HISTORY 1960 F-bomb detonates in UK press

The article linked below contains strong language as part of reportage of court proceedings in 1960 under the Obscene Publications Act, widely viewed even then as archaic but still a live factor in media regulation today.

Towards the end of the article you can read about the behind-closed-doors approach of the Press Council, which censured three papers for daring to use the 'f-word' so frequently raised in court proceedings - for daring to report accurately!

55 years on we still live in an uncertain landscape of asterisked 'swear words', whose taboo status is linked to one hegemonic, ideological view of society. The absurdity of The S*n (my asterisk denotes my distaste at this rag) treating us to 't*ts' in writing whilst featuring topless teens (even post-Page Three) is as fine an argument as any that a modern re-thinking is overdue.

How the Guardian became the first newspaper in Britain to use the F-word.

Page 3 was introduced to the world via Murdoch's new purchase, the Sun, in 1970, and tabloid rivals the Star (founded in 1978) and Mirror copied this idea of putting topless women on page 3. the Mirror would cease this in the 1980s, and has always been a more serious paper (and left-wing), and even The Sun stopped around 2015 under pressure from the social media campaign No More Page 3 (which targeted advertisers), though the Star continues to do so.

Canada readers revolt against right-wing press

Could this be a sign of a future issue for the British press? The left-wing (relatively!) opposition have just won an election despite the Press overwhelmingly urging support for the right-wing incumbents. It's been clear that this direction has been ordered by the owners.

The public outpouring of anger and disillusionment on social media does not augur well for the prospects of the printed press.

First past the post may frustrate the prospects of Corbyn's more socialist Labour and potential allies such as the Greens who (like UKIP, and the Lib Dems to a degree) gained millions of votes but minimal seats, but there certainly seems a surge of radicalism amongst the young at least - a readership that the press are failing to attract.

Whether we see anything like this in the UK or not, the article is an interesting, clear summary of how another major press (mal)functions.

Election deals blow to Canada’s dominant press group.

BBC Savage book shows gov used licence fee threat over NI Troubles

The link is to a lengthy article - a great overview of what is a very useful case study to get into how media regulation works, both through formal regulators and media laws and informal power: private meetings, threats, controlling appointments and budgets.

It's a point I've made repeatedly in this blog: the notion of the BBC's independence is undermined by the government setting the license fee. Robert Savage's new book, and Greenslade's piece on this, highlights the very direct, explicit use of this threat by multiple governments to try and muzzle the Beeb's coverage of 'The Troubles'*.

(*That's a propaganda label which has achieved hegemonic status, successfully branding the violent conflict with aspects of a civil war as a mild outbreak of civil unrest.)

The wider parallel with the apparent assault on the BBC by the current incumbents is clear enough.

Greenslade's article is a great summary by the way of a complex but key case study in how media regulation works - including the informal, non-codified/statutory system of political pressure and influence.

Intriguing enough for me to order the book straight away! 

[3am but did just that ... only to see its £70, one of these cynically priced books designed to milk library budgets. What a shame, sounds like a great read.]

How the BBC's journalists fought to cover the Northern Ireland conflict.

Put me in mind of that great Day Today (Chris Morris) satire of the Broadcasting Ban an enraged Thatcher brought in when both ITV and the BBC defied her over coverage of the so-called Troubles:

LEVESON Will press be forced to pay legal costs win or lose?

The history of press regulation has been one of government fear over press reprisal, thus the 60 year record of blatantly poor self-regulation failing to see any statutory change.

That could be about to change ... though I doubt it; if the Tory government did force through a proposed change on legal costs from libel cases they would unite the entire press in their fury.

The proposal is a good example of why there is no simple solution to the issue of press regulation. Self-regulation is a bad joke that has poorly served the public and clearly failed to improve press standards, although it's too early to judge IPSO which could yet change this tawdry, self-serving history.

Yet the proposed statutory regulation is an appalling, clearly unjust idea! That the bleats of the press barons about government repression and censorship, attacks on democratic principle, lack credibility is a reflection on the industry's low standing, not the arguments they're wielding.

Greenslade puts the case forcefully that allowing anyone to sue a paper without having to pay legal costs (win or lose, the paper picks up the tab) is unfair and would pose a severe threat to the financial viability of papers, never mind the scope for abuse.

Yet...without further reform the scope to wield libel law largely remains an option only for the rich. A well meaning statutory change would both fuel press determination to resist ANY further new regulation and discredit the cause of stronger press regulation!!!

Complex, as I said!

Whittingdale is right to think again about wielding the costs 'stick'.

WIDER LAW Media unites to attack government FoI changes

A major chunk of wider law which has empowered the media could face radical dilution under government proposals. An unusually wide alliance of media organisations have registered their concerns over this.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which has fought for greater openness for over 20 years, said he feared the government’s supposedly independent commission was made up of people, such as former government minister Jack Straw, who are known to believe that there should be more exemptions under FoI.  

“If we don’t do something about it, the act is going to be seriously restricted,” he told the SoE meeting. The campaign group is to hold a briefing on Wednesday to discuss how best to fight government attempts to introduce more restrictions. 

Asked about the government’s review of the FoI earlier on Monday, John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, denied that the current review meant that it would be overturned. 

“[In the same way] everyone thinks I am going to abolish the BBC just because I am going to look at how it works after 10 years,” he said. 

Government accused of trying to water down Freedom of Information Act.

LEVESON IPSO PR war as Hacked Off fail to Impress industry

A good summary by Greenslade of the binary opposite views of Hacked Off and (most of) the press on the Leveson Report: a righteous attack on and firm legal proposals to improve the press vs an anti-democratic attack on a free press.

Hacked Off support Impress, a rival to IPSO that is seeking to win a royal charter - which would effectively put the entire press under a new legal regime, even though Impress has only signed up a farcically small number of hyper-local titles.

Without any possibility of a truce, let alone a settlement, the two sides spend a lot of time hurling verbal missiles at each other. 

The latest volley is the release of an “independent report” called Leveson’s Illiberal Legacy, produced by a press freedom group known as 89Up, published by the Free Speech Network and sponsored by three publishers: DMG Media, News UK and the Telegraph Media group. 

According to an article in the Daily Mail, the report makes “a devastating attack” on the Leveson inquiry, which “became a tool for a determined group of lobbyists [Hacked Off] to use regulation to erode press freedom.”  

The report states that laws rushed through in the wake of Leveson “pose the most substantial threat to British press freedom in the modern era”. It also poses an “imminent danger” to local newspapers. 

It calls on the government to annul the royal charter and to repeal sections of the crime and courts act.

Publishers and opponents treat the Leveson report like holy scripture.

Krotoski video series The Power of Privacy

The power of privacy – video series.

The Power of Privacy – documentary film

Aleks meets professional digital detective, Max. He’s challenged to gather as much information on her as possible. What he finds is staggering

The power of privacy (1/5): Does the internet know where you live?

Aleks travels to Las Vegas to meet hackers at the Def Con conference. There she learns first hand how easy it is to be tricked into dropping your guard

The power of privacy (2/5): Hacking exposed: the tricks of the trade

Aleks meets three security experts in a bid to take back control of her privacy

The power of privacy (3/5): What can you do when private data goes public?

Aleks heads to Japan to delve into the potential and pitfalls of open data

The power of privacy (4/5): Open data: mapping the fallout from Fukushima

Aleks explores how the internet of things will continue to reshape privacy in the future

Freedom of Information law undermined by advisory panel?

This is a key piece of wider law signifying the UK as a liberal democracy, and perhaps ironically commended by Tony Blair's contention that passing it was one of his biggest regrets.

The law, in theory at least, compels public bodies to publish information upon request.

In practice, the foot dragging this often brings is akin to King Kong with a limp. There have been numerous high profile court cases, something financially struggling newspapers are wary of.

PM Cameron appointed an advisory panel which appears to be made up of critics and opponents of FoI, as this article details.

The Guardian view on the freedom of information commission: a very British farce.

IPSO Tele guilty of Clause 1 Accuracy Corbyn slur

The right-wing press haven't held back from a fierce bombardment of flak aimed at new Labour (not New Labour!) Jeremy Corbyn, seeking to sink his counter-hegemonic arguments before they can achieve any foothold. It must be said that the supposedly left-wing press has acted similarly, much to the outrage of their readers - the Guardian's readers ombudsman acknowledged as much.

So, it is perhaps heartening in the context if historically pitifully weak press self-regulation to see IPSO apparently make a rare stand on Clause One of the Editors' Code: Accuracy.

While our broadcast media are fiercely regulated through the statutory body of OfCom, with the government  free to dramatically undermine the BBC's much trumpeted independence through the purse strings (and successfully agitating for the BBC to do less and get smaller), press self-regulation has often verged on the farcical.

Let's not forget that the PCC abolished itself (albeit bowing to the inevitable and strategically acting to see off any government action) for failing in its job.

So, the IPSO ruling over the Telegraph's blatant smear job has to be welcomed ... but is it enough to declare IPSO a real break from past practices, a shiny success?

No.

Greenslade takes up the specific point on IPSO accepting without challenge the Telegraph's contention that a headline must be considered in context of the full article, a weasel logic indeed, as for many the headline will be all they read (or retain).

What about the wider point of our press' practice of filtering the news through an ideological prism to fit pre-ordained positions? Is it really a credible position that this one story stands alone as the sole example of our national press trampling over the most basic and fundamental clause in its fervour to bury Corbyn and the views he represents?

Corbyn anti-Semite claim: Ipso needs to think again about newspaper headlines.

IPSO Mail corrects Muslim immigrant smear story - damage done?

Its not exactly a shock to see the Mail print an inaccurate, sensationalist story stoking up racial tension and fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment ... but for once the press regulator has stepped in to insist they correct the false, misleading story.

Thats a definite point in IPSO's favour compared to the weak PCC.

BUT ... still the issue remains: is a correction enough? Will it REALLY undo the damage of the original story? Should ALL corrections be prominently featured on the front page to motivate papers to try harder to adhere to the Editor's Code?

Note too that this is another example of IPSO accepting and ruling on a third party complaint, something the PCC routinely refused to do.

Mail on Sunday apologises for 'Muslim gangs' attack immigration van story.

Management consultant Miqdaad Versi complained to the Mail on Sunday, which responded with a letter saying it had “intended no disrespect to the Muslim religion”, but did not correct its story. Versi then took his complaint to Ipso, saying the article was based on conjecture and the religion of the gang was not relevant to the story. 

Following the complaint, the Mail on Sunday agreed to rewrite the story to remove the references to Muslims and carry a correction both in the paper and online. 

The correction said: “An article on July 26 said a gang of Muslim youths was responsible for damaging Home Office immigration enforcement vehicles in Shadwell, east London, in the week the prime minister appealed to Muslims to help combat extremism. Muslim readers have asked to point out that the youths’ religion was unclear and, in any case, irrelevant to the story. We apologise for any offence caused.” 

Versi, who is assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain but brought the complaint in a personal capacity, welcomed the correction. “The coverage of Muslims in mainstream media continues to be very negative and there are too many sensationalist headlines that generalise about Muslims. This story in particular was both inaccurate and referred to Muslims when it was irrelevant to the story,” he told the Guardian.

CLAUSE 12 OF THE EDITOR'S CODE (IPSO WEBSITE)

OWNERSHIP Russia limits foreign ownership to 20%

In very stark contrast to British (de)regulation and laissez faire media market, dominated by foreign ownership and with the one major British success story (the Beeb) under intense threat, Russia has introduced strict ownership limits.

Jeremy Corbyn has hinted at a policy of forcing media conglomerates to break up, divest subsidiaries (with Murdoch's empire thought to be a key target) - one reason why he faces such incessant flak (yes, Chomsky's concept, filter, once more) from a hostile press.

Vladimir Putin had responded to his own dislike of media criticism by effectively forcing a series of high profile, influential western media outlets to be sold to Russian companies, reducing the likelihood of media scrutiny.

In the land of the free (market) this has not gone down well, but, although its limits have been steadily diluted, the US's main federal regulator, the FCC, also enforces limits on non-US ownership of media. Murdoch took on US citizenship to be able to expand his American holdings. He faced no such issues in the UK when buying the Sun and Times newspapers, nor when buying out BSkyB shares ... at least until the phone-hacking scandal saw public outrage trump the complicity of a friendly free market government.

Axel Springer sells off Russian media assets to comply with new law.

OFCOM C4 seek to fight political attack

Here's a new twist on media regulation: C4 have responded to a strongly worded attack from parliamentary authorities, condemning its exposé of senior politicians' alleged corruption as an unwarranted, unethical invasion of privacy, by calling in OfCom themselves.

C4's move is clearly intended to rebut the political attack, a novel approach.

Both the BBC and C4 appear to be under threat of privatisation from a Tory government (and right-wing press) that perceives both these PSBs as leftie, liberal outfits biased against the Tories, social conservative values, free market ideals etc

Ofcom asked to investigate sting on ex-foreign secretaries.

Channel 4 has asked the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, to investigate a cash-for-access sting on two former foreign secretaries after criticism over its reporting of the allegations.

The parliamentary commissioner for standards cleared Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, and said the damage done to the former MPs could have been avoided if Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Daily Telegraph had accurately reported the exchanges they had filmed.

The broadcaster has issued a defiant statement defending its journalism and took the unprecedented step of asking Ofcom to look at the case.
The move will put Channel 4 on a collision course with Straw, Rifkind and the parliamentary authorities, who have been quick to claim that the programme was the result of shoddy journalism.

David Cameron issued a statement through Downing Street welcoming the fact that “Sir Malcolm, and his family, can now put this distressing episode behind them”.
Insiders at Channel 4 maintain that it is in the public interest to expose politicians who are happy to use their positions for private gain.

Daniel Pearl, editor of Dispatches, said: “This programme raised important questions which concern voters about how senior politicians are able to use their public office for personal financial gain. This is a matter of public interest and was a legitimate journalistic investigation.
“We’re confident in our journalism and have decided to take the unprecedented step of inviting our statutory regulator Ofcom to investigate the report.”

Peter Preston has since written an interesting opinion piece on this for The Observer.

Rifkind and Straw are cleared, but parliament’s rules remain murky.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has its own rules about stings. You can’t just trawl around for dirt without reasonable cause for specific suspicion. (That’s why those same rules against trawling stung the Telegraph when Vince Cable was a victim a few years ago). And Ofcom - a statutory regulator, remember - has different rules again, which Channel 4 traditionally applies with added rigour. There has to be evidence-gathering in initial investigations: no trawling. Two exhaustive stages of form-filling - first for filming, then to secure permission to broadcast - must be completed through the production process. Two lawyers sit on top of it throughout. This isn’t the wild west, or an excuse to run wild around Westminster. 

So here’s the rub. You can quite see why Rifkind and (especially) Straw felt themselves hard done by. You can understand why the MPs’ committee Hudson reports to clambered onto a high horse. But you can’t quite see why the film shown and the offers made weren’t assessed as multimedia, not just as print transcripts. Nor is it easy to understand a process where the ombudsman meets in person with aggrieved parliamentarians, but doesn’t seek personal appearances from the journalists involved. Seven years after the Telegraph’s revelations about MPs’ expenses, and 27 years after “Cash for Questions”, parliament is still doing its own regulatory thing. Channel 4 is right and feisty to take its case to Ofcom. Ipso, anxious to set standards as well as hear complaints, might prod the Telegraph to do likewise.

FUTURE Could Corbyn reintroduce ownership limits?

It is abundantly clear that a right-wing government able to rely on generally favourable coverage from a UK press which is also largely right-wing, and which has undermined the BBC's finances so radically, will have no desire to regulate on media ownership.

Quite the opposite: should we expect Murdoch to resurrect the buyout of the 60% of BSkyB shares his conglomerate doesn't own - so inconveniently halted by public outrage over his paper's phone hacking of Milly Dowler? Probably, yes; despite the protests of the Culture Select Committee and others, the Tory Culture Secretary was set to wave it through pre-Leveson.

Now we have a left-wing Labour leader, will there be a sharp end to the consensus over free market, laissez faire media regulation? Again, probably.

Corbyn has said little on this yet, but his one utterance directly attacked concentration of ownership and many perceive Murdoch's empire as a target.

Let's not forget that Tom Watson, who doggedly pursued News International and the phone hacking story even when directly threatened by the Murdoch press, and at the cost of his marriage, is now deputy leader.

The Blairite right-wing Labour MPs will doubtless argue that Labour needs to court the likes of the Mail and the S*n - after all, Tony himself flew out to Australia to genuflect before the great man in advance if the 1997 election.

Such arguments will surely now be rejected, and we can expect to see a sustained, vicious barrage of flak to shoot down this counter-hegemonic force.

The largely hostile coverage in the Guardian suggests that there might be friendly fire too, even if Greenslade thinks the paper will be neutral.

Greenslade also states that Corbyn has to become PM to change media policy, but that isn't necessarily so. We saw under the coalition government that the backbench Select Committee undertook the scrutiny that the responsible government minister, Jeremy Hunt, appeared reluctant to, including Watson famously describing James Murdoch as a Mafia boss.

With some cross-bench support (ie, Labour, Tory and others) its recommendations could still be enacted, though whether it will put forward any radical changes, other than eviscerating the BBC, does seem unlikely.

We have also seen plenty of examples of backbench bills getting close enough to passing to force government to act.

Whatever now happens, the cosy consensus and hegemony of deregulation will at least be up for debate, marking a distinct shift in 36 years of both major parties cutting media regulation.

Jeremy Corbyn versus the media - will he take on Murdoch? 

The current Tory Culture Secretary could face charges for leaking anti-BBC briefings to the Sunday Times: John Whittingdale accused of misleading parliament over BBC story in Sunday Times.

IPSO Unfair says Blair as Mail complaint rejected

Tony Blair, alongside his attack dog Alistair Campbell, was seen as a master manipulator of the media, winning Murdoch's support and that of The S*n after he notoriously flew out to Australia to privately meet with Murdoch and strike a deal.

Now a former PM, he complained about a Daily Mail story on his refusal to follow Parliament's demands to submit to questions over 'comfort letters' sent to IRA men, a form of legal guarantee against prosecution.

IPSO rejected his complaint and the argument that the Mail had breached Clause 1: Accuracy.

Okay, he's a Labour ex-PM, but this still shows IPSO standing up to very powerful forces.

Tony Blair attacks 'major failure' at Ipso after Daily Mail complaint rejected.

FILM WEB PIRACY Contrast protest over MPAA with UK ISP Torrent bans

Quite a contrast...

In the US a combination of mass (including street) protest and tech-corporate lobbying (including paying for ads) stymied an attempt, led by Hollywood/MPAA, to make it easy to isolate websites accused of copyright infringement.

Move on 3 years and the likes of Google have swiftly jumped on a new attempt by the MPAA to bring this in by the back door - this time they're focussed on one site, MovieTube, but succeeding in cutting it off would establish the principle.

Here in the UK we have no triple democratic lock (House, Senate, Supreme Court in the US), just a supine Lords to check the power of a Commons which the PM can operate as an "elective dictatorship" (Lord Hailsham's infamous phrase, then attacking a 1970s Labour government) when a single party has an overall majority.

Here, ISPs already block a wide range of websites which serve as search engines for Torrents (a means of linking with multiple users globally to download often copyrighted material).

PM Cameron, to the delight of the likes of the Mail (which loves media regulation or censorship ... just as long as its not of the Press), is pressing ahead with proposals to enforce age ratings on music videos online, to make every online adult to state whether they're opting in or out to adult material (always a difficult definition), and have already enforced a ban on a wide range of adult categories.

Against the backdrop of an overwhelmingly right-wing press, traditionally in favour of conservative, censorial campaigns (so long as it doesn't impact their businesses), there's been little protest here - at least, little that the public might hear about through the mainstream media.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo claim MPAA is trying to resurrect Sopa.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo have accused US film studios of attempting to resurrect the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), which was defeated in Congress in 2012. 

The US technology companies joined together to file a brief (pdf) with New York courts urging judges to strike down a preliminary injunction filed by six film studios of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which calls for a blockade of the alleged piracy site Movietube.  

Sony, Universal, Warner Bros, Disney and Paramount are seeking to remove Movietube from the internet and stop internet companies linking to or providing services to the site, including search engines and social networks. 

“Plaintiffs’ effort to bind the entire Internet to a sweeping preliminary injunction is impermissible. It violates basic principles of due process ... [and] ignores the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which specifically limits the injunctive relief that can be imposed on online service providers in copyright cases,” the technology companies write in the amicus brief. 

They state that they do not condone the use of their services for copyright infringement and that they work with rights holders to tackle issues, but that the “proposed injunction is legally impermissible and would have serious consequences for the entire online community”.