It’s been going on for a year, but the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has finally published its report into press standards, privacy and libel in the UK.

You can read the 169-page report in full below, but we’ve highlighted some of the most interesting points in the report in this post.

Background:

The committee’s hearings and subsequent report cover a lot of ground: self-regulation of the press; libel law in the UK; privacy and the press – in particular the News of the World and Max Mosley; standards of journalism – in particular in relation to the reporting of suicides in Bridgend and the Madeleine McCann case; and allegations of phone hacking at News of the World.

In the committee’s own words:

This report is the product of the longest, most complex and wide-ranging inquiry this committee has undertaken. Our aim has been to arrive at recommendations that, if implemented, would help to restore the delicate balances associated with the freedom of the press. Individual proposals we make will have their critics – that is inevitable – but we are convinced that, taken together, our recommendations represent a constructive way forward for a free and healthy UK press in the years to come.

Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee report into press standards, privacy and libel

Page guide and key quotes:

• p10: the questions/issues that provoked the inquiry by the committee are set out.
• p18: recommendation for “a fast-track appeal system where interim injunctions are concerned, in order to minimise the impact of delay on the media and the costs of a case, while at the same time taking account of the entitlement of the individual claimant seeking the protection of the courts”.
• p18: report says Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice and the courts should collect data on number of injunctions refused or granted and the impact of Section 12 of the Human Rights Act on interim injunctions.
• p23: On Max Mosley and the News of the World: “We found the News of the World editor’s attempts to justify the Max Mosley story on ‘public interest’ grounds wholly unpersuasive, although we have no doubt the public was interested in it.”
• p27: Focus on Justice Eady “shaping” UK privacy law is “misplaced”.
• p31: Recommendations for the PCC to include guidance to newspapers on pre-notification.
• p33: On Trafigura/Carter-Ruck and reporting parliamentary proceedings.
• p40: Defendants in libel cases should still be required to prove the truth of their allegations, says the report.
• p45: On the cost and difficulties of mounting a Reynolds Defence and whether this should be put on a statutory footing.
• p54-55: The committee asks for better data collection on cases of ‘libel tourism’.
• p59: On the single-publication rule and newspaper archives: “In order to balance these competing concerns, we recommend that the government should introduce a one year limitation period on actions brought in respect of publications on the internet.”
• p72-76: On Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs) and After The Event Insurance (ATE) in defamation cases.
• p82: Recommendations for better headline writing to improve press standards.
• p91: Criticism of the press and the PCC for the handling of the Madeleine McCann case: “The newspaper industry’s assertion that the McCann case is a one-off event shows that it is in denial about the scale and gravity of what went wrong, and about the need to learn from those mistakes. In any other industry suffering such a collective breakdown – as for example in the
  banking sector now – any regulator worth its salt would have instigated an enquiry. The
  press, indeed, would have been clamouring for it to do so. It is an indictment on the
  PCC’s record, that it signally failed to do so.”
• p95-6: On moderating comments on websites and user-generated material: “The Codebook [upheld by the Press Complaints Commission] should be amended to include a specific responsibility to moderate websites and take down offensive comments, without the need for a prior complaint. We also believe the PCC should be proactive in monitoring adherence, which could easily be done by periodic sampling of newspaper websites, to maintain standards.”
• p101-3: On NOTW and phone hacking: “It is likely that the number of victims of illegal phone-hacking by Glenn Mulcaire will never be known.”
• p114: Guardian articles on phone hacking did contain new evidence, but committee has heard now evidence that such practices are still ongoing.
• p121: On the PCC: “The powers of the PCC must be enhanced, as it is toothless compared to other regulators.”
• p123-5: Recommendations for a more independent PCC.
• p126: Peter Hill’s resignation from the PCC.
• p128: Criticism for how the PCC reports statistics of complaints it receives: “In particular, contacts from members of the public which are not followed up with the appropriate documentation should not be considered as true complaints.”
• p129: A new system for “due prominence” of corrections and apologies by newspapers?
• p130: Proposals for the PCC to have the power of financial sanctions.

In-depth coverage on Journalism.co.uk:

• CMS Report: Government urged to cut ‘enormous cost of libel cases’ in UK
• CMS Report: PCC should be renamed and have power to fine
• CMS Report: Committee condemns ‘collective amnesia’ at News International over phone hacking
• Solicitor Mark Lewis considering legal action against PCC
• CMS report: No case for a general privacy law

Similar Posts:

• CMS report: No case for a general privacy law
• CMS Report: News International claims party-politics make report on phone hacking worthless
• Press Gazette: Mosley sues NoW in French courts over Nazi orgy story
• Solicitor Mark Lewis considering legal action against PCC
• Commons committee hearing tomorrow: It’s Andy Coulson’s turn…

The Press Complaints Commission is once again under attack for its structure and effectiveness as a self-regulatory body.

Last night the Guardian reported how Sir Ken Macdonald, ­visiting professor of law at the LSE and the former director of public prosecutions, had called for “all credible media organisations” to withdraw from the “farcical” Press ­Complaints Commission (a plea which was made by Geoffrey Robertson QC last year).

The event for editors and lawyers also featured Max Clifford, former Formula 1 chief Max Mosley, former TV presenter Anna Ford, the editors of the Guardian and the Financial Times, and the deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph. The Guardian also reported:

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, said the credibility of the PCC was “clinging by its fingertips” and that recent investigations had been “embarrassing”. The PCC’s current review should work out whether it has the capacity to be a regulator or a mediator, he said.

It’s timely then, to compare Rusbridger’s quotes from last night, with Stephen Abell’s comments this week, in his first media interview since becoming director of the PCC:

Abell told Journalism.co.uk that he didn’t believe Rusbridger’s resignation from the PCC code committee Editors’ Code of Practice Committee weakened the body at all:

Alan Rusbridger has said it [the code committee] does a good job (…) I think these arguments happens within industries but I think it’s perfectly acceptable to move on from that. I don’t think it weakens the PCC in any way that Alan is leaving an industry body that he was a member of for a while. You don’t have every editor on the code committee anyway (…) I think it’s tremendous merit that Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian was on the code committee for as long as he was.

Journalism.co.uk’s interview with Stephen Abell (who took over as PCC director in December 2009):

• Under review: new PCC director on phone hacking, superinjunctions and forthcoming reports
• Press Complaints Commission to join Twitter; wants to explore social network debate

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“But its a very hard task to convince a judge because you have to show you are likely to win the ultimate case.”

And he added that there was “no public interest” in the publication of allegations about the private life of the England football captain, John Terry.

Full story at this link…

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• Myler on Mosley: ‘I make no apologies for publishing that story as editor’

Colin Myler, News of the World, was up in front of a House of Commons select committee today, as part of an inquiry into press standards, privacy and libel.

Unsurprisingly Myler and News Group Newspapers’ lawyer Tom Crone were questioned about the Max Mosley case – though, as a new writ has been issued against the paper by Mosley, some responses had to be curtailed.

Nevertheless, some good nuggets from Myler and Crone on the consequences of publishing the story and why the NOTW broke it:

• The costs of the Mosley trial came to around £900,000 with £100,000 damages, according to Crone.

• Myler:

“Mr Mosley made quite a case that he’d never sought publicity, that he was a private person. I disagree with that fundamentally.

“For a man in his position (…) who so wrecklessly put himself in the hands of five prostitutes (…) you have to say you played some part in your own downfall.”

• Myler: “Rarely in these situations are there any commercial benefits despite what people might think.”

• A family newspaper: “I don’t agree that it was an unsuitable story for a family newspaper. Some people might sneer and say that we are scurrilous and scaberous but we are who we are. I make no apologies for publishing that story as editor.

• Chilling effect of Mosley case? “I don’t think it’s had a chilling effect. It’s had a very practical effect on me as an editor and how you conduct yourself (…) I spend as much time talking to lawyers as I do journalists.

  “It doesn’t mean to say that you shy away, it means that you have to be equally diligent, efficient and careful and get very good legal advice.”

Myler also went on to discuss the issue of ‘celebrity stings’ by the NOTW, saying that while journalist Mazher Mahmood was widely known as the ‘fake sheikh’, he is also ‘one of the most professional newspaper journalists in the world’.

“He has been responsible for convicting and jailing 232 criminals. This is a man that puts himself in great danger and does so with such a professional aplomb that any media organisation would be proud to be associated with it,” he said.

Mahmood’s talents, said Myler, as increasingly being used for stories on immigration and religious radicalism: “There is some serious journalism within the News of the World.”

Similar Posts:

• Comment Is Free: Meyer wrong to ‘pour scorn’ on Mosley, says lawyer
• NOTW website wins right to show Mosley ‘Nazi-orgy’ video
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Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has made his thoughts about Justice Eady, the Human Rights Act and the Max Mosley privacy case against the News of the World pretty clear since giving his Society of Editors speech last year, but today he was given the chance to follow up on Mosley’s own comments to the commons select committee on press standards, privacy and freedom.

(And have his say he was most definitely going to – reminding the committee several times of the length of time they’d given Mosley to speak, until one member asked whether he felt he was being treated differently?)

“Mr Mosley, when he gave evidence to this committee, I was very surprised at the soft time you gave him,” said Dacre.

“For Max Mosley to present himself as a knight in shining armour, proclaiming (…) sanctimonious, self-righteousness is almost a surreal inversion of the normal values of civilised society.”

It’s ‘a bit like the Yorkshire ripper campaigning against men who batter women’, he added.

The ruling against the News of the World and in favour of Mosley made the government’s stance on brothels and prostitution problematic, he said.

While brothels are seen by the government as ‘unacceptable and totally wrong’ and requiring a law to prosecute the people that run them, ‘Justice Eady has said Mosley’s behaviour is merely unconventional not illegal’, said Dacre.

“One legitimises the other,” he said.

The Daily Mail would not have broken the Mosley story, because it is a family paper, he said, even if it had ‘fallen into the paper’s lap’ as one committee member suggested. However, Dacre said he would defend the NOTW’s right to publish it.

Nick Davies

Today’s hearing was also a chance for Dacre to respond to claims made by journalist and ‘Flat Earth News’ author Nick Davies at a committee session on Tuesday.

Summised by the committee chair, Davies said the Daily Mail was characterised by a level of ruthless aggression and spite far greater than any other newspaper in Fleet Street.

“Davies is one of those people who sees conspiracy in everything. Like many people who write for the Guardian he believes he is the only one who can claim the moral high ground,” said Dacre.

“The book doesn’t do himself or our industry any justice.”

The book, he added, had been written ‘without the basic journalistic courtesy of checking the allegations concerned’.

Dacre accepted that there is some ‘churnalism’ of press releases at a provincial and national level – driven largely by poor finances and lack of resources, but said he refutes the charge of the Daily Mail.

“I’d suggest the Daily Mail is both famous and infamous for taking Whitehall and government press releases and going behind them. Certainly our reporters when they get freelance copy make their own inquiries and take them further,” he said.

“Our spending on journalism today is as great as ever, despite the recession. Mr Davies makes a valid point about some areas of the media. I think strong areas of the media, including some of our competitors, are not guilty of this charge.”

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Dominic Crossley, whose firm represented Max Mosley in his case against News of the World, has responded to comments made by Sir Christopher Meyer, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), to a select committee for culture, media and sport last week.

Meyer chose to ‘pour scorn’ on Mosley and not the News of the World, despite the fact that Mosley won his case and a breach of privacy was found in his favour, writes Crossley.

“[I]nstead of criticising the News of the World or even warning those involved as to their future conduct (both the editor and journalist concerned remain in their roles), the chairman of the PCC reserves his scorn for Mosley. Meyer’s approach does nothing to relieve the perception that anyone seeking redress from a national newspaper is wasting his or her time by going to the PCC,” he says.

Full story at this link…

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“Formula one boss Max Mosley today attacked the Press Complaints Commission and the newspaper industry’s system of self-regulation while criticising the Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, chairman of the PCC editors’ code committee,” reports MediaGuardian here.

During the same hearing of the culture, media and sport committee currently looking into UK press regulation and media law, Gerry McCann “called for more stringent regulation of the press and slammed coverage surrounding the disappearance of his daughter in Portugal in 2007, calling it some of the most ‘irresponsible and damaging’ in press history,” MediaGuardian also reports here.

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Undercover journalism has no role in reporting on meetings – in private or public places – between people in power and celebrities or individuals known to have vast wealth or power, investigative journalist Tessa Mayes told journalism students at Coventry University at last week.

Probably best known for ‘Sleepers: undercover in the sex trade‘ broadcast on Channel 4 in 2001 (when she worked as a receptionist to investigate the conditions endured by many illegal sex workers in the UK), Mayes told students at the ‘Coventry Conversations’ session that ‘investigative journalism has in recent times been branded “dead” by many in the world’s media, but that was far from the truth’.

The News of the World’s Nazi sex expose of FIA president, Max Mosley, was unethical and in bad taste, Mayes said. That type of exposure was ‘just the beginning of the investigative process’, she said.

“These are people caught up in a private moment, caught during free speech. You have to approach investigative journalism in context because it is an intrusive form of gathering information.

“I think you have to look long and hard if you want to do this at the way we present the evidence. We have to get answers for the right reasons, even though objectivity has been heavily criticised in recent years,” she added.

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