As reported by the Newspaper Society: Lord Black said: “With so much content from so many publishers, the vast majority of them individuals, being provided in so many jurisdictions, any attempt to censor the web through legal or statutory regulation is ultimately doomed to failure.
“This point is vital to any debate about press regulation, which is dear to my heart, but which was, ironically, completely ignored during the Leveson inquiry, which was an analogue inquiry for our digital world.
“What the web, in all its glorious anarchy, has done is to make any form of statutory press control futile in an online age. As someone who believes passionately in freedom of expression, that is one of many good reasons to say, ‘Happy anniversary.’”
Lord Black spoke of the “strong growth in online audiences” of the local newspaper industry. He said: “While some suggest that the internet is destroying the media, the truth is the opposite for innovative and enterprising companies because of the new audiences that the web provides.
“The Telegraph was the first paper to get a website, back in 1994, but at that time its audience was limited to those who read newspapers in the UK. Twenty-five years on, audiences are global, and when people want authoritative news analysis, it is trusted news brands to which they turn. During the London Olympics, the Telegraph website alone attracted a record 408 million page views— 220 million here in the UK and 190 million abroad.
“Local newspapers, too, are seeing strong growth in online audiences. Three regional publishers, including the owners of the Scotsman, the Northern Echo and the Manchester Evening News passed 10 million monthly online readers last year, a massive figure, considering the geographical limits on their print circulation.”
Lord Black was speaking in a motion to take note moved by Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho entitles ‘25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web.’
