this bathwater where it is, the baby will drown in it. Corrupt journalism is the enemy of free expression; it places us at the mercy of monopolists, bullies and lawbreakers. We surely don’t want that.
Brian Cathcart, a founder of Hacked Off, teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He tweets at @BrianCathcart
