18 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
Celebrity magazine editors today welcomed the idea of a register under the Press Complaints Commission of privacy-conscious celebrities suggested by Lord Justice Leveson at his inquiry into the UK press.
“It would be a very useful tool for us if they used a body like the PCC to update them on their circumstances”, Lucie Cave , the editor of Heat magazine said.
However, OK! editor Lisa Byrne warned: “Every celebrity might say, ‘No, I don’t want any pictures of my family ever again.’ Then it could cause a problem.”
Cave told the Leveson Inquiry there may be public interest in exposing the hypocritical behaviour of celebrities who are “role models”.
Giving an example of a celebrity who portrayed themselves as a “real family person” and went on to have an affair, Lucie Cave explained: “I think there obviously can sometimes be a public interest argument if a celebrity who is a role model for our readers does something that contradicts how they portray themselves.”
Cave conceded there was a “great difference between public interest and things that are interesting to the public.”
Cave, Byrne and Hello! magazine editor Rosie Nixon were largely in agreement that once a celebrity had sold an aspect of their private life to the press, it did not mean they were now “open season”.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” Cave said, “it doesn’t mean everyone has a right to invade their private life.”
When asked about photos in this week’s issue of Simon Cowell on a yacht, Cave admitted the magazine did not seek his permission before publishing. “We know from Simon Cowell, he kind of enjoys the lifestyle that goes with his celebrity and he’s clearly playing up to the paparazzi,” she said.
Cave told the Inquiry that Heat magazine has received eight PCC complaints in 14 years, and rarely gets complaints from readers.
She also said her magazine’s picture desk would question an agency supplying photographs if it seemed they were taken in questionable circumstances. “Normally it’s glaringly obvious if there’s been an infringement of that celebrity’s privacy and we wouldn’t go anywhere near it.”
Nixon also defended her magazine, saying it “works directly with the stars every step of the way”. She added, “It’s a really honest, trusting, sort of relationship — we ultimately wouldn’t do anything to upset anyone.”
“We’re not in the business of printing salacious gossip,” Nixon said.
Byrne also said that a “a huge percentage” of OK! magazine’s stories came from “working directly with the celebrities”.
The Inquiry continues next week.
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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
Lord Justice Leveson has today made suggestions that a new model may need statutory backing in order to “give some authority to independent regulation”.
The judge made the remarks while discussing today’s Times leader article defending a free press with the paper’s editor James Harding at the Leveson Inquiry.
While in favour of a “sufficiently robust” system, Harding expressed concerns that a “‘Leveson act’ would give politicians the ability to loom over press coverage”, which he said would have a “chilling effect” on press freedom.
“I do not want journalists from The Times, years from now, walking into the offices of politicians and behaving in a certain way,” he added later, reiterating his fear of reporters submitting to political influence.
Leveson was blunt: “Watch my lips”, he told Harding, adding that his mind was not yet made up. He said that the issue of regulation needed to be solved suitably by the press, adding, “it’s got to work for the public as well.”
Leveson also made it abundantly clear more than once today that he was not looking into mandatory prior notification.
Earlier in his testimony, Harding also said his proprietors “never raised a finger” to stop the Murdoch-owned title covering the phone hacking scandal that engulfed the News of the World last summer.
When asked if The Times was slow to cover the phone-hacking scandal perhaps due to external pressures, Harding said that his paper followed up on the Guardian’s original story in summer 2009.
Following last summer’s revelations over the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone, Harding said the Times featured the story “on the front page for about three weeks”, criticising the News of the World and News International.
Harding added: “Looking back I certainly wish we’d got on the story harder, earlier. The reality is that both the police and News International poured cold water on the story.”
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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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