As reported by the Newspaper Society: It follows NS president Adrian Jeakings’ (pictured) statement on Monday which said the deal completely ignored Leveson’s recommendations on the local press and would instead place “a crippling burden on the UK’s 1100 local newspapers, inhibiting freedom of speech and the freedom to publish.”
The summary explains that the proposals “extract an unacceptably high price for regional and local newspapers, including huge financial penalties for publishers who chose to be outside the system and an arbitration service which would open the floodgates to compensation claims.” The Royal Charter process and recognition criteria which the new ‘approved regulator’ would be required to meet means that “this is not self-regulation.”
The NS points out that the ‘red line of principle’ that a free press should not be subject to Parliamentary statute had now been crossed. The system would be underpinned by statutory penalty clauses, using the threat of exemplary damages and costs in libel and other cases – which could run to hundreds of thousands of pounds - to penalise publishers who do not sign up to the regulator.
The free arbitration service for civil legal claims would “inevitably lead to many more legal claims against publishers and more legal costs. Small errors that are currently settled easily and without cost to either side could become compensation claims.”
Other local press concerns cover the editorial code, as well as membership and funding of the approved regulator, meaning that far greater costs would be imposed upon regional and local publishers than the current PCC system.
The powers of the new body “will be greater than the courts and more extensive than any press regulator in the western world,” including fines of up to £1 million and directing front page apologies and corrections, the NS said.
In his statement on Monday, following the Commons debate on the Royal Charter on Press Conduct, Adrian Jeakings, president of the NS and chief executive of Archant, said: “Lord Justice Leveson found that the UK’s local media had nothing to do with the phone hacking scandal which prompted the Inquiry. Indeed, he praised regional and local newspapers for their important social and democratic role and recommended that the regulatory model proposed should not provide an added burden to our sector. He called on the Government to look urgently at what action it might take to help safeguard regional and local newspapers’ ongoing viability as a valued and important part of the British press.
“Yet the deal announced by the three main political parties today completely ignores the Leveson recommendations on the local press. The Royal Charter proposals agreed by the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour - with huge financial penalties for newspapers which choose to be outside the system and an arbitration service which would open the floodgates to compensation claimants - would place a crippling burden on the UK’s 1100 local newspapers inhibiting freedom of speech and the freedom to publish.
Local newspapers remain fiercely opposed to any form of statutory involvement or underpinning in the regulation of the press. A free press cannot be free if it is dependent on and accountable to a regulatory body recognised by the state."
During Monday’s Commons debate, the Deputy Prime Minster Nick Clegg, said: “Let us not forget that the hacking scandal was caused by some of our biggest newspapers, but it was still a minority of newspapers and certainly not the local and regional press, which must not pay the price for a problem they did not create.”
Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee John Whittingdale added that: “we should recognise the vital importance of local newspapers, and ensure that whatever system we introduce does not add to the burden on them at a time when they are experiencing very difficult economic circumstances.”
