The press’s concessions strategy
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The appeals by national newspaper editors for a return to the negotiating table in order to unpick the cross-party royal charter are as predictable as they are patently self-serving. What is more disturbing is that the Guardian, the paper that did more than any other institution to reveal the scale of the phone-hacking scandal, appears to be being carried along by the current.
After months of distorted reporting and the systematic smearing of anyone who supports press reform, it is perhaps not surprising that even moderate newspapers are being hoodwinked by this ‘concessions’ strategy. The problem, they say, is that the newspaper industry is not ready to abide by parliament’s decision and needs to wring more concessions out of the government. The solution, they suggest, is to reopen an historic agreement, the product of a year-long public inquiry and four months of cross-party negotiations with the press and victims, which produced a deal which won the clear backing of both houses of parliament and the public at large.
This week, the cross-party Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards recommended that senior bankers guilty of reckless misconduct should be jailed. One can only imagine how the newspapers might react if the banks said, “Sorry, but we don’t agree. We would prefer the opportunity to restart discussions in order to negotiate a deal more favourable to ourselves.”
On Tuesday, Hacked Off pointed out that there was no basis to compromise further, saying in a press statement:
“Gerry McCann already called the Leveson recommendations the minimum acceptable compromise for victims of press mistreatment. Concessions in the cross-party charter, and the use of a royal charter itself instead of legislation have moved the deal in the press’s favour.
“We have an agreement signed up to by all political parties and both Houses of Parliament, backed by the victims of press abuse and the vast majority of the general public. What are the grounds for reopening negotiations, simply because, as Leveson predicted, the press barons are reluctant to comply?
“Hacked Off has always been willing to meet newspapers to discuss the practical issues around implementation, but the independent judge, the elected parliament and public opinion has decided that the last chance saloon will finally be closed.”
In fact, scores of compromises have already been made in order to accommodate the press, both during the Leveson process and after the inquiry reported.
Here are ten of the more prominent examples.
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Thank you for the link to Lisa O’Carroll’s article, an interesting development of what had appeared a casual thought from Lionel Barber.
IF there is an “impasse in talks”, it is in secret talks, privileged talks such as allowed to terrorist organisations, a status underlined by ‘press suggestion’ of Lord Grade – a Tory peer – as ‘mediator’, his role compared to that of Senator George Mitchell in Ireland.
From MailOnline inquiry into Hacked Off funding (needing assurance on “suitable use” of a press professor’s sabbatical) one might imagine our press barons truly rattled, ready – despite all that has passed – to plumb all depths of vilification (the ‘satanic’ picture not excluded) against Lord Justice Leveson and any who presume to question the accustomed (and abused) privileges of ‘press ownership’. Perhaps ‘standard fare’ for Mail readers, but paranoia has often deep roots.
The barons real fear – let us hope justified – is probably not of any self-regulatory oversight (merely better enforcement for an editors’ code raised above platitude), but rather of the ‘thin end of the wedge’, that with more open scrutiny, more might in time come to see ‘press mega-ownership’ as inherently unsatisfactory, in fact dangerous.
Though Leveson and the Royal Charter have hardly hinted at the need to free our hostage press from its ghettoisation (by and for commercial and political interests), the barons – rather than await trial and reflection on any benefit from ‘negotiated appeasement’ in limitation of market shares – are advancing their last ditch, ‘foul attack’ seen as ‘best defence’.
Whereas top bankers have shown themselves capable of some genuine contrition, seeking in reform only to ensure new regulation is in what they see as the financial interests of the country (thereby in their own interests), our press barons – also with reputations to restore – seem to think of things the other way round. They believe – it charitably might appear – that their own accustomed privilege, freedom to make doubled profit, from a ghettoised readership and from their further manipulation of opinions and policies to suit, must somehow be the making of British freedom and wellbeing.
As all unfolds, both the volunteered further ordeals for victims, and the taking of political statements under oath, may prove not overkill but vital, for this our next step in the evolution of decency and democracy.