YES – Jo Barrow
The Sun’s front page on the day of the vote pretty much epitomised the argument about press regulation for me, but perhaps not in the way that it had intended to. Hilariously appropriating Churchill’s words on the freedom of the press, the nation’s favourite paper invoked Godwin’s Law to a ridiculous extreme by more or less equating a moderate reform (that was already the diluted version of the result of years of painstaking inquiry) with Nazism.
This kind of black and white mentality is what is the root problem of all of the media’s faults. It is not a choice between untrammelled ‘freedom’ to lawlessly impose upon people’s lives and cause lasting emotional damage and distress in the name of ‘public interest, and a state controlled media – no matter how much the commenters on the Daily Telegraph website might want us to believe it.
Most of the country realises that now, but there are still those who whine that the press is self-regulating and that there have been arrests and fines aplenty following the hacking scandal without any laws needing to be bandied about. I would ask those people to really consider the atrocities that were committed before even an inch was given by the newspapers at fault. Reparative measures can only do so much. The media has been given hundreds upon hundreds of years to develop ethical practices and codes of conduct, but they pushed it too far one too many times, and now they need some kind of discipline. If I’m going to continue with the SuperNanny analogy (and I think I am), like bawling children the worst offenders are throwing their toys out of the pram in fury and frustration, unable to understand this new world with adult responsibilities and limitations.
Consider: It is the Daily Mail Group, Telegraph Media Group and News International who are most terrified of this legislation. Far be it from me to point out that it is their newspapers whose actions brought about this legislation, and in no-one’s eyes (I hope) could anyone believe that the future of journalism should follow such standards as set out by them. The press reform reads like obvious common sense to anybody with half a brain, it just shows how far standards have slipped that such uproar has come about as a result of it. Nothing has really changed for the credible journalists out there; the state is not controlling anything (thanks to Miliband et al). Nonetheless, if the changes make the difference that the gutter press fear, then I look forward to journalism becoming a respected profession, to journalism that values truth above entertainment value, and to a press we can finally be proud of again.
NO – Alex Finnis
The British press has been a free press since 1695 – that’s 318 years. It is a fundamental part of our country that is not just about journalists being allowed to write what they want, but about the British population as consumers of newspapers, websites and blogs having the right to read it.
Now a group a politicians, a three-way coalition of political parties, none of which were good enough to secure an outright majority to be in power, are trying and succeeding to take this away from us, and this can only be bad news for our country.
The Leveson Enquiry was triggered by the News of the World and the phone hacking scandal. No one would argue that some of the behaviour of journalists here is any less than despicable – you only have to look at the case of Milly Dowler and family to see that, but there is absolutely no need for a press regulator, and particularly one with statutory underpinning, to counter this.
Phone hacking is illegal – it is as simple as that. Maybe what we need is not stronger regulations on the press but a stronger police force and harsher penalties.
Similarly, this regulator is being set up to cut out the untruths – damaging lies seen most frequently in the tabloids that threaten to defame a person’s character. Again, this country has very strict laws against libel and defamation, and the increasing ability to sue on a no win, no fee basis means that taking action against the big papers is no longer something that is reserved for the likes of the bigwigs and celebrities.
Regulating the press is not the answer here, but taking action against already illegal activity, and prosecuting harder for it, is.
To let the government take any kind of hold on our press is to start the descent down a steep and slippery slope. They say now that the regulator will not apply to the likes of bloggers, news aggregators and student publications such as our own, but how long will this last? How long will it be until we see fines slapped on individual bloggers for wanting to voice their opinion on their internet or even on a Twitter member with a sizeable following for tweeting a photo of a B-list celebrity?
Of course newspapers will be biased on this issue, everybody is biased about the things that they care about, but what they are opposing and what they are fighting for is not for an illegal right to report lies that they never had in the first place, but for the British public’s right to an uncensored Press.
The phone hacking scandal may have damaged journalism, but to regulate the press would damage it far further.
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The laws necessary to prevent behaviour like the phone hacking scandal already exist. Surely it is just a matter of enforcing them.
State press regulation is a serious restriction upon freedom of speech. Voluntary press regulation can and does work, not to mention phone hacking was already illegal.
Enforce existing laws and encourage good practice through civil society.
Don’t resort to state coercion to satisfy your prejudices against the tabloid press.