6
* The Guardian | Tuesday 19 March 2013
The plan
Statutory
underpinning
The royal charter will be entrenched
through statute so it cannot be
changed by ministers. A short clause
in the enterprise and regulatory
reform bill says all new royal charters
cannot be changed except by the
terms set out in the charter itself
Independence of
the regulator
The newspaper industry will
choose one member to sit on
the appointments panel of the
­regulator, but the industry
loses its right of veto over
regulator membership
Exemplary damages
The amendments state that news-
paper publishers who refuse to join
a reformed press regulator may be
subject to exemplary damages if they
publish with reckless disregard for
the claimant’s rights
Apologies and
Future
corrections
crises
The new regulatory body will
have the power to ‘direct the
nature, extent and placement
of apologies’ and not simply
to require them
Group complaints
Third parties will be able to
­complain about articles; currently,
the Press Complaints Commission
only investigates complaints by
­affected individuals
Press code of
conduct
The new code will be written by a
committee consisting of one-third
newspaper editors, one-third jour-
nalists and one-third lay people
Why it matters
It creates a new regulatory
body that is independent of
ministers
This is the true test of whether the
new regulator is ­independent
of the industry – a key charge
against its ­predecessor,
the Press Complaints
Commission
David Cameron, left, can claim
he has not been forced to
‘cross the Rubicon’
The mechanism by which
rogue members of the press
would be ­compelled to join
the regulator. If they didn’t,
they could be subject
to punitive, exemplary
damages claims
Rupert Murdoch’s News
International called the
agreement ‘contentious’
It means the regulator can direct
where an apology appears so that
a front-page mistake can’t be
­resolved with an apology in
small print buried deep inside
the newspaper
Nick Clegg, left, hailed the deal.
Right: the McCanns want
better press apologies
If third-party complaints are allowed,
anyone will be able to complain about
an ­article, not just the
people who are directly
­mentioned or affected
In practice, few
thought the code’s
quality was an issue;
it was always about
enforcement
Most cheers in the
Commons were for
Miliband, not Cameron
The Guardian | Tuesday 19 March 2013
Conservatives
David Cameron had promised not to
‘cross the Rubicon’ and legislate to
regulate the press. By introducing a
royal charter, he can claim, overall,
to have done this
Thumbs up or down
for the proposal?
Sienna Miller, left, and Hugh
Grant, right, were among the
victims of phone hacking
The party wanted to give the press a
veto over appointments. Cameron has
conceded ground and, in practice, all
members of the regulatory body will
have to meet stringent professional
requirements
The Tories argued that
any newspaper that is
part of the ­regulatory
system should be
­immune from
­exemplary
damages
Proposed that the board would
merely ‘require’ apologies
and corrections. That upset
some parts of the press,
who wanted to avoid any
mandatory apologies
Believe the regulator should hear
complaints from affected groups if
there is a substantial public interest.
This accepts the press argument that
a high bar is needed to avoid myriad
lobby groups targeting the regulator
Happy that the
regulatory board
has final power
of adopting the
code
Labour/Liberals
Labour and the Lib Dems insisted
an independent regulator needed
some statutory underpin-
ning. Achieved by
the clause in the
enterprise and regu-
latory reform bill
Achieved a crucial independence
from press and politicians for board.
The plans stop the press from vetoing
­appointments and rule out MPs or
party-affiliated peers from any role
Argued that newspapers should be
protected from exemplary damages,
but should not be given complete
­permanent immunity regardless of
their behaviour
Achieved their wish that the
regulator can ‘direct’ apologies
and corrections – a stronger and
more detailed power
The draft deletes the word ­‘substantial’,
as Labour and Lib Dems wanted,
­allowing for only a public interest test
of whether the board can take group
complaints. Could open the door for
many more complaints
Accepted the press’s wish for a code
committee with a journalistic majority,
but said the board must approve it
The singer Charlotte Church, right,
testified at the Leveson inquiry
* 7
The press Victims
Some editors or senior column-
ists will argue that the royal
Endorsed the plan as a lobbying group.
Jane Winter, director of a human rights
charter statute imperils
press freedom, but
charity whose emails were accessed
by journalists, said: ‘I think this is ­really
some point out that quite a historic day … If this means
no legislation can be there won’t be any more families ­going
permanent since through the hell the McCanns and
no parlia- Dowlers went through, that
ment can would be a major achieve-
bind its ment and worth all the
successor stress and sleepless nights’
Some parts of the newspaper indus-
try, including the owners of the Daily
The lack of a press veto over appoint-
ments is welcomed by Hacked Off,
Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph,
wanted a veto to ensure the ­regulatory
particularly as newspapers had said
one of the reasons they needed the
board could not become stuffed power was to stop people with an
with ­‘unreasonable’ people – such agenda, such as the pressure group’s
as ­members of the pressure group Brian Cathcart, from applying
Hacked Off or former newspa-
per staff with a grudge against
their employer
The press have campaigned to stop Hacked Off was concerned that
fines being imposed for breaches ­newspapers, simply by recognising
of privacy or libel, arguing that they the authority of the ­regulator, would
are incompatible with the European be immune to damages claims. That
Convention on Human Rights. News- has now been removed
papers are likely to ­challenge this at
the first opportunity. This raises the
prospect of the Daily Mail, a
vehement opponent of the
ECHR, using the ­legislation to
help it out of huge fines
The draft proposals give the board the Gerry and Kate McCann, who won
power to ‘direct the nature, ­extent and
placement of corrections and apolo-
a front-page apology for what they
called ‘grotesque’ coverage of the
gies’ if negotiation between a paper
and a complainant has failed. The
power will be resisted by newspaper
disappearance of their daughter,
Madeleine, have campaigned for due
prominence for apologies. This is
editors, who were accused during the a victory for Hacked Off
­Leveson inquiry of burying
­corrections in unread pages
In future, a third party could prompt Hacked Off will see this as a
an investigation, forcing newspapers ­strengthening of the regulator’s
to recalibrate the risk attached to powers
publishing stories involving certain
types of people – such as the royal
family – who typically do not
make formal complaints
Losing the right to write This is a major victory for
their own code will be a Hacked Off, opening up
bitter pill for the editors
who campaigned to keep
the writing of the code
of practice to
it, arguing it was one part non-newspaper
of the PCC that was not people for the
criticised during Leveson first time