Lessons from a scandal
While the onset of February usually conjures up dreams of escape to sunny climes, my current getaway fantasy puts me in a frontrow seat in Court 73 of London’s Royal Courts of Justice, now presided over by the stern, yet warm, Lord Justice Leveson. It would be an understatement to say I have become somewhat obsessed by the Leveson inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the British press, underway in London since Nov. 14. For any journalist who cares about our work and how readers perceive our work, this public inquiry is like a postgrad seminar into the law and ethics of media today. The inquiry, called by Britain’s prime minister in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closing of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World last July, is broadcast live online daily. Any chance I get, I tune in. Every night, I scour the websites of the British press and the BBC for daily reports and commentary. Around the clock, I haunt the Leveson inquiry website. What’s at stake in this courtroom is nothing less than the future of journalism and freedom of expression itself. Lord Leveson’s mandate calls for him to make recommendations to Parliament by next fall on “the future of press regulation and governance consistent with maintaining freedom of the press and ensuring the highest ethical and professional standards.” Leveson is asking tough questions about what is now regarded as the failure of media self-regulation in Britain, sparking fears of statutory regulation. “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us,” Leveson said in his opening address. “At the heart of this inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?” In Britain, the Press Complaints Commission is supposed to do just that. But throughout the past week, as current and past leaders of the PCC took to the stand in Court 73, the full extent of the failure of the PCC was writ large. A former director admitted the PCC was too “timorous” in holding the News of the World to account when allegations of phone hacking first surfaced. Lord Hunt of Wirral, current PCC chair, conceded that Britain’s system of self-regulation is no longer viable. “We need to bring forward proposals for radical change,” he said, adding that this crisis offers “a wonderful opportunity for the press itself to put its own house in order.” Certainly it is imperative that the press everywhere have its own house in order to avoid government regulation. As Hunt also told Leveson this week, statutory regulation of newspapers would “open a Pandora’s box” that could stifle free speech. While Leveson’s ever-fascinating inquiry is limited to the British press, we can expect that the fallout from this intense public scrutiny of journalistic standards will reverberate beyond Britain. In Canada in recent months, questions about media ethics and accountability have taken centre stage at public forums. In December, questions about the future of media self-regulation came to the fore as Newspapers Canada announced the launch of a study to examine the future of Canada’s six provincial press councils.
Ryerson University’s journalism research centre will conduct this study, to be overseen by ethics professor Ivor Shapiro, chair of Ryerson’s journalism school. Lawyer and multimedia journalism instructor Lisa Taylor will conduct the research.
John Honderich, chair of the board of Torstar Corp., has provided an “arms-length” personal donation to fund this study. Honderich, whose father, former Toronto Star publisher Beland Honderich, played a key role in the creation of the Ontario Press Council in the early 1970s, believes strongly in the value of effective media self-regulation.
“It is time to consider better ways to deal with issues involved in the way journalists do their job, based on ethics and accountability to the public,” Honderich said.
This study is expected to seek public input to “examine options for ensuring that public concerns about the practice of journalism are heard and addressed.”
While details of the study’s research methods are still being finalized, I don’t expect this Canadian initiative can or should replicate the depth and scope of the Leveson inquiry. Thankfully, the worst excesses of the British press are not part of our media culture.
Still, there is something to be learned by Leveson’s scope and approach, most notably his broad public consultation and the neartotal transparency of proceedings, open daily to the public.
Some of what’s come to light is none too flattering to journalism. But in shining his inquiry’s light on the “dark arts” of British journalism, Leveson is providing vital lessons on journalism and democracy — lessons that bear some serious thinking beyond Britain’s borders. publiced@thestar.ca