Newspaper regulation essay

What are the arguments for and against statutory regulation of the newspaper industry? 

I agree that there should be statutory regulation of the newspaper to a high extent for many reasons. There has been many cases in which people have been victims of the press and their privacy has been invaded however they do not get the justice they deserve.

One significant case was the Millie Dowler case where her parents were given false hope that their daughter was still alive after being missing for a while. Millie Dowler who was abducted and abused then murdered (strangulation) one day after school and her parents had reported her missing, unaware with what had happened to their daughter. The News of The World took it upon themselves to hack into Millie Dowler's phone which led the police in charge of the investigation to believe that Dowler was still alive seeing as her phone was active, little did they know, The News of The World had hacked into Millie Dowler's phone. This is just one scenario where a newspaper has used their technology and independent regulation for negative reasons. Another event which occurred was when Christopher Jefferies was wrongly accused over the murder of Joanna Yeates in December 2010 all because a tabloid blamed him judged on his appearance and personality, Christopher Jeffries states that "no disciplinary action was ever taken against the journalists" which highlights how terrible the press are at regulating themselves. A man was pressed charges against, blasted in public for a crime which he did not commit and still the people who wrongly accused him did not receive no form of punishment. Even Brian Cathcart (a former journalist at Reuters, Independent, Independent on Sunday and New Statesman) stated that "British journalism has been poisoned in recent years", as someone who worked in the industry seeing a problem with the newspaper regulation, it implies that there is a problem and it should be fixed. He is also the founder of ’Hacked Off'. 

The Leveson inquiry was a case which came about because of the fault 
The News of The World had committed.  Leveson started the case saying “one simple question: who guards the guardians?”. There were many victims of the press, journalists, newspaper executives, police and politicians and in some cases, the victims evidence was not heard to avoid further criminal investigations. This highlights the fact that there is no justice for these victims and even in court they were not heard out just for the protection of the people against statutory regulation of the press

Under other conditions, some may argue that parliament passing statutory regulation means less freedom of speech and this could lead to corrupt politicians not being exposed to the British public and that could lead to major problems. Statutory regulation means that successful newspapers may still have access to phone hacking however this can be used for positive reasons. Lord Black of Brentwood states that “State intervention is abhorrent in a free society” which implies liberty taken away from journalists when their job is to do research on people and come up with stories good enough to be published to the press. The government will only have more control then they already have and this will not benefit us in anyway.

Overall I immensely sympathise with the victims of the press and hugely believe that statutory regulation should be introduced seeing as the newspaper industry have taken advantage and started invading people’s privacy with no purpose and they do not receive the proper punishment for their wrong doings therefore the government should have power to a certain extent to make sure they are not harming people and if they do they should pay the price. Freedom of speech should not be removed completely and newspapers should still be able to publish what they would like, as long as someone's personal life does not have to be abused for them the make a good news story.