NEWS RELEASE

Release Date: 18 March 2013

MPs must consider the long-term effects on our democracy of beefed-up press regulation when voting on the issue, the CIoJ said.  It will be the public who will be the biggest losers in what is now a political game.

In a free society, a press under state control was a far greater danger than a press out of control, it warned.

The light-touch “statutory underpinning” proposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats would, if approved by MPs, allow much tougher controls to be imposed by a future Parliament.

The alleged malpractices which led to the Leveson Inquiry and the arrest of dozens of journalists are criminal offences, not ethical misdemeanours. The problem is not a failure of the regulatory system but the failure of the police to enforce the law.

CIoJ President Charlie Harris accused supporters of statutorily-backed ethical regulation, led by Hacked Off, of hijacking the issue to seek revenge on the whole press for the sins of a few journalists on a handful of national newspapers.

“They are using a blunderbuss instead of a sniper,” he said. “What they are proposing will seriously wound totally innocent sections of the press, such as local newspapers which were cleared by Leveson of any wrongdoing.

“Hacked Off and its supporters, including those in all the political parties, know this but don’t care.

The Institute is angry that Hacked Off has been involved in high-level discussions with the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties from which bodies representing rank-and-file journalists have been totally excluded.

“Hacked Off is a small, private lobby group representing the views of a handful of celebrities and MPs with an axe to grind against the press, backed by a cadre of left-wing academics,” Harris said.

“But it has been granted semi-official status, with privileged access to the corridors of power, and allowed to play a central role in the drafting of legislation which could have a profound and dangerous effect on the ability of the press to hold those in power to account.

“This is what Hacked Off and its supporters want, but in a democracy it is totally unacceptable.”

Ends

In a journalistic world already run by accountants, closer detail of Lord Leveson’s report raises concerns about a regulator with a similar lack of industry knowledge.

In the aftermath of the Leveson Report, the Chartered Institute of Journalists (CIoJ) says that forming an independent regulator brings with it certain risks that need careful consideration.

CIoJ President, Norman Bartlett said: “Local news was held up by Leveson for its exemplary work, but we have seen in the last few years how this side of our industry is struggling in the current economic environment. Those inside the industry know that this is largely due to accountants, who understand nothing of journalism, running the organisations.

“Now it is being threatened in a way that was never intended by the Leveson Inquiry. Any extra bureaucracy, legal burden and the potential for onerous fines could well drive many more to extinction.”

The CIoJ has already welcomed David Cameron’s initial comments warning about the perils of any laws brought in to regulate the press on any level.

Bartlett added: “We hope that the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary stick to their guns and are not swayed by campaign groups that have a vested interest in hampering the Press. They appear to be ignorant of the fact that anything implemented at national level will filter through to local and regional newspapers, too.

“We must make sure that our Press freedoms are not jeopardised by the tiny proportion of law breakers who were working within the industry on the one hand, and the loud voices of celebrities with grudges to bear on the other.”