Leveson - the outcome

[bunchamunchycrunchycarrots]

previous thread & another one

So, the report will finally be made public tomorrow - wonder what the outcome will be? Will Cameron actually go with the recommendations or not?

I'm pissed off about this. The press in this country needs reigning in and the PM is too scared of them (and too chummy with some of them) to do it.

Freedom of speech is bog all to do with it. It's about not allowing them to stalk people, listen in on private conversations and make things up.

Ill try and read that link later hummingbirds once DD in bed, but ill take a wild guess and say its likely to be about a 'grand conspiracy' against free speech and the freedom of the press. The mail have been utterly transparent in their agenda throughout the inquiry and in all honesty, have been one of the main protagonists in the almighty mess the press had created. They, like many others, posted stories about chris Jeffries, and the mccanns so IMO are architects of their own fate. But, ill have a read later once I've read done other responses in the press too.

Your wild guess would be right OP. Dacre is also chair of the PCC....

There have of course been many calls to protect the freedom of the press to report on wrong doing by those in authority. Leveson said he supported that view.

Fact is though, many newspapers gave up either investigating or reporting news. It si too expensive an dpapers are losing money. Hacking a few phones of clelebs from your desk was quick, cheap and easy.

Bloggers and internet forums are much closer to many real news stories that deserve wider reporting but never make the papers.

Carl Bernstein who broke the Watergate story was on Channel 4 News and disagreed with ex-New Labour bigwig, Alistair Campbell, in that he was against any new legislation concerning the press. He said that this would be against free speech and a free press. Campbell, the socialist, said something like the press would face no restrictions for stories in the public interest. Bernstein wisely said that if it was down to public interest, then something like half teh stories in teh press would have to be removed, and that anyway, who should judge what is in the public interest - that was something for the public to decide.

Bernstein said that there are already laws to prevent press wrongdoing and that they need to be used and enforced.

It is surprising that the TV media don't seem to have asked Tom Watson for his reaction. I haven't seen him on TV tonight, but maybe I have missed him. The media seem to be spinning it as if it is about protecting the public from the press, rather than protecting the powerful people from the press.

The what's in the public interest vs what is interesting to the public debate has been going on for decades. It's almost impossible to define, and the vagueness helps the press get away with a hell of a lot. Almost anything can be twisted to justify it being int the public interest.

7 million pounds and no real change

I think it is in the public interest to find out what everyone in our institutions knew about Savile. Some people in institutions may not think so. I think a free press should be allowed to make decisions on public interest and be sued if they break any existing laws.

I don't think spin doctors in political parties should be able to influence what the public is told or should put pressure on editors not to run certain stories that may not be in a political party's interest, but may be in the public interest.

Some commentators are saying that Cameron has taken a libertarian stance over this, and some of the liberal, progressive parties seem to be less libertarian over this.

I think Lord Hunt said that some of the calls are regressive. I am not surprised that the progressives could be considered regressive.

There has been no similar public inquiry about the bankers wrecking the economy, and there is no public daily inquiry about Savile and how that could have occurred.

I don't think spin doctors in political parties should be able to influence what the public is told or should put pressure on editors not to run certain stories that may not be in a political party's interest, but may be in the public interest.

That's a really good point claig. It's the stories that aren't published that bother me most. Because the reasons for those stories being supressed are, to my mind, never the right ones. And they show the whole argument about having 'free speech' to be quite hollow when that free speech can be supressed so easily by money/power/influence rather than regulations suggested by Leveson.

I agree, bunch. It is like teh suppressed stories about Savile. The story was finally broken 1 year after his death. Why the wait? There is still lots that we are not told about many subjects. The press is not as free and not as in the public interest as it could or should be. But that is the real world. We can only encourage freedom and a free press and open up ownership and the means of communication as widely as possible and hope that different voices and different points of view will bring forth different stories.

Thankfully, there have been no calls to curb freedom on the internet, as some people have been calling for.

Freedom of the press and freedom on the internet is in the public interest.

That's a very good point Claig - where IS the independent inquiry into the banks? We've had investigations into MPs expenses, into the press, into the police over Hillsborough - but nothing about the industry that crashed the world economy and impoverished every family in Britain (and beyond).

Not surprised Leveson let the PM and Hunt off the hook - judges are always, in the end, deferential to the supreme authorities. I'm sure Leveson would be very rigorous if he was hearing a case involving a council, but a judge hold the PM to account? Never happened as far as I'm aware and never likely to happen. (Look at Hutton and Iraq - it's not a party political point, it's a government and judiciary point.) Let's not forget two judge-led inquiries into Hillsborough missed the glaring, obvious truth. It took the independent panel, led by a liberatarian Bishop and members of the public, to get to the truth. Even though it was there in plain sight.

I really don't understand the sophistry that must be involved in Leveson saying legislation to establish a press regulatory body somehow won't be statutory legislation... doesn't make any sense at all.

I am merely an editor (of a mere magazine, not a national newspaper so very little axe to grind) who strives for plain English. How can something be introduced by statute, underpinned by statute, but not be statutory? And the idea of the ultimate power being Ofcom... that's the kiss of death for independence. Good grief. As if print isn't dying anyway, let's get the incompetent, power-hungry bureaucrats in to give it a massive send off! I know you need to sort the Express problem (Express titles refused to have anything to do with the Press Complaints Commission) but Ofcom, FFS?

And what's the point of legislating for the national and local press when online is entirely unregulated - until you get a stern letter from McAlpine's lawyers after the event?

Basically if Murdoch et al are against the recommendations in the Leveson report and are presurising the PM and other MPs to reject some or all the proposals. Then Leveson must be on to something and his proposals should be put into practice. If Murdoch is against it then it must be good. look at the way he has allowed his editors to behave and he has stood by them. He has also used his huge influence to manipulate policy in a country in which is is not even a citizen. He is american as he had to change nationality to own media in that country. maybe Leveson should also make it a requirement that only citizens of this country can own the media.

I find it rather distasteful that Hugh Grant uses his celebrity status and influence to try to change the law on this issue when he clearly doesn't give a monkeys about the banks and how that affected ordinary people. And unlike people who have been compensated massively for breaches of privacy in the press, so many people who suffered at the hands of an unregulated banking system run on greed get nothing.

If Murdoch is against it then it must be good.

That's probably the most persuasive argument in favour of Leveson's report.

I find it rather distasteful that Hugh Grant uses his celebrity status and influence to try to change the law on this issue

I think in fairness to him, he's taken on the role of the 'public face' of those who have been adversely affected by the excesses of the press i.e. those who Leveson describe as having havoc wreaked upon their lives by the press. He's certainly got an axe to grind, but IMO he's taken the role lesser known people couldn't have carried off, with the same impact, by virtue of their lack of public profile beyond their name being the focus in whatever story they featured in.

It's tricky, isn't it? No-one really trusts anyone involved, esp journalists. Some of them, and some media titles, should have been eviscerated.

But Leveson couldn't do that because journalists will always be with us. But the excuse-making by journos on some of these threads has been a bit embarrassing.

Overall, I think Cameron will show himself up as the poor judger of individual and circumstance as he always does.
We DO need a legislative safeguard as the press have repeatedly shown they have nooooo idea what a voluntary code actually means. Be it a moral one, or a legalistic one, journos are hyenas.

pofaced you are conflating issues re celebrity to a wrong-thinking level. The floppy-haired one had no role in the banking crisis.

Unless you know something else??/

just me with an opinion after 11pm...

Does anyone know when Hacked Off started and when the Guardian started looking into the phone hacking etc. (i.e. what year etc.)?

We saw yesterday an interview that Charlotte Church did with Piers Morgan in 2003, where Morgan mentioned the fact that it was possible to listen into messages on people's phones if they did not change their pascode etc.

Did the Guardian and Hacked Off look into hacking years after this or was it in 2003?

Does anyone know when the first report about phone hacking by the press hit the headlines? (what year, what month)

no he had no role in it just taking up edam's point about independent inquiries and there not being one for banking crisis. And I do find it grating seeing him in Channel 4 news using his status to change the law on this issue.

I actually think Hugh Grant has been great throughout all this in explaining to people how this has affected people like him and has also been incredibly articulate with his arguments.

Just because he's famous doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to expect any privacy. Sure there's a trade off but the tabloids went WAY over the line.

bunchamunchy the impression I got from channel 4 news is that he has rather rich and powerful people funding his campaigning that wish to remain anonymous, and I find that of great concern if these people wish to change the law.