As the Leveson inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal has got under way, there has been widespread shock at much of the evidence that is emerging about the behaviour of the press. The inquiry, announced by the Prime Minister in July is to be in two parts, covering the role of the press and the police. It is the first part, which is concerned with the culture, practices and ethics of the media, which has begun. It is taking place against the background of the phone-hacking turmoil during the summer, which led to the closure of the News of the World, a Murdoch Sunday paper, and to the resignations of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and as senior Assistant Commissioner. (It was the subject of my Cambridge Letter on July 31.)
The shock caused in the first few days of the Leveson inquiry derives from the appalling revelations of the ways in which the behaviour of a large number of journalists, and the newspapers which employ them have affected the lives of a wide variety of people. Evidence from J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, for example, stated that photographers had left her feeling under siege. Her family's address had been published, and a letter addressed to her had been placed in her five-year-old child's school bag.
Gerry and Kate McCann, whose three-year-old daughter disappeared in 2007 (and has not been found) faced — at a desperate period on their lives — wholly unjustified suggestions that they had been guilty of a crime. Sally Dowler gave harrowing evidence of the hacking of the phone of her murdered daughter, and the deletion of some voice mails, which led Mrs. Dowler to think that her daughter was still alive. The victims of the phone hacking, in short, are not simply celebrities (though there are many of these). Many are ordinary people, whose lives have been badly affected, and in some cases shattered, by the behaviour of journalists.
Press control
All this obviously raises crucial questions about what, when the time comes, Lord Leveson (an experienced Appeal Court judge) will decide to recommend. It also raises important issues about what the role of the press ought to be, and what considerations ought to guide and control it.
Few people in the United Kingdom would wish to see the imposition of restrictions which would have the effect of ending the tradition of a free press. Most people recognise that the task of holding to account politicians and others (for example the police) whose actions and decision can have a huge effect on the lives of ordinary citizens, is an important safeguard of democratic freedom. The example of what happens in dictatorships is a warning that should be taken seriously.
And yet, a situation in which people's lives can be ruined by some newspapers, and their staff, behaving without any ethical compass, sacrificing everything to “getting a good story” cannot possibly be right, and is not acceptable.
It could, of course, be argued that this kind of behaviour happens only because there are many readers willing to buy the papers, readers who themselves have no regard to the ethical position, and no regard to the huge harm done to the victims.
One can see the attraction of that argument to those who feel that any sort of control must be avoided at all costs, but it will not wash. There are no doubt people who would get pleasure from watching bear-baiting, or from seeing human beings being killed in a lion cage as a form of entertainment. That such people may exist does not justify offering them what they would like.
Evidence given to the Leveson inquiry in its first few days has horrified many people. The sense that there is a need for much more stringent means of protecting people from the unethical excesses of some sections of the media is now strong. Calls for more control are already being heard.
That is not surprising, but it is important not to allow it to submerge or conceal the value of a free press. Recent experience of what journalists did in exposing what had become endemic unethical behaviour by many politicians (at a time when the police were failing to investigate such behaviour) is a good reminder of that value.
Finding a way to preserve freedom, while at the same time expecting, and monitoring, ethical standards will not be easy, but it is undoubtedly the challenge which the Leveson inquiry faces.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, UK. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
