For 300 years the British people have fought - and died - to keep a free press. This week our Prime Minister must not betray them
Crunch time: The Prime Minister will be right to reject the idea of statutory regulation
First of all, it is necessary for the British press to understand and admit that there is a case against us. If newspapers and individual journalists had done nothing wrong, there would never have been a Leveson Inquiry or a Hacked Off campaign.
And the fact that existing laws were broken, or are alleged to have been broken in several cases now before the courts, does not alter the fact that this behaviour was wrong, and should have been prevented before it took place.
Sneaking into the private telephone messages of blameless individuals is against the law. But it ought also to be repugnant to any civilised person. It should not require the threat of prosecution to put a stop to it. Those who did these things should have known better.
The growing readiness of newspapers to ignore the strict and rather noble rules against prejudicing a fair trial was equally wrong. It is true that Government law officers had become slack in enforcing this – a failing that has now been firmly and laudably put right.
But once again this is no excuse. Responsible adults should not have to be threatened with punishment before they obey the known law. In any case, the principle involved is one that journalists have good reason to support, and should never undermine.
The presumption of innocence is one of the most precious and rarest liberties in our possession. Newspapers, which survive only where liberty flourishes, should be especially keen to guard such things.
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The press treatment of Christopher Jefferies, the blameless Bristol teacher groundlessly suspected of involvement in the murder of Joanna Yeates, was unequivocally wrong and should never be repeated.
In many other small ways, Britain’s press has allowed its standards to slip and has forgotten that it lives, above all, by the consent of its readers, who are rightly upset if journalists appear in their lives, or in the lives of their friends, neighbours and relatives, in the guise of bullies or cheats.
Some papers may also have developed relations with the police, and with politicians, that were unhealthily close. Total independence may be a utopian dream, but the great American reporter H. L. Mencken long ago correctly said that the proper relationship between the press and the powerful is the same as that between a dog and a lamppost.
Most journalists and all editors are keenly aware of these failings, acknowledge them and seek to put them right. This has been the case for some time now, and it is not just caused by a fear of regulation, but also by a recognition that such things had got out of hand and were doing no good to the Fourth Estate.
Fleet Street understands very clearly that it bears a heavy responsibility for maintaining, preserving and strengthening the great treasure of British press freedom. This freedom did not come about by accident, nor was it handed down willingly from above.
It was fought for, over more than four centuries, by men and women who were ready to take great risks so that they could reveal things that many powerful people preferred to keep quiet, and say things which many powerful people disliked and would have suppressed if they could.
Disgraceful episodes such as the Milly Dowler (left) phone-hacking affair and the shameful treatment of Christopher Jefferies (right) must never be repeated
It was one of the freedoms defended and preserved, in war after war against continental despots, by the sacrifices of our Armed Forces, a fact that makes it even more important that we do not now let it die or be strangled.
Perhaps we as a people had become too used to having this unusual liberty, and imagined it would simply last for ever.
But in any society there are always strong interests who want things kept quiet, and debate limited to their own point of view, and those forces saw, in the Milly Dowler affair and in the meltdown of News International, a chance to muzzle, chain and neuter a free press.
Journalists, for all their raffishness and irreverence, do take their responsibilities seriously. Having inherited liberty, and enjoyed it, they hope to hand it on to future generations. Seeing this danger, they have radically changed their ways.
Newspaper offices in the year 2012 are much more restrained and cautious than they were ten or even five years ago. Practices that were tolerated are now forbidden.
Blind eyes are no longer turned,
where once they would have been. It may well be that, as a result, some
important stories have not been written which might once have been. It
is sad but true that sometimes unscrupulous methods will uncover facts
that would otherwise remain secret.
But
if this is so, it is because of the independent judgment of free men
and women, operating in a free society, not because of a fear of the
State.
And
now we come to the heart of the argument. It seems likely that Lord
Justice Leveson, who reports this week after long months inquiring into
the press, will recommend some sort of statutory basis for newspaper
regulation.
In
the aftermath of the Milly Dowler phone-hacking affair, and of the
traducing of Christopher Jefferies, and of the closure of the News of
the World, such a recommendation may have substantial support among MPs
and the public. It would be absurd to pretend otherwise, as it would be
ridiculous to claim that there was no reason for it.
It will be said that the BBC’s journalism does not appear to suffer from the regulation of Ofcom. In fact, Ofcom is debarred from investigating many of the most important complaints against the BBC, notably on its impartiality and accuracy. On these crucial matters, the Corporation still judges itself.
American founding father Thomas Jefferson said: 'Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter'
But more importantly, the BBC is financed by a compulsory levy on almost every household in Britain, and so has special responsibilities.
Nobody is made to pay for newspapers. They can buy them, or not. No detector van will prowl by to see if they have done so. Nobody will fine them if they decide not to buy a paper.
And this is the root of their independence. The press is free because it is commercially successful in its own right. That is why it is simultaneously rather grubby and rather glorious.
Two great men of the 18th Century summed up the strange standing of newspapers, half bookie and half bishop. Samuel Johnson described journalism as ‘scribbling on the backs of advertisements’.
American founding father Thomas Jefferson, who inspired the First Amendment protecting the freedom of the press, said: ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.’ Jefferson, himself a politician, knew that politicians are not to be trusted.
Commercial success depends on popularity. Popular newspapers have to recognise and satisfy the tastes of the public, or they will die. This does not mean encouraging or feeding the worst in people, but it does tend to involve printing material that might not go down too well in an Oxford Senior Common Room, or in the Chambers of Her Majesty’s judges. That is just how things must be.
Those countries which lack a robust, even raucous, but successful popular press also lack a crucial restraint on power. Without such a confident press, who would have dared name the culprits in the Stephen Lawrence murder, as our sister paper did?
Would you know about the expenses fiddling of MPs, the politically correct suppression of the truth about child sex exploitation, the abuses of power and dubious financial dealings of politicians, or even the insufferable rudeness of Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell to the police?
Would our courts be as fair and just as they are, without the knowledge that their activities are independently reported?
The experience of closed family courts strongly suggests that they would not be.
People come from all over the world to use our legal system, and indeed to live under a political system which – often thanks to a vigilant and independent press – remains more free and fair than most on the planet.
A very large principle is at stake here, and it should not be confused with the need for the press to set its house in order.
There is no doubt that the British newspaper industry will in future be more restrained. The proposals for a new voluntary regulator are extremely severe on wrongdoers, and include the possibility of fines of up to £1 million as well as tough powers to investigate and to call witnesses. Nobody can call such a regime toothless.
The question is: how shall it be restrained? If we choose statutory regulation, we have conceded, probably for ever, one of the most valuable freedoms in our possession.
Government is, in the end, cynical and self-serving, as President Jefferson well knew. If the State regulates the press, it will do so in the interests of the State, not of the people. Nobody can tell how far it will extend its power to interfere, once it has such power, in the years to come.
That is why the Prime Minister will be right to reject such an idea, and why Britain as a whole should applaud him for his wisdom.
