Free Press
A free press has been a longstanding tradition in the UK.  In 1695, Parliament voted against the suppression of non official publications and since then we have ensured a free press.

Today we have a strong newspaper industry and an increasingly developing new media sector. And we want to see that balanced with good journalism, fair journalism and the protection of people’s privacy unless there is genuine public interest justification to invade it.

The challenge for us all is to find and maintain the balance.

Freedom of the press is central to a strong democracy. We believe in it.  This industry is in the thralls of a revolution.  This is driven by digital technology and convergence. Part of the revolution is new media’s interactivity making it simultaneously local, national and global.

Take the Guardian, for example. Its current ABC readership figures are 378,000 daily but over 5 million people in the UK use its website per month. When you consider the global audience, these figures rise to almost 16 million users. So, in a month, more people use the Guardian’s website than consume Britain’s entire newspaper output in a year.

Clearly, such rapid growth will present new challenges around the safeguarding of standards of journalism. 

Regulation
We don’t have a statutory right to free speech - such as in the US constitution, but there is an understanding of the expectation of free speech. And our laws have been shaped and evolved to reflect this understanding.  This works because, largely, there is trust by the public. To ensure the retention of self-regulation, the PCC – or whatever mechanism is used – needs to have similar public trust. It is not that long ago, after all, that its predecessor suffered a loss of public trust, and was no longer able to continue.

While the Editors’ Code of Practice, overseen by the PCC, provides a level of protection. The Code is complementary to the Law.

This includes the Data Protection Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Indeed, under those powers Clive Goodman of the News of the World was recently jailed following the interception of private telephone messages. 

Sir Christopher Meyer has emphasised that the PCC deplores the breach of the Code, as well as the breach of the law.

The PCC is following up this breach with the paper’s new editor, and more widely with editors of other national and regional newspapers to ensure this appalling practice ends.

We look forward to publication of the review, and we will be watching its outcome and recommendations closely. The PCC must be in no doubt that this review will affect the public’s trust in their ability to oversee effective self-regulation.

PCC Credibility
Most complaints – 2/3 – are about accuracy (out of a total of 3,654 complaints). In 2005 12.5% concerned privacy, the second highest category of complaints. Against a backdrop of 12 millions papers sold every day, these 500 seem a small number.  And some of these were matters which the PCC found outside its remit 

But we do not diminish the experience of any of the complainants because of the small number of complaints. Or diminish the gravity of the occasions where the Editors’ Code of Practice or the law is breached.  Neither should we think that this is the whole story.

There are no doubt people who, for reasons of their own, decide not to submit a complaint to the PCC.  And indeed we look to the PCC to encourage more people to do so if genuine. The harm done can be monumental.  And the means of invading privacy are important too.

The harassment of individuals by some journalists and some newspapers causes grave harm and lasting damage, not only to the subject of the journalism; but their families and children.

Nonetheless, this kind of bad practice, as in the case of Clive Goodman, would seem to be very rare.  It is the role of the PCC to keep it that way.

And the mechanism to securing improvements must, of course, be consistent with maintaining a balance between protecting individual privacy and ensuring freedom of expression.

Online Material
There is also plenty of non professional - amateur provision and comment. Increasingly, newspaper publishers host online communities where people can comment on news, politics and society, offering eye-witness accounts or personal experiences. A key feature for much online material is its interactive nature. For example, blogs and eye-witness accounts were used, to sometimes gruelling and very moving effect, in the aftermath of the July 7th bombings. Undoubtedly this added to journalism’s impact.  We should be better served  for it.

In allowing this material on their websites, publishers accept “responsibility” for policing it. There are also issues of copyright as – for example – Google have found with YouTube. There can also be issues of privacy – how was the material obtained? The fact is that everyone can be a journalist, everyone can contribute. The challenge is to develop – within self-regulation – appropriate safeguards. Most recognised reasonable expectation of privacy and safeguards to protect and deal with privacy issues.

This is not just an issue for the industry, it is an issue for all of us who want and expect a strong press/publishing industry - essential to a strong democracy. We are all guardians of democracy, and we need to accept the challenges this raises.

Ensuring the protections and balance for public and press is vital.  And we need to find ways to keep up with technology. The PCC is aware if this - the Press Standards Board of Finance recently announced the extension of the self-regulatory scheme to cover newspapers’ online material – online versions as well as audio-visual material. This should add to the impression of the industry’s determination to regulate itself in the digital world.

Europe
If it cannot maintain public trust – and demonstrate to the doubters that self-regulation can be effective – there will be those who will want to replace self-regulation.  This tendency may particularly come from Continental Europe, where the tradition is different from ours.

We have all seen in some parts of Europe a stronger predilection for State intervention than self-regulation.  We can observe that the instinct of some of our European colleagues is to trust the State first and industry second.  (Albeit in pursuing the noble interests of protecting the vulnerable.)

We have seen this tendency recently in the negotiations over the revision of the Television without Frontiers Directive.  The aim of that revision was sound: to modernise the Directive to take account of new media and the range of on-demand services which increasingly competes with television to deliver all sorts of audio-visual content. 

And, by creating the fabled level playing-field, to create a single European market in new media services so that they could thrive.

As far as I could see, the industry has achieved huge growth and has been responsible in its expansion without the need for new statutory controls.  The trouble with the “Commissions” original approach, was an exchange of a modest reduction in linear broadcasting regulation, with the introduction of completely new regulatory controls for all online services which contain moving images.  It was sclerotic.  As sclerotic as the CAP.  And, since its jurisdiction extended only to Europe, we would have driven out the new services which are good, whilst seeing the European consumers still able to access the “bad” service which would have been set up outside of Europe.  It was a lose-lose situation. 

Some parts of industry have engaged forcefully in the debate and strongly supported our arguments against harmful new rules, but in truth more could have been done by the Industry.  False comfort had been taken by, newspapers and magazines securing at an early stage an opt-out for their “electronic versions”.  But it wasn’t recognised this opt-out was hugely limited – only for websites which replicated the printed versions.

So there was a real risk that all sorts of Press websites, as well as interactive sites and blogs that support online news, would have been brought under new regulation.  And the rules applied to such sites would have included a whole range of prohibitions on incitement to hatred on grounds such as age and protections for human dignity – well beyond UK law. 

I speak also today as a former journalist.  I know none want to incite hatred, but we all know what mischief can be caused by extending the law into the territory of free speech, without very hard thought and strong public interest justification.

So we nearly lost the argument to retain self-regulation. And while we have managed to argue successfully for the Directive to be extended only to TV-like services, essentially video-on-demand, the negotiation is still taking place.  And we – and you – will need to remain vigilant to ensure no further extension of the Directive’s scope.

I want to be your champion.  But this is a team game, not a one-man sport.   I need your help to achieve this.  Government acting alone is not enough, we need Industry to be fully involved across Europe.

Of course, things aren’t perfect. But no system probably would or will be.  Our task is to continue improving what we have. We need to find the balance together through on-going dialogue. We are committed to self-regulation, but we need to make sure that others have no cause to challenge this.

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