“The path to hell”……Paul Lashmar’s piece on Leveson up on Open Democracy and MeCCSA

The path to hell…. an investigative journalist’s view of Leveson
Paul Lashmar 27 March 2013

The Leveson inquiry and demands for tighter regulation have already led to a chilling effect in the British media. The law of unintended consequences may lead to well-meaning measures undermining “serious” investigative journalism and democracy.

I view the phone hacking scandal and the Leveson inquiry through a narrow lens, as an investigative journalist in the ‘serious’ national media for thirty years. Narrow as my viewpoint may be, I do hold an overarching belief that quality journalism is crucial for democracy and that without serious investigative journalism corruption and incompetence will undermine every public institution. Indeed it is happening.

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MeCCSa

A very thoughtful piece by the editor of the Guardian about press regulation

We need reform and a free press. This will require both time and openness

Give a new regulation system a year to bed in before we act. A royal charter should seal the deal, not describe it

Alan Rusbridger
The Guardian, Sunday 24 March 2013 21.00 GMT
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andrzej krauze press regulation
Illustration by Andrzej Krauze

Within a week of the Leveson report around 20 newspaper editors met for breakfast in the retro faded splendour of the Delaunay Restaurant in London. After pulling down the blinds on the ground floor room (a tabloid editor predicted we could be papped) we got down to business.

The entire national press was there – from the Daily Star to the FT. This never happens. The Spectator and Economist editors were around the table, with a Times reporter in attendance to take notes. James Harding, editor of the Times, chaired very efficiently.

Within two hours we had agreed the overwhelming majority of the 47 Leveson recommendations for establishing an independent self-regulatory regime for the press. Six clauses relating to statutory underpinning were rejected. Of the 41 remaining clauses five were agreed with reasonable amendments and the remaining 36 passed. The minutes said: “We agreed unanimously to accept the Leveson principles – save statutory underpinning … on almost every point we accepted Lord Justice Leveson’s wording.”

to read this key article

(posted by PL)

PL: This is a really intelligent piece about regulation by one of journalism’s most thoughtful exponents – Robin Lustig

Robin Lustig

Journalist and broadcaster

In Praise of a Free Press
Posted: 22/03/2013
Do you regard it as acceptable for a newspaper to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for stolen information relating to the financial affairs of people in the public eye?

How about publishing information obtained from police officers who are not officially entitled to make it available and which is vehemently denied by the parties directly involved?

If you answered No to the first question, that would mean we’d never have learned about MPs’ fraudulent expenses claims. (The Daily Telegraph paid a reported £300,000 for a CD containing the MPs’ expenses information, which had been either stolen or improperly copied.)

If you answered No to the second question, it would mean we’d never have learned about industrial-scale phone-hacking at the News of the World and elsewhere. (The Guardian got its information from police, lawyers and others, speaking anonymously and unattributably.)

Were we entitled to know about expenses-fiddling MPs and phone-hacking journalists? Of course we were. Is that what we expect from a free press? Of course it is.

It looks this weekend as if the bizarre late-night press regulation deal stitched up by a handful of politicians and a bunch of Hacked Off campaigners in the small hours of last Monday morning has been virtually strangled at birth. For which, I suggest, we should all be truly thankful.

It was the wrong answer to the wrong question. I agree with Simon Jenkins, who wrote in The Guardian on Wednesday: “A few innocent victims of press unfairness may gain redress. But the cheering across town this week is from the rich, the celebrated and the powerful, with parliamentarians in the van.”

Of course, I feel for the McCanns, Christopher Jefferies, Charlotte Church, and many, many others who have been shamefully and disgracefully treated by newspapers. (For some reason, I’m afraid I have close to zero sympathy with Hugh Grant.)

But it is never a good idea to allow victims to determine retribution. That’s why court-rooms replaced lynch mobs. And frankly, we should be very worried indeed when we see politicians and celebrities united in media-hate and thirsting for legislative revenge.

There is, in fact, a very easy way to ensure that journalists don’t break the law: get the police to do the job they’re paid to do, rather than taking back-handers, sometimes several thousands of pounds, from reporters looking for a good story. It really is as simple as that.

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(posted by PL)

Press Gazette: Leveson deal agreed by political parties

Cameron: Not statutory underpinning but a safeguard that says politicians can’t fiddle
Dominic Ponsford
18 March 2013

A cross-party deal has been agreed on a Royal Charter to regulate the press which is set in stone via legislation saying that a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament is needed to amend it.

Such a move was thought to have been beyond the pale for both press owners and the Conservatives.

The parties have agreed to a legislative amendment today which won’t specifically mention press regulation, but which will underpin a clause in the press regulation Royal Charter which states that a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliamanet is needed to amend it.

Conservative leader David Cameron said today that this does not amount to “statutory underpinning” of press regulation.

to read article click here

(posted by PL)