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Media regulation - battle lines drawn?
Mike Jempson
From MediaWise, 9 February 2007. Mike Jempson is the Director of the MediaWise Trust.
DATELINE: 15/2/07The newspaper industry has vastly extended the remit of the Press Complaints Commission to include ALL content published (or should that be broadcast?) by online versions of newspapers and magazines. In effect it has pre-empted any recommendations that might emerge from the recently announced inquiry by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee into press self-regulation.
Sparked off by the controversy over the illegal gathering of personal information by journalists revealed at the trial of News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and in two reports from the Information Commissioner (see What Price Privacy? and What Price Privacy Now?), the inquiry is seeking views about what form of regulation, if any, should apply to online news provision.
This deft move by the industry should come as no surprise. The PCC was set up in 1991 to forestall statutory regulation at the time of the Calcutt inquiry into press invasions of privacy. In 1996, on the morning the PCC and its industry paymaster PressBof were to face a Select Committee inquiry into payments to witnesses, they announced a tightening of the editors’ Code to silence critics. Indeed, although it was not much commented upon at the time, the PCC agreed to police online versions of print publications when its former Chair Lord Wakeham announced reforms in the wake of the furore about press behaviour at the time of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
There are some who believe that the time has come to make a reluctant Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, take responsibility for podcasts and streamed video. Others believe that regulation should be abandoned altogether. In a recent report commissioned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (Future Broadcasting Regulation, DCMS, Jan 2007), Robin Forster envisages ‘a reduction in regulation and its associated costs - for example with greater reliance on self-regulation, and the exercise of individual consumer responsibility to address concerns about undesirable content’.
No doubt that would please those publishers who straddle both print and broadcasting. Online versions of Rupert Murdoch’s papers are further down the road than many. The online News of the World incorporates video into its news stories; the online Sun’s video section re-broadcasts bulletins from Reuters; The Times website has a section called ‘Times online TV’. Elsewhere the Telegraph online re-broadcasts news clips from ITN among others; the Daily Mail runs it own online showbiz news mini-programmes alongside trailers for the latest movies; and visitors to the Daily Mirror site can access its showbiz and sports video newscasts.
The link up between Virgin, NTL and Telewest with their all-in-one telecommunications, broadband and entertainments packages is just the latest evidence that cross-media ownership and technological convergence require a complete rethink of media regulation.
Stuck in the middle of this mess are journalists, expected to be multi-skilled and produce copy for all forms of outlet owned by their employers and being outflanked by so-called citizen journalists; whose ‘blogs’, mobile phone pictures and film clips have become a significant element in news gathering process. To which regulatory framework are they supposed to operate - Ofcom or the PCC?
Broadcasters retain public confidence because they are obliged to function under extensive but reasonable regulations. Print publishers believe that ‘press freedom’ requires them to be exempt from all but the limitations they are prepared to place on themselves. In our view press freedom is a responsibility exercised by journalists on behalf of the public, and the public has grown increasing sceptical about how much trust they can place in newspapers.
Meanwhile the PCC, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have just received a roasting from the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights for their attitudes towards the coverage of refugees and asylum-seekers; the Home Office, dissatisfied with the PCC’s rules about payments to criminals, is considering the retrograde step of making it a criminal offence which could apply to book publishers and film-makers too; and the Information Commissioner wants tougher measures to prevent the media from obtaining personal information by illicit means.
All of which argues for a full-scale, coherent and open-minded public inquiry into the role and function of the mass media and its regulation, rather than piecemeal and incoherent reform. PressBof, the PCC, Ofcom, the Information Commissioner, editors and journalists, parliament and civil society groups should be sharing the responsibility of devising ways in which media freedom, privacy rights and the public’s right to know can be enhanced by common and enforceable standards of behaviour rather than trammelled by unnecessary legislation.
For more information, contact 07968 031 532
Last modified: Thursday, February 15, 2007
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World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
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The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Journalism Ethics
New enquiry into press self-regulation
Independent journalist facing jail
Jail for journalists
Landmark Lords Libel Ruling
MEPs campaign to protect sources
It Ain't Half Homophobic, Mum: DeGrading the BBC
European Parliament initiative on protecting sources
'Conversation with a child trafficker'
Reporting Torture
The Moral Mirror
Fake news in the UK
Source's victory for Ackroyd
City Slickers trial
The Rise and Rise of the Censor
Product Placement
Children's rights v. press freedom - who wins?
Children's rights v. press freedom - who wins?
London Bombings: Missing Questions
Alter-EU launched
Marketing Labour
US threat to protection of sources
Protection of sources: 'A denial of justice'
Astroturfing
When errors hit the information superhighway
BBC puts its house in order (complaints-wise)
The Blame Game
Shock jailing of reporter in CIA-leak case
Faking It
The Guardian and the Lexus
Launch of The RAM Report
