The laws governing journalism vary wildly from country to country. Stack US privacy and libel laws against anything operating in the Strand and the differences are cavernous. So why should press regulation be any different? Why saddle British-run celebrity websites in the US with the same rules they follow in the UK?
Our biggest press regulator, Ipso, has been worrying about this for months and produces a consultation answer. If Mail Online, from its New York newsroom for its US edition, is writing about non-Brits like Tom Cruise, the editor’s code doesn’t apply. (Which is just as well, considering the way Mail Online tots up complaints these days.)
That’s a practical enough solution, on a par with the position of US-owned websites producing UK editions without bending the Ipso knee. But don’t, perhaps, cite that bit from the Ipso code that talks about honouring its self-regulation “not only to the letter, but in the full spirit”. Are self-regulated UK papers and websites behaving because that’s the upright, ethical way? Or does the full spirit stop at JFK?
Giveaway the answer?
Print newspapers are dying, a warning oft repeated. Yet in the ABCs for June, there’s a really storming performance – up 9.78% year-on-year – from one title, while another increased markedly over May. But, you say, the soaraway Metro is free. As is the Evening Standard. What makes freesheets relevant to this debate? Only that the majority of internet news is also free. People like newspapers that cost nothing – and internet reporting that costs nothing, too. People are happy when the price is right.
