Parliament v press over post-PCC regulator

Daily Mail splash on the battle over press regulation

See Media Guardian's press regulation micro-site for lots more news and analysis on this.

So... we initially had the Tories seeking to minimally apply Leveson, backed by most of the press (The Guardian and Indie took a separate line broadly favouring tougher regulation), seeing Cameron, otherwise criticised by the right-wing press for being insufficiently right-wing(!), hailed as a hero defending ancient freedoms.

Belatedly, the 3 big parties came to an agreement, and a beefed-up self-regulator, backed by Royal Charter (and with the threat of 'exemplary damages' hanging over any publications who refused to sign up), with no press industry right of veto over the members of the new organisation, was agreed. Notoriously, this was agreed at a meeting that ran into the early hours and included Hacked Off representatives.

Guardian led on the story

The press were not happy. Are not happy. So ... they've now come up with their own proposals! They reinstate the press' right to veto appointments. They keep a potentially stiff fines system (up to £1m - half of what the parties agreed upon?). They removed the right of parliament to reform this body with a 2/3 majority in the Commons. They argue such a measure would overturn '3 centuries of press freedom', a phrase you'll see used frequently in press coverage (referring to the 1694 abolition of licensing - that sounds better than 150 years (the abolition of stamp duty) which is more commonly seen as the moment when a free press was established, though Curran and Seaton would of course disagree!).

They also think they've managed to blocked the politicians' hopes of setting up a royal chartered organisation: according to their legal advice, if any royal charter is rivalled or seen as controversial it must be rejected.

The government, and major parties, say they're determined to press ahead.
The press are adamant they won't co-operate.

There is some divide amongst MPs: the influential Tory Chair of the Culture Select Committee, John Whittingdale, has written in the Sun stating he loves their proposal and would back it over the government's.
Its a year and a half since the PCC announced it was scrapping itself. It continues, with its successor still to be settled on.
Who will win this battle of wills and public opinion?

Sun was blunt in its threat to parliament

(article created after reading Roy Greenslade's typically sharp analysis, and Lisa O'Carroll's analysis of the likely political response to the press plan: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/apr/26/press-regulation-national-newspapers and http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/29/newspaper-industry-royal-charter-david-cameron)

EU Article 8 Right to Privacy + online issues

Its not just the press that raises issues around the right to privacy, enshrined in European law:

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. [source: Wiki]

ISPs and sites such as Google face huge pressures to store and pass on user data to governments and law enforcement agencies, and the UK is no exception, notwithstanding our supposedly high standards of democratic freedoms. Our governments, politicians and media routinely condemn 'authoritarian' regimes for snooping on their citizens and restricting freedom of expression, but how well does the UK's reputation stand up when scrutinised?

There are many examples of powers given to police and politicians to access our individual online footprints, including on social media and email, and no likelihood of anything but ongoing pressure (not least from the right-wing press, outraged as they are by any attempt to regulate the press as an attack on democratic values) to increase this. We're seeing this in April 2013 with the Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May attempting to pass new legislation granting government and police the right to access any part of 'suspects' online history, requiring the creation of a database of simply colossal scale:

May has fought hard for the legislation, designed to fill a growing gap in the ability of the police and security services to access records of the web and social media activity of serious criminals and terrorists.
The deputy prime minister sent the original legislation – the draft communications data bill – back to the drawing board after insisting it was first scrutinised by a committee MPs and peers.
The committee's withering verdict described it as "overkill", complained it "trampled on the privacy of British citizens" and said its cost estimates were "fanciful and misleading". They did however agree that new legislation was needed to plug the gap caused by rapid changes in technology.
The revised proposals tabled by May offered significant concessions but did not include movement on access to blogs or everyone's history of their use of websites or social media, or on requiring British phone and internet companies to intercept data from overseas providers. They proved insufficient to persuade Clegg to sign up to them.
Both parties campaigned on general election promises to roll back the surveillance state ... [source: Guardian]

I'll add links to previous posts on SOPA etc later.

1989 Calcutt Committee: parallels with Leveson today

To understand Leveson you really need to grasp the lessons of history - and there are striking parallels between Leveson, which is set to lead to a new self-regulator under some threat of statutory regulation if the press doesn't clean up its act, and Calcutt, which was ... basically the same in this regard. Both were set up after public outrage over tabloid excesses, with privacy issues to the fore. Both were set up with the existing press self-regulator, then the Press Council, now the PCC (although its chairman Lord Hunt announced its intention to replace itself back in December 2011), widely seen as having failed.

Indeed, both could/should have been replaced earlier if there was political will: the 3rd Royal Commission was scathing of the PC, whilst Calcutt's 1993 review strongly recommended statutory regulation be brought in. A weak Labour government in 1977 was no more willing than a weak Conservative government in 1993 to attract the damaging hostility of most of the press (although Labour could arguably have taken the chance as most of the right-wing press was very hostile anyway).

If we roll on to 2013, we once more see a weak government, at least the majority Conservative part of it, resisting pressure from the other parties to carry out the recommendations on press regulation, calculating that this will lose them vital press support needed for the 2015 general election. Indeed, since PM Cameron came out against many of Leveson's recommendations, carried in his initial November 2012 report, he has seen negative right-wing press coverage flip, with Cameron hailed as a hero safeguarding democratic values.

Its worth noting here that you shouldn't judge an argument's merits purely by its source! There is an important principle at stake, though it is arguable that freedom of the press is only meaningful if the nature (therefore the regulations around (concentration of) ownership and proprietorial interference) of the press is fundamentally altered.

Here's some links for further reading:
Not a link: Curran and Seaton cover this!!!!
Indie article from 1993 by Maggie Brown and Michael Leapman - possibly the best of its kind, you get both the history plus searing analysis of the backdrop and relationship between press and politicians.
Guardian obit on David Calcutt.
Incisive 1990 article from Index on Censorship.
PCC Wiki, incorporates the history.

The Leveson Inquiry

I'll gradually add resources, including links to past posts, here...

BASICS
Wiki.

CAMPAIGN GROUPS
Demotix covers Cameron/Murdoch protests.
Guardian articles on Hacked Off.

CRITIQUES
Andrew Gilligan is hardly a go-to guy for impartial views, but interesting argument here comparing the post-Leveson regulation to Denmark's system (DTele).
LeftFootForward: a leftist blog's articles on media.

Select Committee role: the 2011 Murdoch hearing

As well as the formal media regulators we have to consider the role of Parliament in overseeing media regulation. Governments can set up one-off investigations at times of scandal over media (usually press) behaviour, as happened with the 1970 Younger Committee, 1989 Calcutt Committee, and the Leveson Inquiry (July 2011, reported November 2012, with a 2nd part to come following the end of criminal trials). The 1985 Peacock Committee was set up with the aim of getting support for privatising the BBC or at least applying free market principles to the TV sector rather than any scandal.

When issues are seen as too sensitive for one party/government to deal with, the major parties can agree to set up a Royal Commission, as has happened three times on the press.

Its easy to overlook the important role of backbench MPs here.

Through the Culture, Media, Sport Select Committee they can investigate any area of the media, and have been holding regular hearings into press standards, privacy and libel, with some particularly famous hearings including appearances by the Murdochs. You can watch the entire July 2011 hearing at which Rupert Murdoch, having declared this was the "most humble day in my life", was attacked with a shaving foam pie and rescued by his much younger wife (who would divorce him in 2014). James Murdoch also took considerable umbrage at Labour MP Tom Watson's description of News Corp as a "mafia-like organisation".

Some useful links:
Wiki: DCMS
2010 guide to junior Culture ministers
Wiki: Culture Secretary
Shadow Culture Secretary (2013: Harriet Harman)
Mail report on the July 2011 hearing
NY Times on the same

BBC investigated by OfCom for effin boat race

Good example of the overlap between the self-regulatory BBC and the statutory (strictly speaking, quango) regulator OfCom, which polices the BBC's content too: complaints over the audible swearing of a cox during the annual boat race coverage. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/22/ofcom-investigate-bbc-boat-race-swearing.

2013 Defamation law reform

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/libel-reform
Another topic to come back to, as its still working its way through Parliament. As I write, on 17th April, the Conservatives are being criticised for overturning a LibDem amendment which would force large companies to prove actual harm before being allowed to sue for libel, seen as vital to prevent the likes of Tesco (the example given in the article cited below) from preventing public criticism.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/apr/16/conservatives-block-key-libel-reform, and check http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/libel-reform for more updates on this.

Thatcher death + media reg

Typical anti-BBC flak from the Mail elides public and the Mail (read more)

Its become a cliche - in most media, just not the right-wing press - that Thatcher's death and funeral has proven as divisive as her political career. We're also seeing both the press and broadcast TV engage in some informal self-regulation, with flak flying from a particularly gung-ho right-wing press (ie, every national daily bar the Indie/i, Guardian and Mirror) over any attempt to do other than celebrate and glorify the former PM and her contribution to national life.
I'll probably add more to this over time, but, writing before her controversial £10m funeral on Wednesday coming, here's a few pertinent points on this...

CLEAR BLUE LINES: HOW THE PRESS REPORTED HER DEATH
More below on the anti-BBC flak that featured in this, but you can see a very clear example of how the right-left binary functions in our national press through their coverage of her death.
You can view every front page here; analysis here.
The Mail and Mirror fronts sum it up rather neatly: grim-faced, divisive figure v bright, effervescent saviour (apt, as Maggie is held up as a divinity by the likes of the Mail)
Dissenting voices were rounded on by the Mail et al - indeed, the Telegraph took the highly unusual step of banning all reader comments on Thatcher's death/funeral, after they discovered many of these were highly critical of her. Of course, Leveson didn't mention online press content, so had nothing to say on this topic.

RIGHT-WING PRESS v (INdependent???) BBC

IN BRIEF: The BBC was roundly attacked for featuring any anti-Thatcher views, its presenters not wearing black ties from the moment Thatcher's death was announced, and not banning the Ding Dong the Witch is Dead track

Leveson summary at March 2013

JUNE 2014: This is great to look back at and get a clear sense of what was proposed, and how very, very tame (yet again!) the new self-regulator IPSO appears - where's the power to fine up to £1m that was mooted for example?!

See the post below for a great table on the responses of the 3 big parties; victims and the press to the emerging proposals for a new regulator.
Here, I've copied in a point-by-point FAQ from The Guardian summing up many of the points you need to know to really grasp this thorny issue
Its also necessary to put this into wider historical context, something we'll look at in more detail

The press regulation deal – Q&A

Is it statutory regulation, how would the new watchdog deal with phone hacking and what do victims of media intrusion think of it?

• Lisa O'Carroll and Josh Halliday
• The Guardian, Monday 18 March 2013 20.38 GMT

The new press regulations will affect the newspaper industry – including regional newspapers and news-related websites, and magazine publishers. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

How will press regulation be different now from before?
Culture secretary Maria Miller has claimed the prospect of investigations, fines of up to £1m for the worst or serial offenders will make it one of the toughest regulators in the world. While the predecessor Press Complaints Commission had no powers to impose fines, it was its lack of independence from newspapers that caused its demise. Its inaction over allegations of widespread phone hacking at the News of the World led it to being branded a "toothless poodle". The new watchdog should be completely independent. The press will have no veto over who sits on the board and serving editors will not be members of any committee advising on complaints, unlike the old system in which editors adjudicated on each other.
Is it statutory regulation or not? (And what is statutory underpinning anyway?)
The new regulator will be established by royal charter, not law. The charter will be entrenched in statute so it cannot be changed by ministers. It could only be amended if there is a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of parliament. The wording, d

Leveson responses by parties press victims (Guardian table)

Handy resource from the Guardian here - click here to go to their site and download it

   Leveson Grid

Press unites against Labour-LibDem Leveson proposals

David Cameron has been the subject of much hostile coverage from a right-wing press apparently unhappy with the PM for not being right-wing enough. Today he is represented as an heroic figure, a true titan, single-handledly safeguarding British democracy from the terrors of state regulation of the press, whilst Miliband/Clegg (Labour/Lib Dems) are castigated as opportunistic anti-democratic hooligans with no sense of British history or traditions, taken in by the brazen buffoons of Hacked Off.

Which is one way to paraphrase today's extraordinary coverage of the ongoing parliamentary splits over how to implement Leveson's recommendations.
Roy Greenslade, as ever, provides a sharp summary of all this - you can see here a good example of what Chomsky's propoganda model referred to as "flak" (one of the five filters keeping radical or counter-hegemonic content out of mainstream discourse).
Political columnist Michael White also weighs in with a discussion of whether the PM is effectively in league with the Murdochs, fearing their wrath.

Cameron, the editors' press freedom hero, versus 'draconian' Miliband

Michael White

Friday 15 March 2013

The majority of nationals lauded the prime minister for his opposition to statutory underpinning for a new press regulator

The Daily Mirror’s headline on Friday.

Prime minister David Cameron might have enjoyed his national newspaper coverage this morning. It was predictable that his opposition to statutory underpinning for a new press regulator would be greeted by headlines in his favour.

Statutory Underpinning, the Leveson compromise

JUNE 2014: The consensus seemed to be that a new press self-regulator would be established, like the BBC, through a royal charter, NOT legisltaion (statutory), BUT that Parliament could intervene to change the terms of the regulator, its rules, if 2/3 of MPs and Lords voted in favour of this. Its that possible 2/3 vote that provided the 'underpinning'.

When reading about Leveson's recommendations you'll encounter the term STATUTORY UNDERPINNING frequently. So, what does this mean?

There's no precise answer as Leveson left the precise form of this open to debate among politicians. The principle, though, is clear enough: its a compromise between continuing self-regulation and introducing statutory regulation. It may mean that the press regulator is created through an Act of Parliament (so, has a legal status) rather than being created by voluntary agreement amongst newspaper owners. It may also mean that a review body is set up by Act of Parliament to regularly (probably annually) check that the press regulator is functioning as it should.

The idea also carries the possible threat of calling time in the last chance saloon: some politicians favour using statutory underpinning to give (essentially) self-regulation one final chance, BUT with the explicit reserve power passed at the same time which will see a more statutory body launched if this regulator fails as its predecessors have.

Statutory underpinning may also see a legally enforceable fining system introduced (also discussed is the idea of tax breaks for any companies to sign up to the new regulator, withdrawn from any companies - like Northern + Shell currently - who refuse to).

A few useful links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9711769/Lord-Justice-Leveson-insists-statutory-underpinning-does-not-amount-to-state-control.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-fenton/leveson-statutory-underpi_b_2237834.html;
http://hackinginquiry.org/debunking/six-degrees-of-regulation/;
http://www.mediareform.org.uk/featured/labour-promises-to-vote-on-statutory-underpinning;
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polislevesonblog/2012/11/26/arguments-for-statutory-underpinning-of-regulation/;
BBC report on different ways to regulate press;

Cynicism of press reaction to Leveson

I'll maybe use this post to gather together various resources on this point at a later stage, but for now some comments by Harold Evans (editor of the Sunday Times as Murdoch took it over, and author of some classic books on the press) caught my eye (and Roy Greenslade's). If you haven't already, note the key term thats emerging from Leveson: STATUTORY UNDERPINNING
 
Here's a couple of snippets:

"As depressing as exposure of the dark arts has been, it is deepened by the cynicism and arrogance of much of the reaction to Leveson, coming from figures in the press who did nothing to penetrate – indeed whose inertia assisted – the cover-up conducted into oblivion by News International, a cover-up which would have continued, but for the skill of [Guardian journalist] Nick Davies and the courage of his editor [Alan Rusbridger]," Evans said, delivering the Cudlipp lecture at the London College of Communications.
He added: "A certain rowdiness [in the press] is a given, but the misrepresentation of Leveson's main proposal is staggering. To portray his careful construct for statutory underpinning as state control is a gross distortion."
...
He concluded: "I regard the Leveson plan, with the exceptions mentioned, as I regard the proposals on statutory underpinning – as an opportunity, not as a threat. What further might the British press do if it were free of internal and external restraints inimical to excellence? If the intellectual analysis of the heavies' tremendous flair in tabloid journalism were bent to more positive outcomes – such as Hugh Cudlipp dreamt in his youth and achieved so well in his prime?"
Cudlipp edited the Daily Mirror in the 1950s and 1960s and is regarded as one of the greatest British newspaper executives of the 20th century.

[Source]

Burchill trans column: PCC + 3rd party complaints

Burchill's column attracted 1000s of comments + complaints. Pic source.

NB: The Observer was bought by The Guardian Media Group in 1993, and so is what you'd term its Sunday sister paper.

[Scroll to the bottom for an update, March 26th]

The PCC may have announced it was disbanding itself ... but it continues until such times as a post-Leveson successor body is set up. They've stepped into the row about Julie Burchill's Observer column, now removed from its website (a highly unusual step), which was seen to widely insult transgendered people.

Some key details:

• Dealing with clause 12 (discrimination) + 1 (accuracy); the issue of 3rd party complaints; the right to offend; the difference between columns and editorial: there are some links with the Iain Dale case (2010); Jan Moir's Gately column (2009), AA Gill's column on Clare Balding (2010) etc
• Read all of Roy Greenslade's columns on this here
• Burchill wrote a column for The Observer, sister paper to The Guardian;
• She and it were known for featuring controversial views;
• A January 2013 column set out to attack transsexual 'trolls' of her colleague Suzanne Moore, another columnist;
• the column featured strong derogatory terms for describing transsexuals ("screaming mimis", "bed-wetters in bad wigs" and "dicks in chicks' clothing")
• the paper received 1,000s of complaints; there were over 2,000 comments below the article
• the PCC received 800 complaints
• the topic trended on Twitter
• they don't usual respond to 3rd party complaints but did in this case because of the public interest
• PCC Editors' Code clause 12 states:

12	Discrimination
	i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability. ii) Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

• The Guardian, exceptionally, removed the article from their website (Greenslade argues this was wrong)
• A (Lib Dem) government minister (Featherstone) called for both her and the editor to be sacked
• An Independent readers poll saw 90% deem the article offensive
• It attracted a protest outside the Guardian offices:

An internal Observer inquiry, conducted by the readers' editor, Stephen Pritchard, accepted that the column had broken the paper's own code, which states that it "should not casually use words that are likely to offend". He said that it was published due to "a collective failure of editing".
Days later, a peaceful protest about the publication was staged outside the offices of The Observer and The Guardian.
The editors of both papers, along with other journalists (including me), have since been invited by a transgender group, On Road, to meet young trans people in order to understand the problems they face. [source]

• The Observer sacked her
• The PCC rejected the complaint; here's Greenslade on the decision:

Clearly, the PCC decided that Burchill's column, despite her colourful choice of language, could not be deemed to be prejudicial. In other words, she had a right to be offensive.
Reading between the lines, I imagine the commission took the view that it was a matter of taste and therefore lay within the editor's prerogative.

(SOME OF) ROY GREENSLADE'S COLUMNS ON THIS
Here's Roy Greenslade covering the PCC's intercession:

Columnist Julie Burchill attracted 1,000s of online comments

The Press Complaints Commission is to launch an inquiry into the publication of Julie Burchill's controversial column in The Observer that caused outrage among transgender people. The commission decided to act after receiving 800 complaints.
Though the PCC does not generally take up what are called third-party complaints, it has done so on occasions when it feels there is sufficient public interest in doing so.
Similarly, although the commission has been reluctant to investigate stories that involve groups of people in which no individual is identified, it has done so in the past.

Times/Murdoch + (non-)Freedom of Press

When Murdoch took over The Times newspaper in 1981 he was forced to guarantee editorial freedom from proprietorial interference (ie, from him). Independent directors were added to the board, and its written into the company's constitution that, for example, an editor can neither be appointed nor fired without their agreement. I'm about half way through the 1,000+ page official history of The Times (the volume covering the 80s; there are 5 or 6 more equally long books covering the earlier history!) in which the takeover features extensively - it has in any case been heavily featured in every book written about the press since the 1980s, as Murdoch's ability to control the editorial line of 'his' papers is seen as the exemplar of owner interference.
This came to mind from reading Roy Greenslade's column (Jan 2013), in which he urges the current independent directors to resign en masse as The Times editor has just resigned, stating Murdoch made it clear he wanted someone else in, but the board weren't consulted. This is a great, contemporary, example that helps evidence the argument that proprietors (owners) do have editorial influence over their papers.
Full article copied in below.

Times independent directors are not independent and should resign

When James Harding "resigned" as editor of The Times a month ago he told the paper's journalists:

"It has been made clear to me that News Corporation would like to appoint a new editor of the Times. I have, therefore, agreed to stand down."

His decision evidently surprised Rupert Murdoch. And it certainly shocked the independent national directors (INDs) of Times Newspapers Holdings. One of them was so upset he told friends he was planning to resign.
Given their remit, as set out in their witness statement to the Leveson inquiry in October 2011, I believe all should have resigned en masse. But there's no dishonour in doing it now.