Below are the reactions from Hacked Off, the ‘Industry’ and the the Society of Editors
Hacked Off
Commenting on David Cameron’s decision to end cross-party talks on implementing the Leveson Report, Professor Brian Cathcart, Executive Director, Hacked Off said: “This is a shameless betrayal of the victims of press abuse.
“It also raises two fingers to all those members of the public who wanted to see change after the Milly Dowler phone-hacking revelations two years ago.
“The Prime Minister has walked away from talks in which other parties were trying desperately to accommodate his views on a Royal Charter.
“Instead he has chosen to throw his lot in with powerful national newspaper groups, whose actions were condemned in the Leveson Report. His version of the Royal Charter would have paved the way for a regulatory system little different from the discredited Press Complaints Commission.
“He allowed the newspapers to rewrite Leveson so much that they would have been able to pick and choose which complaints their self regulator dealt with and would have given the self regulator little power to tell a paper to give an apology or a correction due prominence.
“Worse than that, the editors would have been able to write their own rules and handpick the people who ran the regulator.
“This was just the sort of regime we had before Leveson and it was designed to protect the interests of editors and proprietors rather than the public.”
“All recent polls show that around three-quarters of the public want effective press regulation, if necessary backed by law. We believe that most Parliamentarians feel the same way and we hope that now that the issue is finally going before Parliament we will see a clear statement that this once-in-a-generation-opportunity is not going to be lost.
“David Cameron is trying to portray this as an issue of press freedom. No serious person believes that the Leveson recommendations on press regulation pose any threat to freedom of expression.
“Cameron is trying to raise a smokescreen to hide his dirty dealings behind closed doors with powerful press barons who don’t want to have to be accountable when their newspapers –to use Lord Justice Leveson’s words – ‘wreak havoc in the lives of innocent people’”.
The ‘Industry’
We share the Prime Minister’s frustration at the way in which talks about the future of press regulation have broken down and legislation has been hijacked.
The Prime Minister is right to reject statutory regulation of the press – free of political control for 300 years - as fundamentally wrong in principle and unworkable in practice.
The industry has spent many weeks in negotiating a new independent system of self regulation, based on the Leveson principles, which provides £1 million fines and the toughest system of regulation in the western world. We have made major concessions in order to reach agreement, although there are elements of the proposed reforms – such as exemplary damages – to which we remain opposed. However, this need not stop a new regulator being put in place.
We agree with the Prime Minister that matters cannot be allowed to drift on and that we need now to deliver real change.
The UK’s newspaper and magazine publishing industry will rise to the challenge. We are ready to move with speed to establish a new system of tough, independent, effective self regulation which delivers fully on the Leveson principles and will provide real protection for members of the public. We will aim to get the new regulator up and running as soon as possible.
Paul Ashford Northern and Shell
Guy Black Press Standards Board of Finance
Tim Blott Scottish Newspaper Society
Paul Dacre Daily Mail Group
Barry McIlheney Professional Publishers’ Association
Murdoch MacLennan Telegraph Media Group
David Newell Newspaper Society
John Witherow News International
The Society of Editors
Bob Satchwell, Executive Director of the Society of Editors, said today that it is important that politics are not allowed to continue to interfere with press regulation.
He said: “It is important that the genuine need for reform is not allowed to continue to be overtaken by high politics. There are issues with principles and practicalities of legislation and editors have a right to be concerned about where politics and a ‘dab of statute’ might take us years down the line as attempts to hijack important legislation on other matters have shown.
“The industry is ready to go with a new and much tougher regulatory regime that is Leveson compliant. The wheels are already in motion as illustrated by an announcement yesterday by Lord Phillips as to the composition of a Foundation Group that he will chair to oversee the establishment of an independent appointments system that Lord Justice Leveson himself recommended.
“It is important that it is recognised that while frustration has been voiced in some quarters as to a perceived lack of speed in establishing a new system of tough, independent and effective self regulation, the industry is continuing to work hard to form a new body that not only abides by the principles Leveson outlined, but one that ensures that the rights of the public are properly protected.
“This system will not just concern the popular press. It will incorporate all the national newspapers, most of which have nothing to be ashamed of, and 1200 plus regional and local newspapers and hundreds of magazines. It has got to be one that is workable on all of these platforms.”
