Aye Write! Leveson Six Months On

The debate surrounding the Leveson report into media standards is more heated now than it was six months ago when the report was published. Leveson has made his recommendations but it remains to be seen exactly how they will be put into practice. At Leveson Six Months On the five panellists comprised Hacked Off founder Brain Cathcart, MP Tom Watson, journalist and member of the Scottish Leveson panel Ruth Wishart, victim of the tabloid press Christopher Jefferies – who was wrongly accused of murdering his tenant Joanna Yeates – and, a lone batsman for the opposite team, Nick Cohen – journalist for the Observer and the only anti-Leveson member of the panel.

One phrase repeated throughout the debate was “the system is broken.” Watson encapsulated the problem, stating that when journalists thought it was acceptable behaviour to hack the mobile of abducted teenager Milly Dowler, it was clear something was fundamentally wrong with the current culture. Those pro-Levison panellists pushed that this was an opportunity for the press to fix themselves. Wishart argued that the press has always been regulated and it hasn’t prevented serial bad behaviour and so the media must now draw new guidelines for themselves to follow.

In opposition, Cohen argued that regulating news is a huge power for the state to take and directly infringes on Article 10 of the Human Rights Act – freedom of expression. He feels the new laws will likely be used by less democratic countries such as Russia as an example of Western suppression of free speech. He also dismissed the use of the word ‘press,’ arguing that to talk about the press as unified whole was ludicrous –that world blew apart with the internet and we are now fast approaching a democracy of letters where everyone can be a journalist. Therefore will everyone, online and in print, need to be regulated?

Interestingly the audience seemed unbiased to either side of the argument. All were in agreement that press intrusion into individuals’ privacy has gone too far and that change was needed, but how to effectively administer this change without the infringement of human rights or the death of investigative journalism remains to be seen.