Hacks v Flacks: Who wears the trousers?

Raymond Snoddy: Leveson is already having a chilling effect on popular journalism – as seen in the blandness of the Sunday edition of The Sun and most Sunday tabloids following the demise of the News of the World…

Wherever hacks gather these days in licenced or unlicenced premises the talk turns quickly to Lord Justice Leveson. Or more precisely the law of unintended consequences as applied to Leveson.

The ritual caveats are pronounced – in no sense condoning what has gone on etc etc. But there is a palpable sense of clear and present danger that all journalism could be damaged by the behaviour of a relatively small number of miscreants largely confined to two News International titles, the News of the World and The Sun. It amounts to the Leveson fear factor.

The fear immediately started to ooze out at a Media Society debate last night, which was supposed to deal with the current state of play in the ancient tensions between PR’s and journalists – Hacks v Flacks: Who wears the trousers?

For the record, after some good-natured abuse the Flacks won the vote, mainly because there were more Flacks in the audience than Hacks. It was Leveson who was the ghost at the feast.

Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail – and according to Pink News the “sixth most powerful gay man in British politics” – warned you could forget Daily Telegraph campaigns on MPs’ expenses post- Leveson.

Already his Lordship is having a chilling effect on popular journalism, argued Pierce, as seen in the blandness of the Sunday edition of The Sun and most Sunday tabloids following the demise of the News of the World. Boring tabloids could result in lower sales and ultimately the ability of mass circulation papers to carry out significant investigative journalism into matters such as the betting scandals in cricket.

Pierce, who was involved with the expenses stories while at the Daily Telegraph – and who still spends most of his time in the corridors of Westminster – also issued the warning that some MPs are looking for revenge.

For Stephen Armstrong, who has just published The Road To Wigan Pier Revisited following in the footsteps of Orwell to document poverty in the North of England, the business troubles of the industry have already started to undermine journalism. Where, he asked, are journalists given the time and encouragement to go out with notebooks and actually find things out?

Eleanor Mills, associate editor of The Sunday Times, is concerned that the reputation of all journalists will take on a red-top hue when the real story is about her friend Marie Colvin, who died trying to ensure that the murder of children in Syria did not go unreported.

The Flacks and many in the audience set aside their differences with journalists to emphasise the importance of an unfettered and free press without boundaries set by politicians.

His Lordship did little to still the Leveson fear factor earlier this week when he pronounced in forceful terms on the attempts by new Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord Hunt to find a future compromise that would satisfy both the press, the pubic and possibly even the more sentient MPs.

Lord Leveson has clearly encouraged his fellow peer to get on with the task before delivering Monday’s slap-down. While accepting that he had encouraged the PCC chairman to push ahead with reform, Lord Leveson noted icily – “it is important that this encouragement should not be taken as endorsement, let alone agreement”.

A benign interpretation of the remark would suggest that Lord Leveson does not want his efforts to appear to be pre-empted before he has even finished taking evidence. And less still does he want to be seen to allow the press to write their own get-out-of jail free card unchallenged.

A less noble interpretation would see the remarks as rather petulant and more concerned with his Lordship’s amour-propre than trying to find a solution to a genuinely complex problem.
Lord Hunt after all is a lawyer who has specialised in regulatory matters for many years.

In particular the PCC chairman has set out a cunning plan to solve “the Desmond problem” – how to get everybody to buy into a new regulatory system without legislative underpinning. It was the conundrum that had everyone racking their brains. Lord Hunt’s solution is to bind all publishers into five-year contracts, which could be enforced by civil law. Obviously the scheme would only work if all publishers signed up at the outset.

Assuming that happens, Lord Leveson wants to know how the system would cope if a publisher decided to pull out after five years when the hue and cry against the press had died down. It is unlikely that this would happen in practice given recent events but memories do fade. It should hardly be beyond the wit of man to devise further long-term protections.

The contract could include a long notice period if withdrawal is contemplated, something that could then trigger legislation. The press would not have a leg to stand on over legislation if the last, best chance of self-regulation was spurned even five years down the line. Lord Hunt envisages that fines could be imposed under the contract for serious and systemic transgressions. Not unreasonably Lord Leveson wants to know what constitutes serious and systemic transgressions.

His Lordship has also raised an eyebrow over the fact there are no plans for the new unnamed body to provide compensation for those whose complaints are upheld.

Lord Hunt’s two-page blueprint is work in progress and lawyers now have to produce as simple a contract as possible to bind all publishers into an agreed set of obligations, including reworked definitions of where codes of practice can be breached in the public interest.

A lot now rides on whether the two peers – Lord Leveson and Lord Hunt – can in effect reach an accommodation acceptable to Flacks, Hacks, politicians and above all else the public.