1. Life after Leveson
George Brock
Professor and Head of Journalism
City University London
The Hidden Cost of Free Comment
World Editors Forum, Bangkok, June 2013
2. Who’d be a judge judging journalism?
Lord Justice Leveson Ray Finkelstein QC
3. Phone-hacking in the UK…but inquiries
held across the English-speaking world
• South Africa: worries about the new press law
(also Ghana NMC)
• New Zealand: worries about new media and
law
• Australia: press regulation and
concentration/plurality (+ separate
convergence inquiry)
• Britain: 2-part (?) Leveson Inquiry triggered by
phone-hacking
4. Why was all this happening? (1)
• Law-breaking
• Privacy concerns
• Self-regulation failing
• Ownership concentration
• New legal dilemmas driven by
new technology
5. Why was all this happening? (2)
• Some newspapers driven by economic
desperation (NB decline is a long trend)
• Law enforcement failed
• Increases in the velocity and volume of
information
• Is the definition of (a) privacy and (b) journalism
changed by technology?
• Is there any longer “the press”?
• Revisiting “freedom of the press”.
6. Is this an attack on press freedom?
• Sometimes, but not necessarily so
• There is no such thing as absolute press
freedom
• All societies balance freedom and restraint
• Asking if the balance is right or needs re-
tuning is a legitimate social and political
question
• Journalists shouldn’t run away from it
7. This man has attacked press freedom
(and intends to continue)
8. This is not quite the same thing
2000 pages, 50+
recommendations
A messy parliamentary
deal which may not stick
9. Leveson in 30 seconds
• Operation Motorman
• Scandal revealed by journalists
• Phone-hacking: 5,000+ names found
• 3 Scotland Yard inquiries
• Almost 60 people charged with crime (mostly
journalists)…300m emails searched.
• Celebrities feature little in the report
• Trials begin September…Leveson part 2?
10. What Leveson actually said
• Who guards the guards?
• Dilemma: self-regulation but uninfluenced by
bosses
• Preoccupied with lobbying power of popular
paper companies
• Arbitration, not courts
• Regulation must have quality control =
“recognition body”
• Last resort: could be Ofcom
• Not “state regulation” but not freedom either
11. The post-Leveson deal
• 2 rival Royal Charters
• Vengeful lords
• Court cases to come
• Exemplary damages
14. More Leveson effects
• A very full record…catharsis
• Phone-hacking+Leveson+trials = a public
humiliation for News Corp
15. What Leveson didn’t do
(and what he might have done better)
• Look at the disruption of mainstream
media and what it means for law and
regulation
• Look at technology and privacy and
law
• Look at law and regulation combined
