Less than two hours after the Leveson report was published – just over 24 hours after he gained first sight of it – the Prime Minister rejected the report’s central recommendation. But, in his same Parliamentary statement, he committed to creating a new, independent system of press self-regulation that adhered to the Leveson principles.
Having rejected the first he is now failing on the second.
Central to Leveson’s criticisms of previous self-regulatory systems was the way in which they were set up. Each time, Leveson said, the industry focused on its own needs and not those of the public. Each time the result was a system that served the industry well but failed the public. Any new system, Leveson makes clear, should be set up in consultation with, and with the direct involvement of, the public – including the victims of press abuse.
This did not happen with the plan submitted by the industry to the Leveson Inquiry – the so-called “Hunt/Black” plan. The judge said he found it remarkable that, even after all the revelations about phone hacking and press abuse, Lords Hunt and Black could develop a proposal without involving victims, civil society groups or working journalists.
Leveson writes:
I find it extraordinary that, given the acceptance by Lord Black and the newspaper industry that the current system of press regulation has lost public confidence, they did not regard public views on the matter as of sufficient interest or importance to make any effort to ascertain them. I find it more extraordinary that, having had its attention drawn to this point by the Inquiry, there is still no sign of the industry making any effort to understand public expectations in relation to press standards. This lack of interest in the views of the public may be symptomatic of the approach that the press has consistently taken towards regulation over many decades. It demonstrates the extent to which the press continue to prioritise their own interests, with consideration of the wider public interest only in as much as it applies to the importance of protecting the freedom of the press, and only then to the extent that they can appoint themselves the arbiter of it.
As a result, the industry’s plan, like so many others before it, was biased against the public, and against the victims of press abuse. “It is important to note,” the judge writes on page 1622, “that the proposal put forward by Lord Black gives no rights of any sort to members of the public”. This is why, he says, so many previous systems have failed and why the new one must be built differently. “I have said, many times,” he continues, “that any new regulatory system must work for the public and for a system to work for the public it should have the rights and interests of the public at its heart.” The proposal put forward by the industry “manifestly fails that test.”
If there was ever a “Leveson principle”, this is it. A new system of independent self-regulation cannot be credible if it is not developed with the public at its heart, and done in an open, transparent and accountable way.
Yet this is the opposite of what is happening. A new system is being developed, at great speed, by senior government ministers and officials, and by newspaper editors and senior executives, entirely behind closed doors. Senior government figures are, we are told, devising an alternative to Leveson based on “Royal Charter”, a use of Royal prerogative created almost a millennium ago and used mainly in the medieval and early modern period.
A more opaque, Byzantine solution to the problem Leveson was seeking to address would be difficult to invent. A less democratic, open and transparent vehicle is hard to conceive.
At the same time a group of editors and senior executives are meeting, it is reported, on an almost daily basis to thrash out a new system of self-regulation that is “Leveson-compliant”. We do not know how they define Leveson-compliant, or even who is meeting or when since the process is shrouded in darkness.
At no stage in the last three weeks have either the editors or the government sought to make the process open or sought to include the victims, civil society groups, or working journalists.
To devise a solution in such an occluded and secretive manner contradicts the first Levesonian principle. If it does not change it will be the second betrayal of the public and victims in almost as many weeks.
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