John Whittingdale, in or out of ministerial office, has developed an enduring role for himself as a candid friend of the press. So when he warns of rough times ahead, newspaper bosses would do well to listen.
Whittingdale used a lecture to an Independent Press Standards Organisation audience last week to underline the politically obvious. OK, so the Tory election manifesto had pledged to repeal section 40, the dread clause that could make papers pay privacy and libel costs, even if they win their case. But not OK, the Conservatives hadn’t won and there might be no majority at all for repeal; indeed, just the reverse. To quote Whittingdale: “This is an issue that will come back to the fore once again ... the industry will need to make its arguments again.”
But perhaps rather more than the same old arguments about Ipso’s investigatory and fine-inflicting capacities. Where, two years on, have there been any fines, of 5p let alone a million pounds? Where are the investigations? And, additionally, what about arbitration – a post-Leveson test of serious regulation on both sides of the House? Ipso has some distinguished barristers ready to serve, but at concomitant cost levels that don’t seem likely to attract much custom. Its rival Impress, by contrast, was in arbitration business last week with a £2,500 award to a freelance journalist.
Now: some of this may seem a little unfair in Ipso circles. The transparent handling of complaints is pretty exemplary. Big boys in the Telegraph and Sun class have endured pungent criticism. But it’s also true – even before Seumas Milne was kissed by a “blonde lawyer” – that Labour isn’t much impressed.
The huge majority of papers backing Ipso may calculate that, as before, the sheer vehemence of their case against state-endorsed regulation will be enough to see off any renewed challenge. But no one should bank on it. Whittingdale is surely right to expect actions that go beyond complaints committee words. Equally, Sir Alan Moses, Ipso’s chairmancorrect, just renewed for another term, is right to talk of the need to “reinforce our independence and effectiveness”.
Quite so. There’s nothing more stupid and dangerous than sitting back and defining press freedom by whoever happens to win, or not win, an election.
• Google, in generous vein, gives upwards of €700,000 to Britain’s Press Association so that it can develop robot reporters able to crank out 30,000 articles a month and, says PA’s editor-in-chief, “provide the news ecosystem with a cost-effective way to provide incisive local stories, enabling audiences to hold democratic bodies to account”.
In so far as robot versions of robotic press releases can hold anyone to account, that is. Watch, anxiously, for the next stage as Google News algorithms begin to pick up Google-financed robotics.
