Leveson tells media to set up independent regulator or bow to Ofcom

summary

In the executive summary, just print from page 33 onwards (on the printed page, this is 32 onwards) -this will give you the Summary of Recommendations.

None of the press have to sign up to join any body of any sort. So no change then. The 'Encouraging Membership' section (printed page 35 of the executive summary) is a complete joke as the first paragraph is "A new system of regulation should not be considered sufficiently effective if it does not cover all significant news publishers."

This means, without compulsory membership, the whole proposal falls apart. Not enough carrot and nowhere near enough stick.

People will say, what about publishers on things like Twitter? Well, you could have compulsory membership for any organisation where the revenue is greater than £10,000 gained as a result of information being generated, weather to the author or technology provider (online or print).

What a waste of time and money.

what a pile of shit.

basically the status que with few tweaks.

printed press should have to abide ny the same rules as TV media

Just watch as nothing happens

You only have to look at the apoplexy affecting the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Sun in particular at the moment to see the overt hostility to any form of regulation. This of course has nothing whatsoever about their fears of censorship and everything to do with them afraid of being held to account if they repeat some of the atrocious things they have done in the past. The press complaints commission was a poodle and that's just the way they liked it.

The government will make a lot of sympathetic noises and do its upmost to not do anything at all. Press regulation would make the press cross and if the press are cross they'll take it out on the government.

Or they could just do a Starbucks

The newspaper is owned by "Tits and Bums - Grand Caymen ltd", the web site is hosted in Libya, the printing is done by a wholly owned subsiduary who has no editorial control and the "journalists" and editors are all self employed contractors.

So you print a story about John Smith and even if he does sue - the only people the court can go after is a few easily replaceable journos.

Paying attention to what the press say about this seems to me like asking the criminals what sentence should be imposed - and even what counts as a crime.

The new West Lothian Question

One detail many seem to have missed is that press regulation is a matter devolved to the Scottish government - meaning whatever law Westminster might pass for England, Scotland will not be covered. Salmond had already rejected the idea of statutory regulation, even if Westminster did impose that south of the border; with the report published, he seems to endorse the compromise approach - but would the Scottish ombudsman body be the same one as England's? (Remember, during the Ryan Giggs gagging mess last year, the English gagging order only prohibited those south of the border from talking about him - so the Sunday Herald was free to publish the story.)

The concept seems a bizarre compromise to me: a "voluntary" regulatory body under the oversight of Ofcom, it says ... but opt out of that and you get regulated by Ofcom instead. Avoid government regulation - by involving the government regulator!

"Clearing" the police - the same police who took bribes and provided the press with illegal information - was a rather bizarre contortion too. Shouldn't they, of all people, be expected to obey the law?! (Those were plain old crimes, though: no need for an "inquiry", just a proper investigation and prosecution.)

Cue nothing happening

As we continue our national hobby of ordering expensive enquiries then ignoring the results. "These are not the answers I asked for"

Every sector that has the power to do damage has some sort of regulation - police, health, tv, schools, phone networks... and the press in general has shown they do have that power. So I'm all for something other than a recourse to the courts after the fact.

I'm quite gobsmacked there's so few responses

I'm quite gobsmacked there's so few responses to this article. It's actually a helluvan important issue in the country.

We CANNOT have any controls against free speech. Full stop. The press as much as anyone must be free to say what they want.

However, when they do say something bad - damaging - hurtful - not true, they MUST be held to account, they must atone for their sins.

So if it's a printed nasty, then a printed retract in exactly the same place in the same publication, as the original slander. Then a fine on top of that for getting it wrong against public morality.

And absolutely strong policing of that. This is the ONLY place that legislation should come into it. On the redress side. And there has to be a body that makes sure this happens, because the average wage earner is never going to be able to hire QCs to do it.

Forget regulation of what the press says - but hammer them when they do it badly for the sake of profit.