Leveson Inquiry

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
So, what should happen?
Arguably Cameron spent ages denying that his friends and employees had been up to no good, finally admitted it and threw his hands up in horror and then ordered a public inquiry to thoroughly look into the whole situation hoping that the fuss would have blown over by the time it reported and that he could disregard it and we'd be back where we were when we started.
Obviously we all hate Cameron and everything he stands for and I'm inclined towards that reading of events...
But... there is a question about if and how we should regulate the press isn't there? It really could be a the start of a slippery slope. How should the legislation be designed so it prevents the things we can all see are bad about the fourth estate but leaves them truly free to hold the government to account as they may have occasionally done.
 
D

droid

Guest
The Irish system is being held up as an example of 'suitable' govt. regulation, and if that's the proposed model then there's nothing to fear. Its probably even less effective than the PCC.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
There is an irony in the government overruling the conclusions of an independent inquiry cos implementing them might give the government too much power to compromise the independence of the press.
 
sufi

sufi

lala
IdleRich said:
So, what should happen?
Arguably Cameron spent ages denying that his friends and employees had been up to no good, finally admitted it and threw his hands up in horror and then ordered a public inquiry to thoroughly look into the whole situation hoping that the fuss would have blown over by the time it reported and that he could disregard it and we'd be back where we were when we started.
Obviously we all hate Cameron and everything he stands for and I'm inclined towards that reading of events...
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No! :mad:
you have your conspiracy entirely a/t!
in fact it's "A coup by the Left's quasi-masonic nexus of the 'people who know best'" who also "coincidentally" are deeply implicated in the whole tory lord non-paedo bbc shakedown :eek: & ;)
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I find the argument that if the regulator was backed by law then the papers wouldn't have been able to expose the mps' expenses scandal totally spurious. What law could they reasonably pass that made that illegal?
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
IdleRich said:
I find the argument that if the regulator was backed by law then the papers wouldn't have been able to expose the mps' expenses scandal totally spurious. What law could they reasonably pass that made that illegal?
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I've not really been paying enough attention to the latest stage of events, but surely the big issue in the phone hacking case was that they were straightforwardly breaking the law, but there was no political will to do anything about it because noone wants to get on the wrong side of a media conglomerate. Making more stuff illegal won't help if the people who are meant to be enforcing it are still afraid of pissing off Murdoch...
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
I find the argument that if the regulator was backed by law then the papers wouldn't have been able to expose the mps' expenses scandal totally spurious. What law could they reasonably pass that made that illegal?
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Technically it was against the law anyway, since the records were stolen and the Telegraph paid £300k to a 'middle-man' for them. Obviously the paper would have a good chance mounting a public-interest defence and it would've been a catastrophically bad look for the govt to send in the law, which is why nothing happened.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Slothrop said:
Making more stuff illegal won't help if the people who are meant to be enforcing it are still afraid of pissing off Murdoch...
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True, but the idea is that the new regulatory body is independent of govt and has no need to keep Murdoch etc onside or give fuck what they think about anything.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I've not really been paying enough attention to the latest stage of events, but surely the big issue in the phone hacking case was that they were straightforwardly breaking the law, but there was no political will to do anything about it because noone wants to get on the wrong side of a media conglomerate. Making more stuff illegal won't help if the people who are meant to be enforcing it are still afraid of pissing off Murdoch..."
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I think it's true to say that the Leveson inquiry doesn't necessarily recommend measures that would have dealt with phone hacking. What I'd say is that the phone hacking scandal weakened the press sufficiently that they couldn't kick up a fuss about the inquiry which actually goes much further than investigating just hacking. Lord L has looked at all kinds of aspects of the press, concluded that they are basically a bunch of crooks without principles and said that they need to be regulated. The hacking is important simply because it made most of the rest of the country agree with at least the first part of that statement.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
A current pro-press line is that they were all so spooked by free-falling circulation, it drove them to nefarious means and cruel ends, as if Grub Street had never been.

Is regulation really needed, though? Is Ofcom even necessary for TV, let alone as a fall-back for enforcement of press regulations?
 
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