Leveson inquiry

It’s very hard not to come across the Leveson Inquiry in the news with the past couple of months. It’s one of the biggest news stories this year in the UK

. What surprises me is not everyone actually knows what it’s about.
The Inquiry is looking at the culture, practices and ethics of the Press. There are four modules running in this inquiry; the first module is ‘The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone hacking and other potential illegal behavior’. The second module is, ‘The relationship between the press and the police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest’. Module 3 is ‘The relationship between the press and politicians’ this focuses on the news and the newspapers which where involved with the phone hacking case. The final module is ‘Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest ethical standards’. The prime minster set up and announced that the inquiry was going ahead following all the exposure of the alleged phone hacking at ‘The News of the World’. The Phone hacking cases where awful, they hacked people’s phones just to get stories. They even tampered with peoples phones so they could get more information, which also affected some police matters. The inquiry started taking evidence on August of 2011 so this case has had a long time to build up a big report which recently has been published. The report was published on November the 29^th; it is a 2000 page final report. So you would hope they have taken all the concepts into consideration. The websites talks about their aim and it says, “The Inquiry aims to draw recommendations, if any, for the future, with particular regards to press regulation, governance and other systems of oversight”. So there may be a recommendation for regulation to be put in place so it will affect the module one behavior and others depending on the outcome.

So what did lord justice Leveson recommend? His recommendations where how the press was and is regulations. The recommendations were ‘Newspapers should continue to be self-regulated - and the government should have no power over what they publish’. The current system is PCC which is the press complains commission. This is needed through this ‘transitional phrase’ until a long term replacement can be decided. The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Hunt, wants a new ‘Tough, independent regulator with teeth’. However the free speech network opposes this as it defeats the object of what they are, as they run of this and this will put a boundary on what they talk about. They’re made up from a vast range of publishers and editors. The press is scrutinising the people in power in this case as they don’t want a change so they can have free speech without the fear of getting punished.

Another side of this argument comes from the ‘Hacked off’ campaign which stands up for the victims of people whom were affected by this. They think that self regulations don’t work and something needs to be put in place that can protect and work. Hacked off are on Leveson side and are hoping for a secure regulation.

They got the evidence from the people who were affected by this. This helped them build up a case against the papers who was accused of phone hacking. The hearings for this were done at the Inquiry Room at the Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London
.  The Inquiry Room is located in what was formerly courtroom 73. They got evidence from many famous people including, Piers Morgan, Hugh Grant and many more. Also the general public could send in information, this information was only for module 4. This was done so they could get a wide range of evidence from everyone and not miss out any key parts.