-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,

-new slef regulation body recommended,

– independent of serving editors

-government and businesses,

-No widespread corruption of police by the press found, –

-Politicians and press have been too close

-Press behaviour, at times, has been ‘outrageous.

-Leveson found that the existing Press Complaints Commission was not sufficient, and recommended a new independent body, which would have a range of sanctions available to it, including fines and direction of the prominence of apologies and corrections.

-Leveson concluded that there was no evidence of widespread police corruption, despite a sequence of poor decisions relating to the initial investigation into hacking at the News of the World, but found that politicians, as a group, had devel- oped ‘too close a relationship with the press’.

-The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) is the independent regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. We hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.

–A Royal Charter on press regulation was granted on 30 October 2013. This incorporated key recommendations from the Leveson Report, allowing for one or more independent self-regulatory bodies for the press to be established. Any such body would be recognised and overseen by a Press Recognition Pane

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.

Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press was published ten years ago and it was a half-success and a half-failure.

An independent regulatory body for the press should be established. It should take an active role in promoting high standards, including having the power to investigate serious breaches and sanction newspapers. The new body should be backed by legislation designed to assess whether it is doing its job properly.

Strengthen the legal obligations of those sites and platforms, rather than setting up some regulatory scheme as a solution.

So, although the Leveson inquiry had all the paraphernalia of a legal exercise – a judge, statutory powers, barristers, oral examinations, and even taking place in a courtroom – it was ultimately a failure because – ironically – it was not able to take law seriously and was bound by its terms to propose an effectively non-legal regulatory regime instead. There has been a recklessness in prioritising sensational stories, almost irrespective of the harm the stories may cause and the rights of those who would be affected. Families of famous people have had some of their lives destroyed by the relentless pursuit of the press.

The relationship between the government and the media is immoral and the government are too close to the press

The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public enquiry 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

The Levenson study was created to reveal all of this corruptness and how the media needs to change, this was 10 years ago and the world has hardly changed.