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The Prisoner of Fleet Street
Tim Gopsill says Cameron has failed to grasp Leveson's neutered nettle.
DATELINE: 29/11/12
The fate of Lord Justice Leveson's measured proposals for media reform shows what happens when you try to be reasonable with the owners and editors of the national press.The judge produced a report, for all the outrage expressed at the conduct of the popular press, with relatively modest proposals.
Not a single person has differed from the conclusion that tougher regulation is needed; not even the Prime Minister, yet David Cameron still contrived to reject the whole thing by refusing to countenance the legislative authority needed to establish the body to do it.
Brian Cathcart, the former national paper editor who runs the Hacked Off? campaign, said the Leveson had "designed the report to be helpful to Cameron ... a workable and reasonable solution."
He said Leveson had done the job asked of him by the Prime Minister, but Cameron had not done his job of accepting the conclusions.
The reaction of the Prime Minister just confirms the persistence of the malady that led to the inquiry in the first place. David Cameron is the prisoner of the newspaper owners and editors who have ramped up a deranged campaign of attack on any suggestion of serious regulation.
Of course they will defend their territory. Of course they want to keep things as close as possible to the way they are. Of course to protect their power they will lie and bully and threaten. And Prime ministers will cave in to them.
This overwhelming media power was precisely the problem Leveson was set up to deal with, and precisely why radical change is needed.
Ministers are professing that they accept the report in full, simply recoiling at the possibility of statutory intervention. But this is wholly disingenuous, because without legislation their promises to respect the outcome of the inquiry are empty.
In terms of addressing the problem of media power, the report in fact does not go far enough. Leveson has ignored all the evidence from the CPBF, the Media Reform Coalition and others on the need to set limits on the range of media any company can control.
As the CPBF has been warning, Leveson sidestepped his own requirement to address questions of media plurality and cross-ownership. All part of the judge's doomed attempts to make the report Cameron-friendly, with nothing too hazardous within it.
Instead there are vague invocations of the importance of plurality but no measures to ensure it is maintained. Indeed, the power to approve or stop media mergers and takeovers that make big companies even bigger should remain, Leveson says, with the Secretary of State rather than move to the regulators or competition authorities.
It's back to Jeremy Hunt and BSkyB , when a politician was able safely to steer a massive takeover through – until it fell apart under the pressure of outside events.
That continues to be the lesson for the CPBF and others campaigning for media reform: government will try to close things down and leave the press alone.
And the campaigners who got the BSkyB deal stopped and forced the Leveson process to be launched must do it again. As campaigning Labour MP John McDonnell says on the CPBF podcast on the Leveson report, the real work starts now.
The podcast will be on this site soon.
Last modified: Thursday, November 29, 2012
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Previous Leveson Inquiry stories
Leveson reports
National editors distance themselves from Hunt-Black press reform plan
Lobbying for media reform
Newspapers accused of keeping readers in dark on press regulation
When is a last chance a last chance? Can John Whittingdale explain?
Leveson: the Press skews the debate
NUJ comes out in support of press regulation backed by statute
Mirror hit by High Court claims over phone hacking
Public demand greater role in press regulation, reveals report by Carnegie UK Trust
The Murdoch legacy
Leveson 'loading a gun' against papers, warns Independent's editor
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Inquiry: Will bribery of police and public officials emerge as a far greater scandal than phone hacking?
Our evidence to Leveson Module 4
Leveson: A tiger with no teeth?
Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone account
Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone account
Cameron's master class in spin
Osborne talent spots Coulson but denies there was a strategy to win the Sun's support
Leveson Round Up: Has He Thrown in the Towel?
Standing up for citizens' complaints
Operation Motorman - don't let it get away
Leveson Inquiry: Tories 'did not want to regulate press'
Alastair Campbell at Leveson: great theatre Mr Jay, shame about the questions
Brooks at Leveson: an insight into how the Sun exploited the political endorsement of the Murdoch press
Coulson at Leveson: a former spin doctor's master class in closing down unhelpful questions
It's not just about Murdoch - the whole system needs fixing
New Podcast: post Murdoch where is Leveson Inquiry going?
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Notices
Events & Announcements
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.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
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
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
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
Leveson Inquiry
Leveson reports
National editors distance themselves from Hunt-Black press reform plan
Lobbying for media reform
Newspapers accused of keeping readers in dark on press regulation
When is a last chance a last chance? Can John Whittingdale explain?
Leveson: the Press skews the debate
NUJ comes out in support of press regulation backed by statute
Mirror hit by High Court claims over phone hacking
Public demand greater role in press regulation, reveals report by Carnegie UK Trust
The Murdoch legacy
Leveson 'loading a gun' against papers, warns Independent's editor
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Fringe at the TUC
Leveson Inquiry: Will bribery of police and public officials emerge as a far greater scandal than phone hacking?
Our evidence to Leveson Module 4
Leveson: A tiger with no teeth?
Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone account
Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone account
Cameron's master class in spin
Osborne talent spots Coulson but denies there was a strategy to win the Sun's support
Leveson Round Up: Has He Thrown in the Towel?
Standing up for citizens' complaints
Operation Motorman - don't let it get away
Leveson Inquiry: Tories 'did not want to regulate press'
Alastair Campbell at Leveson: great theatre Mr Jay, shame about the questions
Brooks at Leveson: an insight into how the Sun exploited the political endorsement of the Murdoch press
Coulson at Leveson: a former spin doctor's master class in closing down unhelpful questions
It's not just about Murdoch - the whole system needs fixing
New Podcast: post Murdoch where is Leveson Inquiry going?
