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| Britain's Lord Justice Brian Leveson pauses as he delivers a statement following the release of the Leveson Inquiry report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. After a yearlong inquiry full of sensational testimony, Lord Justice Leveson released his report Thursday into the culture and practices of the British press and his recommendations for future regulation to prevent phone hacking, data theft, bribery and other abuses. |
LONDON (AP) -- Britain's unruly newspapers should be regulated by an independent body dominated by non-journalists with the power to levy steep fines, a judge said Thursday in a report that pleased victims of tabloid intrusion but left editors worrying about creeping state control of the country's fiercely independent press.
Prime
Minister David Cameron echoed concerns about government interference,
expressing misgivings about a key recommendation of the report - that
the new regulator be enshrined in law. He called on the much criticized
press to show it could control itself by implementing the judge's
proposals quickly - and without political involvement.
"I'm proud of the fact that we've managed to survive hundreds of years without state regulation," he said.
Lord
Justice Brian Leveson issued his 2,000-page report at the end of a
media ethics inquiry triggered by a scandal over tabloid phone hacking
that expanded to engulf senior figures in politics, the police and
Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
His key
recommendation was to create a new print media regulator, which he said
should be established in law to prevent more people being hurt by
"outrageous" press behavior that had "wreaked havoc with the lives of
innocent people whose rights and liberties have been disdained."
Cameron,
under intense pressure from both sides of an issue that has divided his
own Conservative Party, welcomed Leveson's proposal for a new regulator
and said "the status quo is not an option."
But
he said that asking legislators to enshrine it in law meant "crossing
the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the
land."
"I believe that we should be wary of
any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and a
free press," Cameron told lawmakers in the House of Commons. "In this
House which has been a bulwark of democracy for centuries, we should
think very, very carefully before crossing this line."
Leveson
insisted that politicians and the government should play no role in
regulating the press, which should be done by a new body with much
stronger powers than the current Press Complaints Commission.
But the judge said it was "essential that there should be legislation to underpin the independent self-regulatory system."
He
said the new body should be composed of members of the public including
former journalists and academics - but no more than one serving editor,
and no politicians. It should have the power to rule on complaints,
demand prominent corrections in newspapers and to levy fines of up to 1
million pounds ($1.6 million), though it would have no power to prevent
material being published.
Membership would be
voluntary, but newspapers would be encouraged to join in part to stave
off expensive lawsuits - the regulator would handle complaints that
currently end up in court.
The proposal is
similar to the system operating in Ireland, where a press council and
ombudsman were set up in 2008 to make the print media more publicly
accountable.
Critics of the tabloid press generally backed Leveson's findings.
"I
welcome Lord Leveson's report and hope it will mark the start of a new
era for our press in which it treats those in the news responsibly, with
care and consideration," said Kate McCann, who was the subject of
intense press interest after her 3-year-old daughter Madeleine
disappeared during a holiday in Portugal in
2007.
Brian
Cathcart of the group Hacked Off, which campaigns for victims of press
intrusion, said Leveson had produced "a workable, proportionate and
reasonable solution to the problems of press abuse."
He said Cameron's "failure to accept the full recommendations of the report is unfortunate and regrettable."
Cameron
set up the Leveson inquiry after revelations of illegal eavesdropping
by Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid sparked a
criminal investigation and a wave of public revulsion.
The
furor erupted in 2011 when it was revealed that the News of the World
had eavesdropped on the mobile phone voicemails of slain schoolgirl
Milly Dowler while police were searching for the 13-year-old.
Murdoch
shut down the 168-year-old newspaper in July 2011. His U.K. newspaper
company, News International, has paid millions in damages to dozens of
hacking victims, and faces dozens more lawsuits from celebrities,
politicians, athletes and crime victims whose voicemails were hacked in
the paper's quest for scoops.
News
International chief executive Tom Mockridge said the company was "keen
to play our full part, with others in our industry, in creating a new
body that commands the confidence of the public."
"We
believe that this can be achieved without statutory regulation - and
welcome the prime minister's rejection of that proposal."
Leveson's
4 million pound ($6.4 million) inquiry heard evidence from more than
300 witnesses during months of hearings that provided a dramatic,
sometimes comic and often poignant window on the workings of the media.
Witnesses ranged from celebrities such as Harry Potter author J.K.
Rowling and Hugh Grant - who both complained of intrusive treatment - to
the parents of Dowler, who described how learning that their daughter's
voicemail had been accessed had given them false hope that she was
alive.
Leveson said that the ongoing criminal
investigation constrained him from accusing other newspapers of illegal
behavior, but concluded there was a subculture of unethical behavior
"within some parts of some titles."
While many
editors have denied knowing about phone hacking, Leveson said it "was
far more than a covert, secret activity, known to nobody save one or two
practitioners of the `dark arts.'"
He said
newspapers had been guilty of "recklessness in prioritizing sensational
stories almost irrespective of the harm the stories may cause."
"In each case, the impact has been real and, in some cases, devastating," the judge said.
The
hacking scandal has rocked Britain's press, political and police
establishments, who were revealed to enjoy an often cozy relationship in
which drinks, dinners and sometimes money were traded for influence and
information.
Several senior police officers
resigned over the failure aggressively to pursue an investigation of
phone hacking at the News of the World in 2007. But Leveson said that
"the inquiry has not unearthed extensive evidence of police corruption."
Leveson
said over the past three decades, political parties "have had or
developed too close a relationship with the press in a way which has not
been in the public interest."
Those
relationships reached right up to the prime minister's door. Former
Murdoch editors and journalists charged with phone hacking, police
bribery or other wrongdoing include Cameron's former spokesman, Andy
Coulson, and ex-News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, a friend of the
prime minister.
Leveson acquitted senior
politicians of wrongdoing, but recommended that political parties
publish statements "setting out, for the public, an explanation of the
approach they propose to take as a matter of party policy in conducting
relationships with the press."
Cameron, who is tainted by his own ties to prominent figures in the scandal, said he accepted that proposal.
But politicians remained far apart on the broader issue of how, or whether, to regulate the press.
Cameron was holding talks Thursday with leaders of the other main parties in an attempt to thrash out agreement.
He
faced a battle. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, leader of junior
government partner the Liberal Democrats, differed from Cameron in
backing the call for a new regulator established in law.
"We owe it to the victims of these scandals, who have already waited too long for us to do the right thing," he said.
Analysts
say that it was possible for the coalition government's two parties to
join forces and push through a version of the recommended legal changes.
But
Steven Barnett, a communications professor at the University of
Westminster, said that if that does not happen, he would not trust the
British press to set up a truly independent regulator.
"One
possibility is that in the end (the report) has no effect whatsoever,"
Barnett said. "The press can make some noises about regulating
themselves. But in the end they will want to control themselves in ways
that Leveson himself said was unacceptable."
