In this extract from After Leveson*, a book edited by John Mair, John Jewell, of the Cardiff school of journalism, takes us at the long journey that led publishers, editors, journalists and call hacking victims to the royal courts of justice for the Leveson inquiry. His story begins 66 years ago…
The first Royal Commission at the Press was established in 1947 “with the item of furthering the free expression of opinion during the press and the best practicable accuracy within the presentation of the inside track”.
In its 1949 report, it proposed that the industry should install a General Council of the click to control the behaviour of newspapers, in addition to considering conditions of employment and coaching, problems with ownership, and promoting the interests of the patrons.
In the years after the second one world war, the click was subject to the “personal control of interventionist proprietors,” comparable to Beaverbrook and Rothermere. Indeed, the cultural and political similarities between then and now are remarkable.
On the topic of journalists themselves, the report concluded: “One of the crucial spokesmen of the click who gave evidence perceived to us unduly complacent and deficient inside the practice of self-criticism.”
The commission also judged that the presentation of reports was often misleading and that there has been an inherent partisanship and political bias within much reporting. It was critical of proprietors for offering a very simplistic account of events instead of looking to educate their readers.
But the foremost recommendation of the report was the creation of a press council. Of significant interest was the proposal that roughly 80% of the membership “could be composed of newspapermen of 1 sort and another” and about 20%, including the chairman, “must be composed of outdoors people – fair-minded, good citizens.”
However, it was not until 1953, after a political threat to determine statutory regulation, that a general council was established. After which it included no lay membership. Within the words of Jeremy Tunstall, “while claiming to be within the public interest, the council was fairly transparently a defender of press interest.”
The second Royal Commission at the Press
It was clear by 1961 that the final council had didn’t engage with the diversity of reforms and practices outlined within the recommendations of the primary royal commission. It never really acted within the public interest – its members were newspaper people and its funding came entirely from the industry.
Crucially, it had no power to enforce any decisions it made. So the second one royal commission at the press (1961-1962), chaired by Lord Shawcross, was driven by the above issues, monopoly of ownership and by the closure of both national and provincial newspaper titles. Again, observe the parallels with the current day.
More than this, when the commission reported, it repeated the need – stated clearly in 1949 – “of a voluntary basis for regulation, but stressed the necessity certainly for a high-quality and credible body, with statutory backing if necessary…
“If… the clicking will not be willing to take a position the Council with the required authority and to contribute the required finance the case for a statutory body with definite powers and the fitting to levy the industry is a transparent one”
This time, the clicking was quick to behave, afraid of imposed radical changes. The overall council became the clicking council. Managing complaints became a fundamental objective, in theory at the least, and the composition of the council comprised 20% lay members, including its chairman, the judge Lord Devlin.
But certain things had not changed. Though the Devlin years (1964-1969) were considered to achieve success by some, the willingness of the clicking to pay for stories on the subject of high profile cases akin to the Profumo affair and the Moors murders, meant that the perception of a wilfully powerless organisation continued.
For something, it was still financially reliant on proprietors for funding and needed the approval and cooperation of the editors to operate in any respect. It was difficult to dispel the notion that the “long-term purpose of the click council was to behave as a public buffer, protecting the clicking from formal legislation and allowing it to hold on in much the identical undisciplined way.”
The third Royal Commission at the Press
This inquiry (1974-1977) have to be seen against the broader social and economic uncertainty of the days. The newspaper industry had its own economic problems but still the troubles over the “responsibilities, constitution and functioning” of the clicking council persisted.
Indeed, the 1977 commission concluded that the clicking council “has up to now did not persuade the knowledgeable public that it deals satisfactorily with complaints against newspapers, notwithstanding that this has grow to be seen as its main purpose”.
The report was highly disparaging of the council overall and made 12 recommendations, including the creation of a code of conduct on which it based its adjudications.
But the commission shied clear of recommending statutory powers for enforcement of sanctions. It was a whole four years before the council responded to the report in 1981 and rejected the notion of a code.
By this time the National Union of Journalists had withdrawn from membership of the clicking council since it was “incapable of reform”.
Calcutt one: an inquiry into privacy and the press
In 1989, Sir David Calcutt QC was tasked with heading a privacy inquiry looking into press intrusion. This measure had cross-party support and came at a time when there has been concerted public and political dissatisfaction with the perceived transgressions of the click.
The 1980s had seen The Sun and the Daily Mail face adjudication from the clicking council on many occasions. It was the era of tabloid exposé and celebrity revelation, and the click council was seemingly, over again, unable or unwilling to curb the numerous excesses of the newspapers.
The 1990 Calcutt report went over the identical ground as its royal predecessors – the click council was inefficient as an adjudicating body, it was still far too practically the proprietors, it continued to reject out of hand far too many complaints.
Calcutt recommended the establishing of a brand new Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to interchange the click council. The recent commission will be given 18 months to prove non-statutory self-regulation could work effectively and if it did not achieve this, then a statutory system will be introduced.
The home secretary, David Waddington, told the Commons: “Here’s positively the last chance for the industry to ascertain a solid non-statutory system of regulation, and that i strongly hope that it’ll seize the chance that the committee has given it.
“If a non-statutory commission is established, the govt will review its performance after 18 months of operation to make a decision whether a statutory underpinning is needed.
“If no steps are taken to establish this kind of commission, the govt., albeit with some regret, will proceed to determine a statutory framework, taking account of the committee’s recommendations.”
On that basis, on 1 January 1991, the PCC came into being.
Calcutt two: the review of press regulation
The first 18 months of the PCC was reviewed within the second Calcutt report, which was published in January 1993. The consequences could scarcely had been more damning.
It was deemed to has been a complete failure, with the pressing need for an independent body to be created which can restore public faith in critically damaged newspaper industry. Calcutt wrote:
“The clicking Complaints Commission is not really, for my part, an efficient regulator of the clicking. It has not been organize in a means, and isn’t operating a code of practice, which enables it to command not just press but in addition public confidence.
It doesn’t, for my part, hold the balance fairly between the clicking and the person. It’s not the truly independent body which it is going to be.
As constituted, it’s, in essence, a body arrange by the industry, financed by the industry, dominated by the industry, and operating a code of practice devised by the industry and that is over-favourable to the industry.”
For Calcutt, the clicking had had its final chance and the report recommended that the method toward making a statutory Press Complaints Tribunal begin. It also suggested measures intended to enhance standards, comparable to the concept editors and journalists be obliged by contract to conform with an industry code of practice.
It further said that “individuals would have the suitable to appeal from the [new] commission to a press ombudsman with statutory powers” to supervise corrections, apologies and retractions.
In the event, the government delayed making a decision about the proposals until 1995 when the heritage secretary Virginia Bottomley announced that statutory controls would not be introduced. Instead, in the manner of so many before her, she issued a series of recommendations for PCC reform.
The Leveson inquiry: back to the Last Chance Saloon
In July 2011, it was revealed by The Guardian that journalists on the News of the World had hacked into the phone messages of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
This was followed by the recents that police had contacted the families of two girls murdered in Soham victims and the families of victims of the 7/7 terrorist atrocities to tell them their phones may have been hacked.
Events moved quickly. Prime minister David Cameron announced the setting up of a judicial inquiry into “the culture, ethics and practices of the British press” under Lord Justice Leveson. He took testimonies from 650 witnesses and issued a 2,000-page report on 29 November, 2012.
It was clear, like his predecessors, that he believed statute was necessary to underpin a completely new watchdog system, which would be overseen by a judge.
Also within the manner of his predecessors, Cameron disagreed. On 7 December 2012, days after the publication of the Leveson report, the prime minister was reported to be considering the establishment a new independent press watchdog by royal charter – the mechanism utilised when the BBC was set up within the 1920s.
National newspapers editors responded by saying that had met and “unanimously agreed” to start putting in place Leveson’s broad proposals, except for statutory underpinning. Self-regulation would remain.
We were, in other words, back on familiar ground. As the Media Standards Trust submission to the Leveson inquiry pointed out in reference to David Mellor’s 1991 quip about newspapers drinking within the last chance saloon, when the phrase is used with reference to the British press, it has attained the status of parody.
*After Leveson The long run for British journalism, edited by John Mair, is published by Abramis. Available at a different Media Guardian price of £15 from richard@arimapublishing.co.uk
Tomorrow: Media academic Julian Petley examines the arguments of the Free Speech Network and takes issue with one in all its leading voices, Tim Luckhurst
