Background to the Leveson inquiry
The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012.
The Leveson inquiry is a wide-ranging exercise aimed not just at News Corp’s newspapers but the press as a whole. It will examine relations of power between the press and the public, politicians and police.
Press response to the public about what’s going to happen
If new legislation is recommended, and the government is willing, then it will fall on ministers to introduce the statute required. But the press is strongly opposed to statutory reform, and the Conservatives are split between those who oppose any statute and those who support a modest form of legislation. So, either way, it will fall to the press itself to create a reformed regulator and to chance its own culture and practices.
It is unclear exactly how the prime minister will react, but one outcome being canvassed is that the coalition gives the press time to come up with a reformed PCC, and leaves hanging over the industry the threat of statutory Ofcom regulation if Britain’s highly politicised and factionalised newspapers cannot agree.
10 years later
When Leveson published his report in 2012, he said that for 30 years or more politicians “have had or developed too close a relationship with the press in a way which has not been in the public interest”, although he added that “close relationships, including personal friendships” were “not in themselves any cause for surprise or concern”.
Since then the election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, first by his own party and then by the British people in 2019, has put a former journalist in Number 10 for the first time since Winston Churchill.
I happened to have been a witness at the inquiry, giving evidence on blogging and social media, and so I thought that – after ten years – it may be worth setting out some thoughts about the inquiry.
The Leveson Inquiry was a half-success and a half-failure.
The successful part was the evidence stage, where a huge amount of evidence was placed into the public domain about the culture, practices and ethics of the press that would have not been placed into the public domain, but for the inquiry.
This evidence is in the form of written witness statements, original documents and oral evidence.
The Leveson inquiry was at the tail end of when there was an actual newspaper industry – where newsprint was published daily on an industrial scale.
Since the circulations have collapsed.
Now anyone with an internet connection can publish to the world.
If for example a reporter cannot publish something in a newspaper (or news site) there is nothing stopping a tweeter publishing the same to a potentially far wider audience.
Basically the Leveson inquiry was working well until the introduction to world wide social media where everyone from across the world can be connected to one another. Which means anyone can post anything which is why the Leveson inquiry was only a half success.
The main point of the Leveson inquiry was to stop the press from making deals and paying off courts and police for information and also to stop them from hacking into peoples phones to gather information’s and create fake news.
The press hacked into a murdered girl Milly Downers phone to send messages back and forth which created a false sense of hope for the friends and family of Milly as they thought she was still alive.
The Leveson inquiry was set up to stop close relations between the press and government and reduce the risk of false storied getting put out to the public.