Press freedom, not Press impunity: Leveson inquiry

By on 2012/11/28

Hugh Grant: Newspapers shouldn’t be ”marking their own homework”. Video at BBC News.

Being a Journalist myself, I have a special interest on Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry to implement a press regulation law for UK media. His report on the subject is said to be published tomorrow, Thursday 29th November. I certainly have mixed feelings about this matter.

The Leveson Inquiry was established by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron in July last year and looked into the culture, practices and ethics of the press. It was commissioned following allegations of illegal phone-hacking at the News of the World. Leveson was asked to produce a list of recommendations for a more effective policy and regulatory regime for the press, which would preserve its independence while encouraging higher ethical and professional standards.

According to the BBC, more than British 80 MPs and peers,  including eight former cabinet ministers and London Olympics chairman Lord Coe, says any such move would damage press freedom.

So, what’s the meaning of Press Freedom? I ask myself. Wikipedia answers for me: Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through mediums including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections. With respect to governmental information, any government may distinguish which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information as sensitive, classified or secret and being otherwise protected from disclosure due to relevance of the information to protecting the national interest. Many governments are also subject to sunshine laws or freedom of information legislation that are used to define the ambit of national interest.”

Anyone who knows a bit about the History of Journalism knows well that newspapers were created as a promotional tool by businesses and governments to promote themselves, while Newspapers owners would get paid for the service. Newspapers were invented as an advertising tool and therefore with a profit-based interest, rather than with the romantic thought of sharing information or spreading knowledge. Let’s be honest here. In the current society, where the lives of public figures from the Entertainment scene are exposed from the best buyer, it comes to our minds if that much information is really demanded by the readers/audience, and most importantly, if it that amount of information is needed. And here is where my mixed feelings start to show… Being a journalist, I wouldn’t like to get my hands tied on what I can/can’t write about. However, for different reasons I will not get into on this occasion, I have always felt very sensitive on the psychological damage that rumors, misinformation and the inventive pen and mind of some self-called professional journalists can cause to people, and I say people because in the end, either actors, singers, politicians or sportsmen, we are all humans with heart and feelings, no matter how “public” we can be. Our life and privacy belongs only to ourselves, that’s how I see it.

I won’t give names either, but it seems still shocking, in a country like UK where laws are followed by the book even in the most insignificant situations, that certain papers are allowed to publish their 100pt font size front page headline lies and sell like they do,  be read as much as they are read, and whose published lies are believed by their readers as certain truths like it happens. In the same line, it seems surreal that there is no sort of regulation to stop paparazzi from their extreme ways of hunting, approaching and stalking people of public interest. Some sort of control should be put into this.

Actor Hugh Grant, who has been campaigning for stricter press regulation, declared to the BBC this morning: “The only industry in this country which is allowed to regulate itself is the newspaper industry… We need a proper regulator, an independent regulator, meaningful, that will need some statute to oblige newspapers to sign up to it.” 

In the same way we have regulations for Human Rights, control is needed for best Journalism practices. Even if it’s hard to see, it will benefit the media as well, as only good journalism, where the information has been gathered legally from reliable resources, without the possible and unnecessary physiological damage to the subjects involved in the information is caused. Bringing back the prestige, the seriousness and the respect to Journalism professionals that was has been taken away in the last few years by the ‘exclusive hunters’.

 

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