Press Freedom and Phone Hacking

If there is a complaint that the West likes to level at China on an ongoing basis, it is that of Human Rights, including that there should be less state control over the press and over freedom of expression. So it should be of interest that there is an inquiry currently under way investigating whether the press in Britain should be more highly controlled, after it appeared that some individuals working at the News of the World had broken the law, intercepting the voicemails of apparently hundreds of individuals including royalty, politicians, sports stars and celebrities, as well as apparently a murder victim, in order to find stories to sell in its newspapers.

There are different human rights, and one might at first think that the right to be allowed to say what one wishes, or for the state to be concerning itself with small scale gossip about the private lives of a few actors and politicians, was rather unimportant compared to the right to a fair trial, or to the right not to be tortured.

However both of those two issues are a vital part in modern democracy. Freedom of expression and a free press assists in ensuring that those in power are held accountable. The right to be able to live one's life free from intrusion is however also vital - most people would not choose to live a life of constant examination by others, and from a broader perspective it would be impossible for the country to function effectively if there were no controls over certain aspects of personal information, for example, if there were no control over bank information with the result that anyone could access your account details.

As a civil libertarian-style Liberal Democrat I have welcomed many of the changes that the coalition government has so far made, such as the abolition of control orders and 28 days' detention without charge. I believe in both freedom of expression and also in the right to privacy. But they cannot both exist without restraint; somehow they must be balanced.

The press, not surprisingly, generally argue that the balance should be in favour of freedom of expression. They generally say that there is a "public interest" in ensuring that information is not kept secret, and that by publishing details of indiscretions (or worse) they perform a public service in keeping those in the public eye up to the mark.

It should not be thought, of course, that all journalists are monks and nuns, selflessly toiling to serve the interests of the nation. Most newspapers are commercial enterprises whose bottom lines are the profit and circulation figures. Many members of the public are interested in stories about celebrity gossip, but that is different from saying that there is a public interest in publishing them. The "public interest" argument often seems to me to be an excuse, and not a reason.

For that reason I believe that press self-regulation cannot continue in its current form. Putting it at best, journalists cannot help but see matters from a journalist's perspective. What is important to a journalist may not be what is important to everyone else. To take a very simple example, misreporting a person's name or age might be a trivial matter to the journalist, but might be very important to the individual who has been misrepresented. Self-regulation means that there is a risk that a journalist's view of what they have done can be self-reinforced by "group-think", and never receives the proper scrutiny that it merits.

I believe that the regulator should be independent and should have the power to impose proper sanctions for improper or unethical conduct. It has become apparent in recent months and years that Britain has an opposite problem to China: whereas Britain often complains that there is too much political control of the press in China, in Britain itself the press have so much power that they often seem to control the politicians. Ever since the Sun ran the headline "It's the Sun wot won it" after the 1992 General Election, politicians have competed for the support of the media owners, in the belief that their support could in turn win the support, and thereby the votes, of their readers.

That is one side of it - there is also the other side: politicians afraid to act or speak out for fear of retribution in the form of unflattering articles. This power extends beyond politicians: we have been told in recent weeks for example of Charlotte Church receiving an offer of being "paid" in the form of positive press coverage instead of money.

More seriously, the initial police investigation into the phone hacking scandal that has provoked the current debate may have been improperly conducted. Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan Police and now Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor, has been giving evidence this week of what he has called a "culture of cover-up" at the Metropolitan Police, including a 'tip off' by the police themselves to Rebekah Brooks, then the editor of the Sun, about the investigation.

The ancient Romans once asked the question "who guards the guards?" If the press have set themselves up as the guardians of the public interest and of the morals of nation, who is in turn to act as guardian over the morals of the press. The answer can no longer be the press themselves: self-regulation has demonstrably failed and been shown to be inadequate in its ability to investigate and regulate.

There must be an independent body that has the power to hold the press to account, dealing with complaints but also upholding standards, with the power to investigate - perhaps an equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act for the media - and to enforce compliance - for example the power to levy meaningful fines, and in serious cases to disqualify individuals from continuing to work as journalists, just as happens in the professions and with company directors.

There must be freedom of expression so that all people can live free from the fear of oppression by government. But there must also be a right to privacy, so that all people can live a life of individual freedom. The press must be allowed to report free from fear and free from improper pressure, but equally must uphold the standards they seek of others themselves, and use the freedom they enjoy with responsibility.