Analysis: Regulation works elsewhere – and it will work for the press, too

LORD Justice Leveson has got it right. A new independent self-regulator for the British press underpinned by some light-touch regulation from Ofcom is the perfect solution.

This is not a threat to the freedom of the press, no “chilling effect”, but a good-sense view of the crisis of trust facing the national press.

I have read most of the evidence to Leveson, written extensively about it and edited a book on the subject, The Phone Hacking Scandal, Journalism on Trial.

The figures speak for themselves. Since the inquiry was set up, more than 100 people have been arrested by the three Metropolitan Police operations into phone and computer hacking and bribing public officials. Not all of 
those arrested were journalists. Informed sources expect 30 to 50 to be charged with a variety of offences and ten to 12 to end up in prison.

Self regulation by the PCC is dead, thank goodness. Regulation works everywhere else. It is time for the press to be responsible and look to the future – not to a mythical past of freedom.

• John Mair teaches journalism at Edinburgh Napier University.