closed

[Huguenot]

I get a bit tired with these 'thin end of the wedge' arguments.

The telephone is not the thin end of the wedge to brain control, the fridge is not the thin end of the wedge to Frankenstein foods.

Likewise a statutory body for press complaints to stop papers literally making stuff up to target a family who lost their child is NOT the thin end of the wedge for a Stalinist state.

I am persistently surprised when I hear grown adults making these claims. It's schoolboy conspiracy theories claiming that 'police' is the thin end of the wedge for Nazis.

Stop it.

[DaveR]

"I get a bit tired with these 'thin end of the wedge' arguments.

The telephone is not the thin end of the wedge to brain control, the fridge is not the thin end of the wedge to Frankenstein foods.

Likewise a statutory body for press complaints to stop papers literally making stuff up to target a family who lost their child is NOT the thin end of the wedge for a Stalinist state.

I am persistently surprised when I hear grown adults making these claims. It's schoolboy conspiracy theories claiming that 'police' is the thin end of the wedge for Nazis.

Stop it."

H, I don't tell you to stop pontificating about things you barely understand (I tried, it didn't work) so why don't you just read and learn?

At the moment there are legal controls over what newspapers are allowed to do in pursuit of stories (like criminal laws against phone hacking and harassment laws) and an assortment of legal controls on what they can print (libel, confidentiality, incitement etc.). However, these are part of the general law of the land that applies to everybody, and in many cases there is an explicit or implicit public interest defence. If as a journalist you break the law, you have to justify it.

What is now proposed is a system of regulation specific to the press, whose job will be to determine what newspapers should be allowed to print. This represents a massive change - not so much the thin end of the wedge as a great big elephant in a previously empty room. The question that should concern everyone, frankly, is who chooses the people who choose what you get to read in the press?

[Burbage]

DaveR Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What is now proposed is a system of regulation

> specific to the press, whose job will be to

> determine what newspapers should be allowed to

> print.

I think you've missed the point. The point is mainly that the civil law (the only bit the PCC was designed to circumvent) is inaccessible. The criminal law is enforceable, as always, by Plod. The trouble with that, however, is that there are no privacy laws and victims criminal journalism are often blissfully aware that they're victims at all. With the phone-hacking, it was a series of unfortunate leaks that opened the can of worms, not a stream of complaints.

Because civil law (mostly libel) is too expensive for most, the PCC was set up as a way to allow those with awkward grudges to be paid off cheaply behind closed doors, and the rest to be given the brush-off, thanks to the PCC's handy lack of an appeal process.

However, the PCC was rubbish even at that. First it was voluntary, so papers didn't even have to sign up to it's weaslish code of conduct if they didn't fancy it. And it failed to investigate anything much at all, preferring instead to lob gentle questions to PR departments and copy out the answers. In response to the phone hacking scandal, it went to the extent of printing a glossy report saying it wasn't a problem and nobody had ever done any. This is not surprising. Not just because self-regulation never really works (even when 'legally-underpinned' in the manner of the FSA, CQC, IPCC etc), but because such bodies are designed to insulate their members from the cost of defending themselves in court.

Leveson's solution is exactly the same as the PCC, with the exception that it'll be run by people appointed by another body run by people appointed by government. It will still be reactive (i.e. won't have any powers to look at pieces before they're published), and the only change will be to make it more independent from the press. Unless you're going to appoint it by lottery, then it's better, for tediously democratic reasons, that appointments are made, albeit at arm's length, by elected representatives rather than newpaper proprietors. Of course, that does mean it will be under arguably more government control, but we can change governments. We can't change Murdoch.

As for censorship, there's no chance of it. It will still only consider pieces that have already been published. If a government wants to suppress stuff, it's not the PCC it looks to, but the D-notice. And, for anyone else with enough money, there's the superinjunction (despite last year's fuss about superinjunctions, nothing has changed).

In summary, once you take into account the facts that (a) the law is not necessarily of much use, (b) the press is captive to plutocrats and © politicians pay more attention to the press than vice versa, then the whole idea of Leveson's recommendations being an unprecendented attack on a free and fair press looks risible at best. What's at stake here is the composition of a cut-price arbitrator handling bleats about old news. Whichever way you look at it, it's hardly a "massive change", and still as far from a Ministry of Censorship as you can reasonably imagine.

[Huguenot]

DaveR - "H, I don't tell you to stop pontificating about things you barely understand (I tried, it didn't work) so why don't you just read and learn?"

The world is a complex place, and it's entirely possible that your humphy chumphy world view based upon 'obvious' interpretations has been left spinning wheels in the dust by others who would prefer to think a few moves ahead.

I could 'learn' from you, but I'd have to surgically remove most of my wit and wilfully deny evidence sat proudly on the end of my nose.

In short, I'd need a mental wheelchair.

I'm very happy to listen to your somewhat childish arguments, but I hope you appreciate that if you make personal attacks I will gleefully lay out your shortcomings. ;-)

[????]

Of course, that does mean it will be under arguably more government control, but we can change governments. We can't change Murdoch.

but that's the point, we can and I suspect we always will be able to change govt BUT BUT BUT.......this is a point of principle NOT a point of pragamtism*. That point of principle being a free press.

*please note I said principle not idealism

[????]

of course govts won't use this sort of thing to try and muzzle the press....ahem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20697162

[thuhai7]

More info:

http://adf.ly/2038788/http://www.storingbooks.com

[WorkingMummy]

I myself am a bit hacked off by the hacked off campaign.

I agree with what has been said above about importance of a free press and about the already illegal nature of abusive behaviour. So take all that out of the equation, and what you are actually left with is a campaign about privacy. And given that people of interest to the press are, 99 % of time, kind of well known, then, whatever happened with the awful (and sub judicie) interception of Amanda Dowler's voicemail, this is mostly about the privacy of celebrities, politicians and the Royal Family.

But has it occurred to anyone else that the country has been sold a bit of a pup by the pro-privacy brigade? I totally revile MucMullen's phrase, that "privacy is for pervs". But it is bloody well for the rich. Yes, I feel sorry for Kate of Cambridge that her boobs were plastered all over the French press without her say so. But what woman without her huge position of privilege has access to a sunbed with a gorgeous view upon which she can take her top off and know for sure that only her husband (and servants) will see? I don't read the tabloid press much, do not care who the creator of Alan Partridge sleeps with, and feel very sorry for Steve Coogan that he was put through the mill. But if I, in my little life, had an affair and started to act out a mid life crisis, I can tell you, everyone in my very gossipy profession would find out eventually and talk about it no end for a while. News may even reach my spouse (and from his point of view, why shouldn't it?)

The nearest anyone in Leveson came to changing my mind was Max Moseley. However, as inspirational as he was, I was left thinking, "So, using your immense wealth, you went to a lot of trouble to keep your exclusive, expensive indulge-your-fantasy parties secret, and, er, someone found out. The libel was bad (and dealt with). But as for this "invasion of your privacy", what are you saying? You have a right NOT to be caught at it. Cos I can tell you, that is a right the rest of us do not have.

My point is, none of us has much privacy within our own world. People in the public eye just inhabit a bigger world than us, that's all. I for one get very angry with the idea that this entitles them to special protection. So people are talking about you in a way you don't like? Please!

I can see this is a slightly extreme view. Perhaps a tiny bit more extreme than what I feel deep down. But like I say, I'm hacked off!!!

[StraferJack]

[looks like this thread is now closed so have posted elsewhere too]

speaking of free press

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters

interesting developments no?

It also appears that the global press is interested but most other British papers strangely muted