Media Standards and Media Regulation

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and agree especially with my noble friend Lord Fowler, who said that we should not pre-empt Lord Leveson. He deserves the respect of our listening to what he has to say and considering his recommendations. There are two principal issues for him to address. I do not think that there is any argument but that we have to strengthen the regulation of press standards. The other question is whether market dominance was a major contributory factor to the problems we have recently experienced.

On the first question, I think it is accepted that we are going to have to strengthen regulation of standards. We also have to recognise that public perception in this is as important as the reality of what we are doing. The question is how to do that while continuing to encourage accessibility and help for the ordinary person in the street who has a genuine grievance; and whether the public will let us build on what we have or whether we have to have a complete transformation by getting it on to a statutory format.

I do not want to spend much time on the second question, of whether market dominance was a factor, but I believe that it did contribute to the problem. An arrogance grew up in part of News International—I saw it because I worked there—that made senior people think that they were untouchable because they had politicians, the establishment and the police in their awe, if not in their pay. In their tabloid titles, no one was worrying about the risks of what they were doing or the consequences when they were finally challenged and found out.

There are some key points that Leveson needs to look at in detail. It is not generally a popular thing to say, although some today are saying it, that the Press Complaints Commission has a list of achievements and has made considerable improvements. It is not right to say that the press ignores it—in fact, huge sections of the press respect it and work with it assiduously. It deals with complaints and has drawn up, over 20 years, a comprehensive, regularly updated code of practice which stands scrutiny—it is what we want. Practically everything is in there, it just needs enforcing and following.

However, the public perception has not caught up with the reality; I accept that. Leveson will obviously have to take things on further, but how? Politicians have failed to deal with the market dominance issue over the past 30 years. It clearly needs an independent process with clear parameters to deal with that. I have to say that the problems in that area do not bode very well for politicians setting up a statutory system. Also, Lord Leveson cannot ignore the ongoing revolution in the industry. There has been a huge decline in print media. There is a convergence of print and all forms of broadcast media, and the growth of social media and blogs means that they, rather than the press or the broadcasters, are often setting the press agenda. Frankly, there is no point introducing heavy-handed regulation of print media when all below are free to ignore it and, as the courts have shown, very difficult to regulate.

What does Leveson need to do? I believe that he needs to build on what we have and strengthen a new Press Complaints Commission. He needs to build on what I think—despite what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said—is the pretty effective complaints handling system that it has put in place over the past 20 years. The reforms initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, deserve support. However, standards of behaviour in individual companies need addressing—the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. We need to look at the process; the errors and weaknesses of the PCC in that regard need to be addressed. As we know, it failed on the hacking issue and there was a weakness in our system. In all respects, the successor to the PCC needs to be and to be seen to be independent of the industry in all respects—on appointments and development of the editors’ code—and it must cover everyone. All newspaper companies and the new generation of bloggers must sign up. We cannot have companies simply dropping out of the system when they dislike a particular decision.

The test for what Leveson recommends for regulation is for me as follows. First, he needs to concentrate on how we protect and support the ordinary person in the street—not the rich and famous, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Sugar. People such as the noble Lord have the resource and advice they need to protect themselves. We need to look at how someone such as Christopher Jefferies, the retired teacher who was pilloried and harassed by the media frenzy of the Bristol murder case, can be helped and protected. We need to look carefully at how the PCC has started to develop its pre-publication support services for people caught in such situations. A flexible, low-cost system will always be better than one dominated by lawyers.

Leveson also has to ensure that every media company is in the system. We must have incentives to join or penalties for not joining. Involvement in the new body may have to be through encouragement, because it provides better protection for those companies in the courts on defamation or public interest cases, cheaper insurance or even tax incentives. The public also accept the need for some sort of sanction. The only thing that I would say is that we have to be careful not to be too severe, because that would drive everybody to the lawyers, slow the process, reduce accessibility and increase costs. When I worked in the media, I always found that a small donation to charity was the best way to resolve disputes. We need to have a culture of that and use larger fines for systemic and repeated breaches.

The successor to the PCC needs to raise its public profile; it needs to be effective and to deliver. It is not good enough if the public perceives that it is simply reacting to the pressure of statutory regulation threats when it comes forward with reforms. It needs to be more proactive and to take over promotion of the profession of journalism, so that it is not seen as just a trade rather than a profession.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, ended his witness statement to Leveson by saying:

“This would not be a case of self-regulation being granted one grudging, last chance; it is independent self-regulation being given its first chance. The public interest, for me, is embodied by a free and responsible press—a press that recognises and cherishes the considerable privileges it enjoys, and conducts itself accordingly”.

I agree wholeheartedly with that.