Lord Justice Leveson did not hear, or himself make, many criticisms of the old editors’ code of practice embraced by the Press Complaints Commission. Nor can there be much complaint over finding it now – marginally updated – as a key text in Independent Press Standards Organisation affairs. Add warnings over reporting suicides, gender identity and over-excited headlines, and you’ve more or less got the meat of it.
But that means that one of the big issues of recent years goes unexamined. Patrolling from court to court and verdict to verdict, it’s the problem of newspapers and their reporters paying sources for information. On the one hand, an absolute no-no (just see what American newspaper codes have to say); on the other hand, a practice that much of the British press appears to find in the public interest, with juries benevolently agreeing when asked.
The sources themselves aren’t safe from retribution. Police officers and civil servants who take a press penny can find themselves behind bars – even if the story they passed on was something that clearly should have been disclosed. So where’s the balance (and where, Mr Murdoch, is the code’s duty to protect sources in any case)? You can see why Paul Dacre and his committee – with three new lay members on board – didn’t want to dig too deep here for fear of hitting bedrock. But some really craggy problems remain. If, for instance, the code forbids payments to convicted criminals, why doesn’t it forbid payments that turn public officials into criminals?
