With Leveson about to report this week, and various papers starting to bleat that implementation of any recommendations will turn the UK into some sort of North Korean stasi-controlled state, and rumours that the PM will reject it anyway, here are some points to make:
1. This nonsense about that if these new rules came in, they would prevent reporting on a Jimmy Savile like situation. So that'll be why despite knowing it, not a single newspaper printed any stories whilst he was alive. But the BBC also knew about it, and didn't do anything either, so clearly it's their fault, obviously.
2. Speaking of television, it is tightly regulated, and as recent events have shown, if they do screw up, be it the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 or 5, Sky, CNN, QVC or The Ironing Channel, they are punished. As Sir Charlie Brooker said in 2008 (WARNING: Rude words ahead):
"If TV broadcast the kind of material you see in the press - if it paid women in lingerie to recount graphic celebrity fuck'n'tell stories, or shoved its cameras up the skirts of girls exiting taxis so viewers could wank to the sight of their knickers, or routinely broadcast grossly misleading and openly one-sided news reports designed to perpetuate fear and bigotry - if the box in the corner smeared that shit on its screen for 10 seconds a night, it'd generate a pile of complaints high enough to scrape the crust from the underside of Mars"
3. There is various whinging from the press that regulation will prevent stories like the MP's expenses scandals, Steven Lawrence's murderers being caught etc etc etc. No it won't. Those were examples of good investigative journalism and of course they will continue. What it is trying to prevent are the stories that the press know are outright lies. The stories that are just blatantly intrusive. Case in point: The Mail last week ran a story with photos of Fiona Bruce walking her dog, with - SHOCK HORROR - no make up on. The whole tone of the story is "Blimey! Thought she was gorgeous, turns out it's all fake, and she's a dreadful old munter!", and saying that her appearance could be explained by saying "arguably she wasn't on air" ARGUABLY? I'm pretty damn sure that whilst she was walking her dog, she wasn't stopping passers by and telling them about the latest situation in Gaza. I mean, it's not as if every time say, Bruce Forsyth pops out to his local shop (which even he must do at some point), he's tap dancing down the street and then gives whoever serves him a cuddly toy.
4. As so magnificently illustrated on Have I Got News For You a few weeks ago, a stock in trade in certain parts of the press is the "all grown up" scenario, whereby (mostly) American teenage actresses and celebrities are pictured in certain ways with the accompanying stories calling attention over varying parts of their anatomy with a fair use of words "revealing" and "daring" and "lithe". Erm, in a word, ew. The Mail is of course the worst offender for this, but by no means the only one - there was of course the famous incident of the Daily Star slaughtering Chris Morris with regard to the paedophile episode of Brass Eye, when on the opposite page there was a picture of the 15 year old Charlotte Church (who was growing in the way 15 year old girls tend to do) with the headline "She's A Big Girl Now".
And apart from anything else, think of this. Some of you have daughters. Some have been 14/15, some have that age to come, some may be that age now. As a parent, how would you feel if a picture of your daughter at that age was printed in a newspaper saying "My, she's not a little girl anymore" or similar so middle aged men can gawp at her? Exactly.
It's nothing new - we've gone from Jennifer Capriati to Martina Hingis to Charlotte Church to Emma Watson via all points inbetween in the last twenty years with regards to this sort of thing. Hopefully Leveson recommendations will tone this down at the very least. Furthermore, I fail to see how this can even be classified as news.
5a. Remember Chris Jefferies? The chap who was falsely accused of the Joanna Yates murder a couple of years ago? The chap who was then lambasted as "weird" and "nutty" because of his appearance and therefore was, as far as the press was concerned was clearly caught bang to rights and guilty as hell, thus basically turning his entire life upside down and perhaps putting him in danger from members of the public wanting to mete out what they consider to be justice because they believe what's been said? He's did an interview in The Guardian where he says that although he has received compensation he hasn't had so much as a letter of apology from any newspaper editor or journalist.
5b. Remember Lord McAlpine? The chap who was falsely accused of being a paedophile on Newsnight last month? The chap who was mistakenly identified by a victim as being responsible for quite horrible things, and therefore was, as far as the BBC and admittedly half of Twitter was concerned, was clearly clearly caught bang to rights and guilty as hell, thus basically turning his entire life upside down and perhaps putting him in danger from members of the public wanting to mete out what they consider to be justice because they believe what's been said? He understandably complained about what he had been through, received compensation from both the BBC and ITV, and consequently, the Director General had to resign after apologising profusely, and several newspapers are basically demanding that more heads should roll (again, several of which like Chris Patten have also apologised), and further sanctions placed on the BBC for false accusations being aired.
Nope. No difference there. At all. Anyone who says there is obviously want the press controlled like it was in the Stalinist era Soviet Union. So there.
6. If the recommendations are rejected, then what the hell was the point? The costs involved must be high, and it must be said that from what I've seen from a number of readers comments across the spectrum of newspapers, from The Independent to The Mail, these complaints that the press have are happily, not being bought by the public at large - the words "sour grapes" are abounding in quite a few comments.
Quite aside from anything else, the political fall out will be quite spectacular. Several Conservative ministers are already saying that the report should be rejected, but of course this is just so they can count on support from the press come election time. And I have no doubt that if this was five years ago, and Labour were in power, they'd be taking the same attitude. If nothing else, politicians like to save their own worthless hides.
Thursday could be an intriguing day. Expect several anti-Leveson stories in the press - interesting to note that the Murdoch papers to be fair seem to be adopting a more conciliatory tone, Private Eye reporting that as they are aware they are likely to get a bit of a kicking in the report, they're trying to mitigate as much as possible. Also likely to come in for a thorough shoeing is the editor of The Mail, Paul Dacre, who has responded by taking his paper to DEFCON 1 and printing an ELEVEN page "investigation" last weekend about somebody who has a small link to the Leveson team who nobody has heard of and consequently calling his suitability into question. Although they do get bonus points for the use of the phrase "Quasi-Masonic Nexus" which sounds like the title of a Rick Wakeman album.
I can only describe it as akin to the final scene of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, where hopelessly outnumbered, and in an absolute no win situation, Redford and Newman run out into a hail of gunfire from the Bolivian army, shooting their own guns as they go.
As I recall, that didn't end to well. Whether it will for Dacre and the rest of the British press, remains to be seen.
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