Should there be a law against journalists rifling through rubbish to find dirt that they can print? Or hacking into a mobile phone, listening to private messages, and then coming up with a sensationalist story based on this information? This in essence is what the Leveson report is about. Lord Leveson was asked by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, to hold an inquiry into press ethics after it was revealed that journalists at the News of the World systematically hacked into mobile phones; the phones not just of celebrities and politicians, but also of ordinary people such as the victims of crimes, in order to print sensationalist stories. It took a year, and now, after hundreds of people have testified, the report is out. The report catalogues the outrageous behavior of journalists after a story, their willingness to break every code of conduct, that of the industry they work for and that of human decency, and of the havoc they caused in the process to the innocent people who happened to become newsworthy. Until now the press in Britain has been self-regulated. There is a voluntary code of conduct, and complaints are handled by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), an ineffective body by its own account. The state has no involvement in regulating the press. This differs from broadcasters who are regulated by OfComm, an organization backed by law. Unless you've lived in Britain, you probably don't know the power of the tabloid press. The British have two distinct kinds of newspapers, the broadsheets and the tabloids, called so after the formats of the paper they are printed on, though some broadsheets such as The Independent and the Guardian have switched to a more compact format, but the distinction remains. The broadsheets are quality newspapers; they look at news in-depth and are more intellectual in their approach. The tabloids, such as the Sun or the now defunct News of the World, are sensationalist, small-format papers that focus on stories about celebrities or crimes or gossip. The Daily Telegraph, the biggest selling broadsheet, has a circulation of just under 600,000, while The Sun has a circulation of over 2.6 million. Put another way, the tabloids are populist and popular. They typically have a front page with a big picture and a big headline. They go straight for the kill; you don't need to read the words of the story to get the punch. Think of this as an example. In April 1989, after the Hillsborough Disaster where 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death at a football game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, The Sun ran a front page with the headline The Truth, and three lines of subheading: Some fans picked pockets of victims; Some fans urinated on the brave cops; Some fans beat up PCs giving the kiss of life. These were lies and The Sun later regretted the story, but the damage was done. To this day, newsagents in Liverpool refuse to sell The Sun, but that is another story. The point here is to show just how low they will go. What the hacking scandal that led to the Leveson inquiry showed is that the current method of self-regulation for the press in the UK does not work. Their behavior as Leveson put it in his report is often outrageous. He proposes that Britain set up a new body to regulate the press, one that continues to be self-regulating, but that is backed up by legislation and has a new code of conduct. This new body would have teeth; it could fine newspapers up to £1 million or one percent of turnover. It would be independent and effective. A no-brainer, you would think. It's only been a few hours since the report was published and already David Cameron has indicated his unwillingness to enact the report's main recommendation: “I have some serious concerns and misgivings on this recommendation. We will have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land ... we should think very, very carefully before crossing this line.” And the issue is looking to be one that splits the UK's ruling coalition in two, with Nick Clegg, Cameron's Deputy Prime Minister, making a statement to the Commons directly contradicting Cameron and supporting the recommendation. The issue is one of principle. Even though the new body would be self-regulating, backing this body by statute means that the state necessarily gets involved and that would be a first for Britain, and could set a dangerous precedent for a country that is a torchbearer for freedom of speech, or so the argument goes.
But the real question I feel is whether all this is too little too late. All the talk here is of regulating the press, and yet, what we are really talking about is regulating the populist press, but now that anyone can upload a photo or a story, propagate it worldwide at the click of a button in an instant, surely the days when the tabloids reign supreme on this kind of muck are numbered. And perhaps the real question is not why newspapers will go to any lengths to get a story, but why we the public eat up these stories with such relish. — Imane Kurdi is a Saudi writer on European affairs. She can be reached at [email protected]
