British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate Journalists Reporting Journalism Binakuromo Ogbebor British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate Binakuromo Ogbebor British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate Journalists Reporting Journalism Binakuromo Ogbebor Journalism Studies The University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK ISBN 978-3-030-37264-4 ISBN 978-3-030-37265-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37265-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: hh5800/E+/gettyimages Cover design: eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate is the product of an amazing support network and community. I am glad I have this space to say thank you to all who contributed to the successful completion of the research which gave birth to this book. My sincere thanks go to Cardiff University Open Access for funding the publication of this book. Thanks to staff at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC) Cardiff University and the University of Sheffield for various forms of support. Special thanks go to Dr Inaki Garcia-Blanco, Professor Stephen Cushion and Professor Paul Bowman for their kind and intellectual contribution to this work. I am also indebted to Professor Matt Carlson, whose inputs on metajournalistic discourse were very useful. The academic guidance and materials received from Professor Julian Petley helped to enrich the con- tent of this book. Professor Jackie Harrison, Dr John Steel and Dr Tony Harcup also deserve my gratitude for their support and encouragement. My years of working with Professor Stuart Allan, Professor Bob Franklin, Professor Justin Lewis, Dr John Jewell and Dr Kerry Moore broadened my knowledge and perspectives on academic debates, some of which were applied to this book. Thanks to Lucy Batrouney, Mala Sanghera-Warren, Bryony Burns and all other staff of Palgrave Macmillan who worked to ensure that this book is published and gets to you. I am so grateful to my formidable support network consisting of members of my family and friends. This work could not have been completed without your love and support. Thank you very much. v CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 The Press Reform Debate 19 3 British Press System: Press Regulation and Accountability 41 4 Media Policy, Democracy and Theories of the Press 53 5 Investigating the Press Reform Debate 77 6 Paradigm Repair and Journalistic Metadiscourse 99 7 Paradigm Repair: Bad Apples and Self-Assertion 123 8 Minimisation: The Pizza Charter 151 9 Journalistic Metadiscourse: Access to the Media’s Public Sphere 165 10 Representation of Media Policy 187 vii viii Contents 11 Conclusion 203 Index 225 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Binakuromo Ogbebor is a lecturer at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Journalism Studies. She has a PhD in Journalism Studies from the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University, UK. Her areas of research interest include media policy, media representa- tion, media and democracy, journalistic metadiscourse, political economy and the public sphere. ix LIST OF TaBLES Table 6.1 Dominant theme in the study sample 103 Table 6.2 Description of measures to ensure press accountability 105 Table 6.3 Reasons why the cross-party Royal Charter for press regulation should not be patronised by the press 108 Table 6.4 Description of Leveson Inquiry 113 Table 6.5 Description of phone hacking 115 Table 7.1 Description of phone hacking: bad apples 125 Table 7.2 Attributions of blame for press irresponsibility 127 Table 7.3 Dominant theme in the study sample: self-assertion 138 Table 8.1 Description of measures to check press misconduct: minimisation 154 Table 8.2 Description of Leveson Inquiry: minimisation 156 Table 8.3 Dominant theme in the coverage: critiquing critics 160 Table 9.1 Frequency of sources 166 Table 9.2 Source types in related categories 167 Table 9.3 Category of writers 168 Table 9.4 Category of writers in groups 168 Table 10.1 Hierarchy of importance: frequency of arguments at the top position in the narrative 189 Table 10.2 Percentage within alternative views 197 xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction As a consequence of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, the UK press became the focus of a heated public debate. Many questions were asked, and several answers offered. The press had behaved badly and needed to be tamed (Leveson 2012a, p. 195, para. 1.1–1.4). But how? Who guards the guardian? How can press regulation be strengthened? How can the press regain its trust? What does this spell for democracy? These were some of the questions asked, as politicians, journalists, the police, the judiciary and other citizens deliberated on how to ensure a viable press: one that can sustain rather than destroy democracy. Thus, the media became an arena for a heated debate on how to make the press more accountable, if at all. This book analyses how this debate was repre- sented by the press. The aims are to challenge the press to serve as a demo- cratic public sphere during debates about their policy, to enlighten readers on how the media represent debates about their policy and to stir up dis- cussions on how to get the public to be more involved in media reform. I argue that the way debates about media policy are covered is partly respon- sible for the continuous emergence of weak press reforms. As a brief back- ground on the scandal is essential for an understanding of my analysis of the debate, that will be my starting point. The News of the World phone hacking scandal turned the British politico-­media complex upside down. Newspaper editors, media owners, journalists, private investigators and even the police were placed in the spotlight for their role in the scandal. The phone hacking scandal came to © The Author(s) 2020 1 B. Ogbebor, British Media Coverage of the Press Reform Debate, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37265-1_1 2 B. OGBEBOR light in 2005 when some staff of the News of the World were accused of hacking the phones of members of the British Royal Family (Keeble and Mair 2012, p. 9; Davies 2014). The police report on investigations carried out between 2005 and 2007 declared that the crime was perpetrated by one “rogue” reporter, royal editor, Clive Goodman, and a private detec- tive, Glen Mulcaire (Jones and Norton 2014, pp. 147–148). The report concluded that the victims were a handful of public figures (Lewis 2013, p. 72; Davies 2014). However, further investigations in 2011 revealed that not only was phone hacking widespread at the News of the World but that bribes were paid to police for information, and the voicemails of crime victims and their relations were intercepted in search of scoops (Keeble and Mair 2012, p. 9; Davies 2014). The list of identified and alleged victims of the phone hacking con- tained more than 4000 names (Christopher 2012, p. 114) including a murdered school girl, 13-year-old Amanda Jane “Milly” Dowler; victims of the July 7 (2005) London bombings and relatives of deceased British soldiers (Davies 2014; Marsh and Melville 2014, p. 147). The case of hacking into the phone of the murdered school girl, in particular, resulted in public outcry against the News of the World possibly because this sig- nalled extension of the use of subterfuge by the media to members of the public who were not public figures. News on the phone hacking scandal flooded front pages and headlines of the media worldwide; advertisers withdrew patronage from the newspaper and on 7 July 2011, the com- pany announced the closure of the News of the World. The newspaper published its last edition on 10 July 2011 with the caption “Thank You and Good Bye”, bringing to an end its 168 years of publication (Keeble and Mair 2012, p. 12; Davies 2014). The controversy did not end with the closure of the News of the World (also referred to as NoTW in this study).