so after squillions of pounds, a pie in the face for murdoch, some brilliant inspirational material for The Thick Of It

we get the result today………..

my money is on some sort of legal restriction that the press will bemoan, most people will be all ‘meh’ about and will get kicked into the long grass and diluted down to nothing anyway

❓

Isn’t it tomorrow?

PM gets his copy today IIRC?

Am in no way condoning the activities of any of the press but I think it would be of great concern if we had restrictions on the press. There seems to be some (especially) politicians who think that a free press is a bad thing, it’s not perfect but I sooner have the scum press free than have any state involvement in any news reporting. Before long it would be control of the press.

ooops im getting ahead

i suppose there will be leaks a plenty though

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOiW4R2uNTs[/video]

Ive always liked fraser nelson.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/11/leader-why-the-spectator-wont-join-any-statuatory-backed-press-regulation-body/

and I think he’s right here too.

apparently 80% of daily mail readers think there should be some sort of statutory regulation, do they realise their paper of choice would be lacking in content if it had to be honest!

Yeah, tomorrow for us plebs.

The press are, unsuprisingly, whinging about the prospect of regulation. They’ve enjoyed being able to ‘mark their own homework’ for a long time. There is/was of course the loophole whereby if a paper didn’t pay it’s PCC subs, then it was no longer regulated by them. Which is what the Express and Star have done.

There’s a difference between the government running the press and the government putting a statute in place that allows an independent body to regulate the press. The papers seem to be turning the latter into the former.

Edit: Would we end up with an OfCom for the press? OfPress? that seems to work, it’s not as if tv programs are banned from criticising the government.

Self regulation always seems a pretty straightforward thing- you try it, see if it works, if it doesn’t then you stop it. Obviously it hasn’t worked in this case. People don’t get to complain about not being trusted, when you trusted them before and they abused it.

There’s no way on gods earth that a government containing Dave, Gideon, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove are going to implement anything that will even remotely impinge on any of Uncle Ruperts activities,no matter what Levenson says.

I could have told anyone that 12 months and 70 squillion quid ago. Expect a few weeks frothing from the press then a “we’ve decided to give self-regulation one last go (again)” announcement from Dave

A pointless and pathetic sham exercise in ‘Democracy’ to appease an outraged public, that ultimately won’t make a shred of difference to anything. Normal service (phone hacking, bribery of public officials, police collusion) all resumed within a month. With half the Tory cabinet writing self-justifying columns about it in News International papers. Guaranteed 🙄

Edit: Would we end up with an OfCom for the press? OfPress? that seems to work, it’s not as if tv programs are banned from criticising the government.

Yes. And Ofcom specifically is an example of why a similarly enacted body for the press would be fine. If one type of media can tolerate regulation in this way, then I’m pretty certain that others can.

Which raises the question: where does regulation begin and end? Just newspapers? Online? Blogs maybe…

Which media body blew the lid on Jimmy Savile?

Are they subject to statutory regulation?

Hint: the answer isn’t “the written press” and “no”

Which media body blew the lid on Jimmy Savile?

Are they subject to statutory regulation?

Hint: the answer isn’t “the written press” and “no”

ahem

http://www.exacteditions.com/read/oldie/april-2012-30446/7/3/

The Oldie’s limp saveloy enlivens the BBC’s Jimmy Savile ‘Cover Up Scandal’

here was me thinking it was to appease a bunch of winging celebrities. Love em or hate them the newspapers tell you who the idiots are and I’m not talking about the content.

It’s not about the celebs. The papers would have you believe that a bunch of ungrateful stars who relied on the press to make them rich are angry that their ‘indiscretions’ are reported. That’s not it.

It’s about the grieving families who ask to be left alone, but are still hassled by photographers. Because you can’t report on a tragedy without a photo of a grief stricken parent begging the paps to leave her alone. It’s about innocent people (Chris Jeffries, Robert Murat, Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson) who with or without the police’s collusion are smeared in the press. It’s also about the press and the powers that be having both of their snouts in the same trough. The press can’t exactly be relied on to hold their best mates to account.

“Freedom of the press” is surely the most abused concept in modern society.

sign away!

http://hackinginquiry.org/petition

this’ll be the press that exposed other parts of itself for ccorporate and political corruption. well, Good! Don’t put legislation on something that works.

Has anyone found decent summary of the reasons for and against legal enforcement? I tried the exec summary, found Cameron’s explanation too shallow and the papers are probably the last place to look.

Is Cameron’s only objection that the statutory enforcement could lead to more draconian steps at a later stage?

Not my words, but briefly captures why I think there’s no need for statutory regulation…

The statute books have already outlawed everything that the small minority of crooked journalists were doing that lead to the Leveson inquiry. The laws were sufficient to punish wrong-doers. Politicians and police [many of them also quite friendly with powerful figures in newspaper publishing] couldn’t be arsed to know what was happening or to do anything about it.

Who’d have thought it would be Hugh Grant who is trying to clean it all up for us?

apparently 80% of daily mail readers think there should be some sort of statutory regulation, do they realise their paper of choice would be lacking in content if it had to be honest!

That was the answer but what was the question? The Mail has curious knack of asking questions that can’t answered with a yes or a no – but the readers somehow manage to respond to the poll anyway

It is pretty complicated. The arguments are not that well developed, I think there are a number of concerns. First, there is a necessity to define what requirements that any independent body regulating the press would be required to do. This effectively means the legislation is driving what needs to be monitored and this could be changed over time to mean that the regulator would be required to enforce the legislator’s will against it’s members i.e. the press. Second, the existence of a backstop regulator in the form of Offcom does not work as appointees to it are political appointees because they are made by the government. This is less of a question for broadcast media as they are required to be impartial anyway.

One question I do have is whether the mere recognition of the existence of the regulator in legislation would exercise the press. For instance, membership of many professional institutes are recognized in legislation as such membership is required to perform a function. Yet these institute has historically been independent and free to set out their own rules.

“Freedom of the press” is surely the most abused concept in modern society.

+100. Freedom doesn’t mean free for all, there are still lines within it that should not be crossed. They still don’t understand this.

Cheers Mefty

Leverson Inquiry Shocking Find by Johnclimber, on Flickr

Please, please tell me that’s true.