The Times: A follower not a leader

By David Hass and Evan Harris

From a newspaper that once used its leader articles to advance careful dissections of the great issues of the day, yesterday’s editorial (£) was a major disappointment. In place of the considered evaluation of evidence were incoherent arguments that would embarrass a sixth form politics student. The Daily Telegraph, the Mail and the Sun have given readers months of relentless propaganda to the effect that the implementation of Leveson means the end of press freedom. The Times, instead of leading an informed national debate, has chosen to follow those who long ago abandoned rational argument in favour of groundless scaremongering.

The leader recycles terms such as “statutory regulation of newspapers”, “parliamentary oversight of press regulation”, “state regulation of all the press” and “statutory oversight of regulation” as if they were interchangeable, though they describe very different (and incompatible) approaches. The alchemy of the tabloid rant has transformed the careful balance of the cross-party charter – with its rigorous exclusion of political involvement – into state control of newspapers.  This is nonsense and the Times knows it.

In his introductory statement made when he delivered his report on 29 November 2012, Lord Justice Leveson said:

“Not a single witness proposed that either Government or politicians, all of whom the press hold to account, should be involved in the regulation of the press. Neither would I make any such proposal.”

Last week, addressing the DCMS select committee, he reiterated his position:

“What I did was seek to find the right balance between what I have always asserted and believed is the essential freedom of the press and the rights of others. I do not for one moment believe that the recommendations that I made jeopardise the freedom of the press. I did not suggest any form of statutory regulation of the press.”

So Leveson rejected state regulation (that is, the idea of ministers and civil servants regulating newspapers) and no one argued for it.

He also rejected statutory regulation (which describes the kind of system by which OFCOM regulates UK broadcasters).

Instead, he recommended independent self-regulation, whereby the press set up their own self-regulator.  His innovation was to propose that the press self-regulator should be subject to inspection every two to three years by an independent statutory body, to check that it is truly fit for the public purpose and not a ‘PCC Mark 2’, controlled by the industry lobby and doing the bidding of the editors and proprietors.

To placate the press lobby, this modest and measured package was diluted so that the independent body which inspected the press self-regulator was set up by royal charter – and not by law. The press had argued that a statute could, in the future, be amended to set more draconian rules.  The Prime Minister agreed and so this archaic route was imposed.

Then, to ensure that ministers in the Privy Council (which controls royal charters) could not tamper with the inspection regime, a two-thirds ‘parliamentary lock’ was added, meaning that there would have to be a very clear parliamentary majority – larger than any Government alone has ever had – in both Houses to change the inspection regime.

This has, absurdly, been condemned as introducing some kind of political control.  It does not.  Under our constitution, which is that of a parliamentary democracy, parliament can always choose to change the law. If this or a future parliament wanted to pass a law to ‘control the press’ there is nothing to prevent it from doing so by a simple majority. So the parliamentary lock on the charter makes control of the press more difficult, not easier.

These simple facts might divert readers from the well-trodden path of fear and hyperbole which the Times has chosen to follow, so they are set aside. It is, of course, the right and privilege of people running a newspaper to frame the debate in any way they choose. And it is much easier to cast your opponents as extremists who want to end press freedom than actually engage in proper argument based on fact. But there are reasons to suggest that this approach is unlikely to be sustainable.

The Times has found itself in a very uncomfortable position throughout the phone hacking investigation and the Leveson Inquiry. Its journalists were rightly appalled by the malpractice which was uncovered elsewhere in the Murdoch stable and want to distance themselves and their paper from it. It is matter of acute embarrassment that so much of the illegality is alleged to have taken place within the NI group. Yet when Times reporters sought to investigate the unfolding scandal, editorial back-up was not always forthcoming. This whiff of double standards could become stronger during the criminal trials which begin in ten days’ time.

Then there are the readers to consider. Since Leveson reported, it is noticeable how hard the paper has found it to be balanced in its coverage of both sides of the argument. Readers have noticed this, and they are not impressed, as the comments below Hugo Rifkind’s latest piece ‘If you must kill free speech, at least admit it’, amply illustrate. Almost two-thirds of Times readers want their newspaper to participate in the new system of press self-regulation, overseen by the chartered body, as against 12% who do not, according to the latest YouGov poll commissioned by the Media Standards Trust.

The next few months will test the nerve of journalists anxious to demonstrate that they can report without fear or favour, even when the subject is malpractice in their own company. For The Times to recover its reputation in the public mind as a paper of record, its writers must be able to report fully and comment impartially on the scandal close to home, and be seen to do so.

Dr Evan Harris is Associate Director of Hacked Off and David Hass is the campaign’s Director of Communications.

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