12 Mar 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has said he is not giving his “endorsement, let alone agreement” to a proposed reformed setup of the Press Complaints Commission, adding that and that a new package will be “subjected to forensic analysis”.
“My mind remains open to all options,” Leveson said in his opening remarks at this morning’s Inquiry session, responding to last week’s disbanding of the current PCC, and its chair Lord Hunt’s subsequent draft proposal for a new body “with teeth”.
“To say that the PCC was never a regulator (…) only underlines the concern that the public have been misled about what it could do,” Leveson said, raising a number of questions for the as yet unnamed new body. He took issue with the five-year rolling contract endorsed by Lord Hunt, questioning if it was “sufficient to deal with the fundamental problem of industry acceptance.”
“The threat of what I might recommend may well encourage to sign up those who (…) do not consider that the PCC worked for them, but that simply potentially puts the problem off for five years,” Leveson said. He added that “previous crises have concerned adequacy of regulation and there was no problem of publishers leaving the system.”
He also questioned the structure of the new body, which, as Lord Hunt outlined, would have two arms: one that deals with complaints and mediation, and another that audits and enforces standards and compliance with the editors’ code. “What is the view about concurrent legal proceedings and why should the complaints arm not be able to award compensation,” Leveson asked. “Is the new independent assessor an appeal mechanism and, if so, what will be done to prevent complaint fatigue and what has been said to be the grinding down of complainants by passage of time? What is meant by a serious or systemic breakdown in standards?”
The judge stressed his role would be to recommend what he perceived to be the “most effective and potentially enduring” system. “It will then be for others to decide how to proceed,” he said.
Leveson also responded to today’s call from the Hacked Off Campaign for the Operation Motorman database to be published. He said core participants’ barrister, David Sherbone was “at liberty” to formally submit the reuqest if he felt it were appropriate or may highlight a broader culture of press practices rather than “who did what to whom.”
Also today the Inquiry heard from Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Cressida Dick, and Sir Dennis O’Connor of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Dick outlined her approach to relations with the media as not “obsessively monastic”, noting that she preferred to speak with journalists through the Met’s press office if a reporter was seeking information. She told the Inquiry she held monthly briefings with two to three journalists, which she said were “important to break down barriers”. Yet the meetings did not produce “a single scoop or really good story.”
“Certainly I wasn’t saying anything secret or exciting,” Dick said.
Questioned over the decision taken by then Assistant Commissioner John Yates not to re-open rhe phone hacking investigation in 2009 in light of reports by the Guardian was “not only poor, it was disastrous.”
Dick clarified that Sue Akers, the Met officer leading the current Operation Weeting investigation into hacking, was now working more widely under section one of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in terms of potential lines of inquiry than during the original 2006 investigation.
“Public opinion in terms of these issues is in a very different place than [in] 2006 when we were completely dominated by the terrorist threat,” Dick added, reiterating the testimony of other Met staff.
O’Connor spoke in favour of a “common frame of reference” for police forces in dealing with the media, but on more than one occasion warned against constraining relations between them.
“The last thing I would do is restrain the relation between the police and the press,” he said. “That would defy reality.”
He said he hoped the Inquiry could help reinforce the legitimacy of the police.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with the Met’s senior information officer, Sara Cheesley, and communications director, Dick Fedorcio.
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8 Mar 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
After 21 years, the Press Complaints Commission today confirmed it will close and be replaced by transitional body until a replacement is set up after the Leveson Inquiry.
The Guardian reported this morning that “closing the existing self-regulatory body will offer the press a clean break from the past and an opportunity to regain the confidence of the public.”
In his testimony to the Leveson Inquiry last month, the PCC’s current chair Lord Hunt said there was an urgent need for a new body and that there was “wide consensus for radical reform”. He suggested a new regulator having two arms — one for handling complaints and mediation, and another for auditing and enforcing standards.
If there is one thing the first module of the Inquiry told us, it was that the PCC had failed. Today’s news is the long-awaited admission of that.
Guardian journalist Nick Davies opined that the journalism industry was not “interested in or capable of” self-regulation, citing the PCC’s failure to properly investigate the extent of phone hacking in 2009 and arguing that the body did not take into account getting remedy for victims of the press. Sheryl Gascoigne called the body a “waste of time”, JK Rowling deemed it a “wrist-slapping exercise at best”, and Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow went so far as to suggest that one of the reasons for the tabloid withdrawing from the the body was because it failed to stop the paper publishing defamatory articles about the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann.
But defence of the organisation was equally staunch, with former chairs arguing it had been criticised for failing to exercise powers it never had. Baroness Peta Buscombe claimed that the body did not have investigatory powers to summon editors to give evidence under oath and that the rest of the world “would kill” for the British press’s system of self-regulation.
Buscombe’s predecessor, Sir Christopher Meyer, also grew exasperated with Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC’s criticism. “Don’t drag me down that path,” he told Jay, rejecting the counsel’s suggestion that, had the PCC taken a more proactive stance with the McCanns, the libellous coverage of Bristol landlord Chris Jefferies would not have been able to go so far.
We are now, it would seem, in self-regulation limbo. A longer-term replacement for the PCC is not expected to be up and running until after Leveson reports on his findings this autumn. While Leveson has hinted at a new regulator having statutory backing of some kind, he has reminded his followers not to take his thinking as proof of proposals.
In the meantime, a rebranding of the PCC needs to be avoided so as not to repeat past mistakes of failing to investigate effectively. As Index argued in its submission to the Leveson Inquiry in January, we need a more robust and trustworthy press, monitored by an enhanced regulator pushing improved standards and corporate governance. If we want further wrongdoing to be prevented, its investigatory powers must be strengthened. More must be done to make the media more accountable and transparent in the way ethics are applied and ensuring high professional standards are maintained.
But improved regulation should not occur at the expense of press freedom — the country’s “greatest asset”, in the words of Lord Hunt. The current atmosphere, in which the police seem to be acting in a overzealous manner, perhaps as a response to previous accusations of not having done so, is worrying. Concerns have also been raised that the internal investigation at the Sun has compromised reporters’ sources. While the press should indeed co-operate with the police where there may be evidence of illegality, journalists’ sources must be protected. Whatever powers the transitional body, and its eventual replacement, have, today’s tense atmosphere should not become the norm.
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1 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The current chairman of the Press Complaints Commission gave an impassioned warning against statutory regulation of the press at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday.
“There is already statute,” said Lord Hunt. “What is missing is a statutory regulator, which is what I’d regard as infringement on freedom of press.”
Lord Hunt said Britain’s “much envied” press freedom was the country’s “greatest asset”.
“The road to parliamentary hell is paved with good intentions”, he added, telling the Inquiry that there were “very strong views” in parliament that there should be tougher limits on the power of the press.
He said the Inquiry was a “tremendous opportunity” for the press to come forward with the type of system that Sir David Calcutt proposed in the early 1990s. “But not by statute,” Hunt emphasised.
He 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”.
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.
Hunt also revealed that Northern 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.
Earlier today, serving PCC commissioner Lord Grade said he did not 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”.
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 to intervene with newspapers prior to publication.
Grade said a new, improved regulator should have “visible, painful, tangible powers of sanction”, and that statutory recognition of a body that is independent of politicians and proprietors seemed to be a “very important way forward”.
He added that current PCC staff were “underpaid, overworked, overstretched”, and that the body barely had enough resources to do more than be a “complaints resolution vehicle”.
The Inquiry continues today, with evidence from Ofcom, the Advertising Standards Agency and PressBoF.
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