MPS pushing for more regulation want a fettered and cowed press
The vote by MPS today is less about improved media standards than it is about muzzling honest debate
You may be forgiven for wondering why on earth the House of Commons is once again debating curbs on the press. Was this not all sorted out after the lengthy Leveson inquiry into the newspaper industry and its ethics? Has there not been a steady stream of prosecutions arising from the various hacking and bribery scandals? Now that most newspapers are signed up to a new regulatory body called Ipso, with powers to demand corrections and levy fines, is that not an end to the involvement of politicians?
Unfortunately not. In the Commons today, MPS will vote on amendments to the Data Protection Bill designed to whip the upstart media into line once more. One measure would mean that any publication that refuses to sign up to an officially recognised regulator known as Impress – a body largely funded, via two trusts, by Max Mosley – risks paying hefty damages if an action is brought against it, even if it wins the case.
I should repeat that in case the meaning is lost: if this newspaper publishes a story about an individual suspected of wrongdoing and is sued, it would have to pay all the claimant’s costs as well as its own, win or lose. This is because The Telegraph, along with 90 per cent of publications, has declined to sign up to the stateapproved Impress and subscribes to the self-regulatory Ipso instead.
Campaigners such as Hacked Off vehemently dispute the contention that Impress represents statutory control, insisting it is an independent, hands-off regulator established under Royal Charter. But that is precisely the point. It is a policing body whose job is to decide what is appropriate for newspapers to report and comment on. Such oversight is inimical to the notion of a free press that all these activists claim to support, but clearly don’t. It is a fundamental principle of free speech that journalists have the right to publish what they believe to be in the public interest and to answer for it after publication.
Arguments over press control date back hundreds of years. In 1644, John Milton published his pamphlet Areopagitica, a plea to Parliament during the Civil War for the right to unlicensed printing. Milton, who had himself been subject to censorship, did not argue that anything could be said or written without consequences; and neither do I. The point he was making was about censorship – shutting down the argument before it had even been made. The aim of threatening sanctions against newspapers, even if they get something right, would be familiar to Milton. It is designed to shut something down before the debate has even been engaged.
After all, who would risk launching an investigation that might have such baleful consequences, even if it is vindicated in court? Big national papers might carry on if they felt it was warranted by the public interest and the sanction could be afforded. But local papers, in often parlous financial circumstances, would not bother. The democratic deficit that is already apparent with a marked decline in the scrutiny of local political decisions would worsen.
It is not as though press misbehaviour has gone unpunished or the ramifications of the hacking scandal were not profound. A major national newspaper, the News of the World, was shut down, people have gone to prison and millions have been paid in compensation. Yet there are a good number of people, including politicians and others in the public eye, for whom this is not enough. They see this criminal behaviour as merely the most extreme manifestation of the pernicious curiosity of the press, and it is this that they cannot abide. They object to its infernal prying above all else. They may protest their undying belief in the rights of a free media, but their goal is its control and today’s proceedings in the Commons are the latest skirmish in this long battle.
Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, self-styled scourge of the press, is leading the charge to implement financial sanctions which a previous Parliament supported. The Government is opposed and there are hopes that a concerted campaign by local newspapers has persuaded enough MPS to kill off the plan.
A second Leveson-style inquiry is another matter, however, and there may well be enough support in the Commons to set one up, with some DUP MPS prepared to back it alongside several Conservatives such as Ken Clarke. But what is the aim here? The first Leveson inquiry had the power to see any document and summon any witness who would then give evidence under oath. Lord Justice Leveson called it “the most public and the most concentrated look at the press that this country has seen”.
When David Cameron set up the inquiry in 2011, the second stage was supposed to consider “the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International, other newspaper organisations and, as appropriate, other organisations within the media, and by those responsible for holding personal data”. But these, and allegations against other media groups and public officials, have been well aired in a series of trials. We have moved on. What purpose would possibly be served by going through it all again other than to renew pressure for tougher controls over newspapers?
It would be more honest if those pursuing these amendments stopped pretending that they are in favour of a free press. They want a fettered and cowed press, one that will be reluctant to hold to account those whose concept of free expression extends only to opinions they deem acceptable. They take the view that, somehow, the press is “too free” and the country would be so much better off with just a guiding touch on the newspaper tiller, provided the right people were doing the steering, or rather the Left people. Indeed, it is a rich irony that those on the Left who once looked to the press to expose wrongdoing in high places now seek to muzzle it.
The proceedings in the Commons today are a grotesque parody of what it means to be a free country. Campaigners who say this is exaggerated should consider why a recent global survey among journalists ranked the UK 40th on the World Press Freedom index, just above Burkina Faso. That is something to be ashamed of, not to be worn as a badge of honour.