House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee Self–regulation of the press Seventh Report of Session 2006–07 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 3 July 2007 HC 375 Published on 11 July 2007 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £17.50 The Culture, Media and Sport Committee The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mr John Whittingdale MP (Conservative, Maldon and East Chelmsford) [Chairman] Janet Anderson MP (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen) Mr Philip Davies MP (Conservative, Shipley) Mr Nigel Evans MP (Conservative, Ribble Valley) Paul Farrelly MP (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme) Mr Mike Hall MP (Labour, Weaver Vale) Alan Keen MP (Labour, Feltham and Heston) Rosemary McKenna MP (Labour, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) Adam Price MP (Plaid Cymru, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) Mr Adrian Sanders MP (Liberal Democrat, Torbay) Helen Southworth MP (Labour, Warrington South) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/culture__media_and_sport. cfm Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Kenneth Fox (Clerk), Sally Broadbridge (Inquiry Manager), Daniel Dyball (Committee Specialist), Susan Monaghan (Committee Assistant), Lisa Wrobel (Committee Assistant), Rowena Macdonald (Secretary), Jim Hudson (Senior Office Clerk) and Laura Humble (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6188; fax 020 7219 2031; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 2 How self-regulation operates 6 3 Newsgathering 11 Controls under the law and the Code of Practice 11 The Goodman case 12 Operation Motorman 15 The law as a deterrent 19 4 The case of Ms Middleton 20 The events 20 Could the scrum have been prevented? 21 Application of the Code of Practice 21 The law on harassment 24 5 Should self-regulation be retained? 24 The principle of self-regulation 24 Self-regulation or exclusive reliance upon the law? 25 Issues for future consideration 27 The Code of Practice 27 The application of the Code to online content 28 The Press Complaints Commission 29 Adjudications and resolved complaints 30 Financial penalties 32 Conclusions and recommendations 34 Formal minutes 37 Witnesses 38 List of written evidence 39 List of unprinted written evidence 40 Reports from the Committee since 2005 41 3 Summary This country values the ability of the press to comment freely on politics, people and events, to criticise or support public figures and institutions for their actions, and to serve as a platform for others to declare radical or dissenting views. Such freedoms do not exist worldwide. In return, the public expects the press to uphold certain standards, be mindful of the rights of those who figure in the news, and to remain, as far as possible, accurate in its reporting. Certain recent events, however, have again led the public and politicians to question the integrity of methods used by reporters and photographers to gather material for publication by the press. Chief among these events were the conviction of Mr Clive Goodman, the royal editor of the News of the World, for interception of communications without lawful authority, and the hounding of Ms Kate Middleton, the then girlfriend of HRH Prince William, in the expectation that the two might shortly announce their engagement. The system of self-regulation of the press constructed in 1991 in the wake of the Calcutt Inquiry in 1990 failed to prevent these lapses, and the image of the press was again damaged as a result. These failures to uphold standards should not, however, be seen as signifying that self-regulation cannot work. To dispense with the current form of self- regulation and to rely exclusively on the law would afford less protection rather than more, and any move towards a statutory regulator for the press would represent a very dangerous interference with the freedom of the press. Our recommendations therefore seek to draw lessons from recent events to strengthen the existing regime. The events leading to the conviction of Mr Goodman amounted to one of the most serious breaches of the Editors’ Code of Practice uncovered in recent times, and his actions have been rightly condemned. Some efforts have been made by the press itself and by the Press Complaints Commission to draw lessons from the conviction of Mr Goodman, although we find it extraordinary that the Commission failed to question Mr Coulson, the Editor of the News of the World at the time that the offences were committed, during the course of its investigation. We welcome the steps taken to exercise more rigorous controls over the actions and expenditure of reporters. We are, however, concerned at the complacency of the industry’s reaction to evidence presented by the Information Commissioner showing that large numbers of journalists had had dealings with a private investigator known to have obtained personal data by illegal means. Although no malpractice by journalists has been proved, that does not mean that no malpractice occurred, and we are severely critical of the journalists’ employers for making little or no real effort to investigate the detail of their employees’ transactions. If the industry is not prepared to act unless a breach of the law is already shown to have occurred, then the whole justification for self-regulation is seriously undermined. 4 We also find that the press did not observe its own Code of Practice in relation to Ms Middleton. Editors failed to take care not to use pictures obtained through harassment and persistent pursuit. The response of the Press Complaints Commission was less than impressive: it waited for a complaint to be made on Ms Middleton’s behalf but could have intervened sooner by issuing a desist notice to editors. The Press Complaints Commission has evolved and has become a more open body which provides a better service to complainants. It is proud of its record in increasing the proportion of complaints resolved through conciliation between the complainant and the publication concerned. We support the principle of seeking to resolve complaints through conciliation, and we believe that it would be helpful to publish details of such resolutions, if the complainant so wishes, in order to enhance the public’s view of the effectiveness of the Commission and strengthen the understanding by the press and by the public of the principles underlying the Commission’s work. The system for regulation of the press raises serious and complex issues which may merit a broader investigation than we have been able to undertake here. We believe that this is a subject which, particularly in the light of the recent speech by Tony Blair about the behaviour of the press and the regulatory framework for the industry, deserves careful examination in the future. 5 1 Introduction 1. From time to time an event occurs which causes the public and politicians to question the integrity of the methods used by reporters and photographers to gather material for publication by the press. In January 2007, two such events occurred, casting a shadow over print journalism. The first, in early January 2007, was the persistent harassment by photographers of Kate Middleton, the then girlfriend of HRH Prince William, amidst speculation that an engagement was about to be announced. The second, later that month, was the sentencing of Mr Clive Goodman, a reporter employed by the News of the World, following his conviction for conspiracy to intercept communications without lawful authority. These two events were preceded by a third, which attracted much less public attention even though its implications were potentially even more significant. This was the release by the Information Commissioner, in December 2006, of a list of publications employing journalists who had had dealings with a particular private investigator known to have had obtained personal data by illegal means. 2. The conjunction of these events was certainly co-incidental, but they have given rise to renewed doubts about whether the press is overstepping the mark in the methods which are used to obtain information. The resurfacing of those doubts provoked this inquiry. 3. The timetable was a brisk one: we announced terms of reference on 6 February 2007. They were: x Whether self-regulation by the press continues to offer sufficient protection against unwarranted invasions of privacy; x If the public and Parliament are to continue to rely upon self-regulation, whether the Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice needs to be amended; x Whether existing law on unauthorised disclosure of personal information should be strengthened; and x What form of regulation, if any, should apply to online news provision by newspapers and others. We held a single morning of oral evidence on 6 March: a list of witnesses appears on page 38. 4. This inquiry set out to draw lessons from particular events and has, in general, confined itself to harassment and the use of sharp (but sometimes justified) practices in newsgathering. We have not attempted to hold an inquiry on the scale of that held by our predecessor Committee in 2002 and 2003, which was based on submissions from across the national and regional press and on written and oral evidence from people who claimed to have suffered injustices at the hands of the press.