9 May 2012 | Uncategorized
Cross-posted with Full Fact
The Cabinet agreed yesterday that Ministers will not exercise the right to request redactions of evidence submitted to the Leveson inquiry.
Yesterday Full Fact, English PEN, Index and the Media Standards Trust made an urgent application to the Leveson Inquiry for transparency regarding Government ministers’ new status as ‘core participants’ in the Inquiry.
We asked for transparency over access to confidential Inquiry material and government redaction requests, and to keep politically-appointed Special Advisers out of the process.
A few hours later a spokesman for No 10 told the Times: “We will not be making any requests to redact material.” He said the decision not to seek redactions applied to the whole of the Government, not only No 10.
The application was considered this morning by Lord Justice Leveson and he decided not to make the directions we asked for. We will be studying his reasons when the transcript is available.
However, he did emphasise his respect for Full Fact and the other applicants and his willingness to publicise attempted abuses of the redactions process by core participants. He also reemphasised his commitment to transparency.
Full Fact shares his view that transparency is vital to trust in the Inquiry’s eventual recommendations and are pleased to have played our part in enabling these significant issues to be fully considered in public.
Our focus now returns to helping to make sure the Inquiry produces the best possible recommendations for the future of press regulation and relations between politicians and the press.
William Moy is a director of Full Fact
23 Apr 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Two media barons took to the stand at the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon as the first day of “proprietors week” continued.
Evgeny Lebedev, proprietor of the Independent and the London Evening Standard stressed the importance of maintaining a free, strong and robust press, describing it as an “element of British democracy which needs to be preserved at any cost”.
He added: “Those who have committed crimes need to be punished. As we’ve seen in recent revelations there’s been an extraordinary abuse of power by the press and I think the outcome of the Inquiry should prevent that from happening again.”
Lebedev also expressed concerns that intense regulation of meetings between proprietors and politicians risks creating a society where elements become feeble. He said: “If the press becomes too feeble, we end up with a tyranny of consensus.”
He added that this kind of scrutiny would “completely change the balance of how things work in Westminster,” and agreed when asked if Lebedev meant that meetings between the press and politicians was “part of the discourse of politics”.
Lebedev explained that both the Evening Standard and the Independent both aimed “to support and champion world class journalism that is ethically sound, in the public interest and an aid to Britain’s democracy”, despite their differing political leanings.
Counsel Carine Patry Hoskins read the court an excerpt from an article published in the New Statesman from July 2011, in which Boris Johnson “gushed” about the oligarch: “I’m proud to call him a friend”. Lebedev told the court “there are varying degrees of friendship, but yes, I would consider him a friend.”
Stressing that he considered himself to be a Londoner, Lebedev added that he and Boris Johnson only discussed topics that “any Londoner would be interested in”.
Lebedev added that as they were operating within “the same sphere of existence” it was important for him to maintain relationships with politicians, including the Mayor of London, and the Prime Minister. He described meeting with Johnson, along with David Cameron, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, and explained he would soon be meeting newly-elected MP George Galloway.
Despite his relationship with politicians, and his interest in politics, the proprietor told the court he had never been asked by the Prime Minister to support a particular political party or policy.
In terms of the future of media regulation, Lebedev supported the concept of a statutory underpinning, and said that every part of the industry needed to be involved, and added that “self regulation should not be shrouded in impenetrable jargon”.
Also appearing before the court, Aidan Barclay, chairman of the Daily Telegraph publisher Telegraph Media Group (TMG), described his relationship with politicians.
Accepting that the Telegraph is unapologetically Conservative “with both a small and large C”, Barclay described a “cordial business relationship” with David Cameron.
The court heard how Barclay sent a series of texts to Cameron, congratulating him on the birth of his daughter, and referring to a “daily call” to the paper during the elections.
Barclay described his relationship with Tony Blair as “relaxed and social” and added that despite Blair’s interest in the press, there was never any discussion of topics of an editorial nature.
He added that being in touch with politicians enabled newspapers to do their jobs properly: “It’s very important to me that the Telegraph is involved in everything that goes on. In 2004, when we arrived at the Telegraph, it was in a situation where it never spoke to the Labour party and had fallen out with the Conservative party.”
Barclay also explained that even though the Operation Motorman leak table contained no entries in relation to TMG, the organisation took steps to make sure no journalists had been involved with payment to private investigators.
In terms of regulation, Barclay said it was necessary to strike a balance between “some standards of operations”, but it was important not to destroy the industry through “regulation creep”.
He added: “I’m concerned that we don’t go too far in the proposals, rules and regulations can layer on top of one another”.
Follow Index’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry @IndexLeveson
19 Apr 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Ten of the nominees running for president in Egypt have been disqualified due to “legal irregularities”. Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el-Shater and former Vice President Omar Suleiman are among those who have been barred from the election. A spokesman for el-Shater’s campaign called it a “political decision”. The head of Egypt’s executive election committee Hatem Bagato said Suleiman and el-Shater were disqualified because they have unresolved pardons for time in prison.
17 Apr 2012 | Americas, Mexico
In Mexico, a video showing child actors acting as corrupt politicians, drug traffickers and police on the take has gone viral. Uploaded on You Tube on 9 April, the film clip had reached more than 1 million viewers by the weekend of 15 April. But on 16 April, the video was removed from the video sharing site
Produced by a business group, the film had been criticised by politicians, who claimed it violated the human rights of minors. Yes, there was something unsettling in seeing an 8- or 12-year-old child waving a gun or pickpocketing another child dressed as a businessman. But the film hit a sore spot, as it allowed adults to see how far certain problems have grown in Mexico. The video was well-produced and it was simple in its message. It showed the problem and then asked politicians to solve it.
It is hard not to imagine that politicians were a bit jealous: released in the middle of a national electoral period, the movie gained almost 200,000 followers per day the week it was up on You Tube. The sad part is that this is only the first movie that captured the attention of the Mexican voter. While Mexico is an advanced democracy, albeit today engulfed in drug trafficking related violence, its political campaigns go back to another century. The four presidential candidates and the myriad candidates for Congress are presented in wooden poses and clichéd manners in television, billboards and even on social media.
Only one politician, Miguel Mancera — said to be the top contender for the mayoral race in Mexico City — publicly applauded the video. One columnist claimed that the video is a trap because it was superficial in its demands, and it did not address issues that keep Mexican society unequal.
Because of the success of the first video, the producers created a second video where the child actors, dressed for their roles, are interviewed on camera about problems in Mexico and give their point of view as to what type of city they would like in the future. One of the child actors, Jose Stallin Maya Gonzalez, who plays a corrupt judicial policeman who steals from robbers in the first video, says: “Well, in the Mexico of the Future, the police would take care of us.”
Plenty of Mexicans second his view.
