Leveson Report

[Flosshilde]

We have an expression in Scotland for Gove and people like him - wee nyaff.


(pronounced in one syllable, 'y' as in yellow, just the way it looks.)

'bawbag' might also be applicable

[Lateralthinking1]

As I indicated earlier, my main irritation is the money that has been spent with little intention of doing anything. It is somewhere between outrageous and thoroughly sinful. I also felt that ammy deserved better than the outcome as it stands. :smiley:

I support regulation but have severe doubts that MPs should be the guardians. A wide range of people who have been at the tough end of things, yes. I am sure that they would have views on parliamentary expenses etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

My feeling is that the press might well rally to the Conservative cause in 2015 but public opinion will outweigh it. With luck, the sheer power of the Milly Dowler case will set a new precedent so that front pages on election day will be meaningless.

[agingjb]

Given the masses of evidence of crime, malice, dishonesty and conspiracy presented to Lord Justice Leveson, a free press is perhaps not an aim to be sought without some reservations.

[MrGongGong]

Still, at least Nigel Farage thinks he's "grown up and sensible" (or he says he does :erm:)

It's more the case of being gratuitously rude and offensive and then laughing at his own "jokes" ........

where did being "grown up" or "sensible" get us ?
if music is a mirror of society then that's no Mozart for a start :whistle:

[Flosshilde]

It's more the case of being gratuitously rude and offensive and then laughing at his own "jokes" ........

Not sure who you're talking about, GG; Farage, Gove - or me :laugh:

[MrGongGong]

Not sure who you're talking about, GG; Farage, Gove - or me :laugh:

take your pick :winkeye:
but I would say that Farage would be first on the list
Gove is just wot Calum said ........

[amateur51]

Harold Evans, a man who knows only too well how Murdoch works, gives Leveson's regulation proposals a pretty warm welcome (will Simon find that surreal too? :erm:) but is highly critical that the question of media ownship was not tackled

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2012/nov/29/leveson-report-press-ownership-harold-evans-video

As he says, the phone-hacking scandal happened because the politicians were scared of News International and News Internaional was scared of nobody.

[french frank]

I am indeed astonished that Clegg appears to be against freedom of the Press. It's a freedom which it would be dangerous to lose.

I don't think his statement supports that view. He says:


"In my view there are two big, liberal principles at play in this debate: on the one hand, the belief that a raucous and vigorous press is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy; on the other, the belief that the vulnerable, the innocent and the weak should be protected from powerful vested interests.

A free press does not mean a press that is free to bully innocent people or free to abuse grieving families. What I want now is for us to strike a better balance between these two liberal principles so that our media can scrutinise the powers that be, but cannot destroy innocent lives. So that the journalists up in the press gallery can hold us – the politicians – to account, but we can look up to the individuals and families in the public gallery knowing they have the right protections in place."

[amateur51]

Guardian leader on the Leveson Report - and to David Cameron's response

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/29/press-regulation-lord-justice-leveson-editorial

[amateur51]

I don't think his statement supports that view. He says:


"In my view there are two big, liberal principles at play in this debate: on the one hand, the belief that a raucous and vigorous press is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy; on the other, the belief that the vulnerable, the innocent and the weak should be protected from powerful vested interests.

A free press does not mean a press that is free to bully innocent people or free to abuse grieving families. What I want now is for us to strike a better balance between these two liberal principles so that our media can scrutinise the powers that be, but cannot destroy innocent lives. So that the journalists up in the press gallery can hold us – the politicians – to account, but we can look up to the individuals and families in the public gallery knowing they have the right protections in place."

I think Clegg's being mocked for his stance on Leveson is, for once, out-of-order. He was right, in my view, to make his statement from the front bench and it is a much better thought out response than Cameron's 'eyes on the votes, eyes on the proprietors' effort :ok:

[Pabmusic]

...A free press does not mean a press that is free to bully innocent people or free to abuse grieving families. What I want now is for us to strike a better balance between these two liberal principles so that our media can scrutinise the powers that be, but cannot destroy innocent lives. So that the journalists up in the press gallery can hold us – the politicians – to account, but we can look up to the individuals and families in the public gallery knowing they have the right protections in place."

Yes, spot on. 'Freedom of the press' surely should never mean 'freedom to act as you please'; no-one else has such licence. There seems to be an acceptance that the press needs some form of regulation, the two possibilities talked of being self-regulation, or regulation 'underpinned' (whatever that means exactly) by the law. It seems that self-regulation has not worked, so there should be little surprise at the outcome.

[Resurrection Man]

I think Clegg's being mocked for his stance on Leveson is, for once, out-of-order. He was right, in my view, to make his statement from the front bench and it is a much better thought out response than Cameron's 'eyes on the votes, eyes on the proprietors' effort :ok:

I am, despite my better judgement :winkeye:, in agreement with you 100%.

A snapshot of the press this morning. The most common word they use ? "Freedom". Rubbish. With freedom comes responsibility. Something the press have forgotten.

Looking at the captions beneath the photographs of those who presented their concerns at the Leveson enquiry ...captions saying things like "self-interest', 'biassed' simply goes to prove that Leveson was right. The press are a pack of bully-boys.

[Serial_Apologist]

Harold Evans, a man who knows only too well how Murdoch works, gives Leveson's regulation proposals a pretty warm welcome (will Simon find that surreal too? :erm:) but is highly critical that the question of media ownship was not tackled

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2012/nov/29/leveson-report-press-ownership-harold-evans-video

As he says, the phone-hacking scandal happened because the politicians were scared of News International and News Internaional was scared of nobody.

Harold Evans said similar on Today. Posing the state shouldn't interfere side was Max Hastings; less predictable was Hasting's strong criticism of Leveson's light treatment of the police in all this, and he pointed to a serious omission... It seemed to me when I heard Leveson that his hammering of one side with a lot of rhetoric served to divert attention, rather in parallel to how Cameron chooses to align himself. Cameron's speech allowed himself wriggle room for a change of mind on legal restraints, maybe biding time on the Brookes and Coulson cases; meanwhile the police role goes on the back-burner.

[ahinton]

I support regulation but have severe doubts that MPs should be the guardians.

If by that you mean that the independence of an independent press regulator must be, or at least include, independence from government and that such a regulator would therefore be a quango rather than an arm of government, you'd have to look no further than FSA to see how successfully a quango regulator can function for the benefit of - er - um...

I am inclined to suspect that the best answer (apart from possible acceptance that there may be no such thing at all) is to maintain the status quo in terms of press freedoms but seriously and substantially up the ante for their transgressions of the law and propriety; whilst this would admittedly transfer almost all the responsibility for dealing with unacceptable media behaviour to the Courts - and to the victims for bringing such matters to the Courts in the first place - the very possibility that a Court might be empowered to impose massive and possibly irreparably damaging fines and other penalties upon media organisations that have been proved to have committed the kinds of action that have invited so much horror and contempt in recent times could possibly turn out to be less of a blunt instrument that it might at first seem and might even be seen as its own practical solution.

[aeolium]

Also it's never explained why the current statutory regulation of the BBC by Ofcom - see here for its scope - does not fatally constrain or weaken the BBC's broadcasting freedom. Yet nothing like that degree of statutory regulation is being proposed for the press. And the press is not completely unconstrained by the law at present - the law of civil and criminal libel for instance and all the legislation about phone-hacking that was repeatedly broken over many years.

I think the recommendations re the press, from what I have seen of them, are good. I am a bit disappointed that more was not said about plurality and media ownership which remains a big problem.