There’s a consensus across all parts of the debate that the press regulator should be independent. The PCC has been claiming it is independent for years. David Cameron wants it to become independent. But of who? It has to derive its legitimacy from somewhere.

Clearly the PCC is currently insufficiently independent of the press. But a political regulator, directly accountable to the Secretary of State would represent a significant threat to the legitimacy of politics and the media. A regulator could be accountable to parliament (rather than a government minister) but the distinction would be less clear in the public mindset – and the government’s control over parliament makes the distinction subtle in practice.

A press regulator could be semi-independent, through a system of co-regulation. A piece of legislation would set out what a regulator would need to look like (in terms of powers, accountability, transparency) and then an arms-length organisation such as Ofcom or the OFT would consider applications from bodies that sought to do that. In the event of disputes, the oversight regulator would have ultimate authority.

2. Limited funding possibilities

There are only two sources of funding: contributions from the industry (either through a voluntary arrangement as now or a tax) or a subsidy from general taxation either determined by the Treasury or by parliament. Neither guarantees independence nor a funding process that is immune from political priorities.

3. Legitimacy

A regulator without legitimacy will have a short shelf-life, no matter how enforceable its demands. When the press doesn’t like a restriction (such as libel laws) it is usually pretty effective at campaigning against them. Only yesterday Paul Dacre was in parliament arguing for greater press freedom. A regulator’s most effective work is not performed after the event but in beforehand, in changing the culture of the industry. Journalists (or any other profession) give short shrift to training sessions from people who don’t understand the job. The alternative is that on most days of the year a regulator that is liked by government is likely to lack public legitimacy.

4. Transparency

There is a reason why tricky issues of regulation do not capture the public imagination: they aren’t particularly relevant. Self-regulation of banks was deemed a failure so a statutory regulator was established. The banks crashed and the statutory regulation was held at fault. The police are regulated by an independent regulatory body and also face criticism over their role in phone hacking.

The real challenge facing the behaviour of the press is the complete disinterest of the media in reporting on the behaviour of particular newspapers (current events notwithstanding). Key parts of the phonehacking scandal have gone unreported in all but one newspaper – the Guardian. The Press Complaints Commission constantly complains that it has too low a press profile. Apologies for frontpage errors are more likely to be placed on page two rather than the better-read page 3 (or frontpage).

Unless the current scandal results in a complete turnaround in the way that the press reports itself, regulatory reform is likely to have limited impact.

Related posts:

1. Andreas Whittam Smith: right and wrong on press self-regulation reform
2. Paul Dacre must speak out over phone hacking
3. Press Complaints Commission’s farcical investigation of Keith Vaz affair

Mr Dacre doesn’t believe that editors should have a public profile. He has previously made clear to the media select committee that he believes readers do not want to read about their editors. Regardless of whether that’s true, it’s a reasonable position to take.

However, Paul Dacre is not just the editor of the Mail. He is a defender of press freedom, or as he would rather describe it: the public’s right to know. Dacre has devoted hours of his working life, free of charge, to developing, supporting and defending the system of self-regulation in the UK. He sees it as a defence against government intervention. When suggestions have been made in the past of government having a role in press regulation, defenders of the status quo have muttered darkly about totalitarianism or a Mugabe-style press.

Over the last few weeks that system of press self-regulation has come under repeated and sustained attack from politicians and others in the media. The Press Complaints Commission has defended itself but Paul Dacre has not made a public utterance. He has neither renewed his condemnation of phone hacking, reminded people that it is a breach of the editors’ code of practice nor attacked those who are calling for the abolition of self-regulation.

Dacre’s silence is surprising given his track-record. As recently as January he used a foreword to the revised editors’ code to call for “greater vigilance than ever” against “an authoritarian government” and criticised parliamentary select committees’ “seemingly ceaseless inquiries”. One such inquiry on hacking takes evidence again this morning. Yet these threats appear absent from the pages of the Daily Mail and the pen of Paul Dacre.

His silence is unhelpful for those wanting to defend the current system of press self-regulation. Mr Dacre has held more senior roles in the bodies that support self-regulation than anyone else. He chairs the body that writes the code. He tells parliament that editors shudder at the thought of criticism from his peers. Yet his criticism or defence are not forthcoming.

It is out of character for a newspaper as pugnacious as the Daily Mail and an editor with such a profound belief in press self-regulation to not come to its defence at the moment when it is most under threat. The threat-level in January to press freedom may have been moderate at best. But for the odd ‘super-injunction’ there was no mention of a government role in press self-regulation from anyone with a chance of bringing it about. In the last week the prime minister and leader of the opposition have united in their calls for the PCC.

Why won’t Paul Dacre speak out to defend press self-regulation? The public has a right to know.

Related posts:

1. Is Paul Dacre paranoid or are critics out to suppress him?
2. Press Complaints Commission’s farcical investigation of Keith Vaz affair
3. Why reform of press self-regulation is harder than it looks

“Our critics have wakeful nights dreaming up new and more ingenious ways to constrain the media. As a result, the Open Society is constantly under threat.

“We can count among the principal offenders: an authoritarian Government with an increasing desire for secrecy; judges with an incomprehension of and an animus against the popular press creating a back-door privacy law under the guise of human rights legislation; no-win, no-fee lawyers charging monstrous fees that make it almost impossible for many newspapers to defend actions; Parliamentary Select committees with their seemingly ceaseless inquiries; and axe-grinding politicians and a supporting army of quangocrats and often self-appointed “protectors” of society. individually, any of these can be contained. Together — especially in a period when much of the press is fighting for its commercial life — they demand greater vigilance than ever.”

Is Dacre right that the press faces a multiplicity of threats from society? It’s important to discount the bloated rhetoric (the press is not threatened by an “army of quangocrats” to pick on of the more silly examples). But does anyone really recognise the threats that Dacre sees? Is phone hacking symptomatic of a press with undue restraint? What about the coverage of Stephen Gately’s death? What about the 20 instances in 2010 when a newspaper broke the code of practice? What happened when they did?

The press get things wrong – as do many companies.  That’s the risk of a free society. When they do, it occassionally ruins lives (and sometimes costs newspapers £100,000s) but when they get things right, it uncovers scandal, such as the MPs expenses story. It is right that the press seeks to defend its freedoms. But I don’t see the demons that Mr Dacre sees. Either his demons are all incompetent or they don’t really exist. Because in a power battle between government and the press, I’m pretty confident which would win last year, this year and next.

Related posts:

1. Paul Dacre must speak out over phone hacking
2. Press Complaints Commission’s farcical investigation of Keith Vaz affair

1. Obama losing will mean administrative gridlock

This old chestnut is based on many false premises. Firstly, that the President is so closely associated with the party and each candidate, that the election is a referendum on his presidency. It isn’t – at least universally – in every state. Secondly, that it is unusual – it isn’t. Thirdly, that political parties are homogenous entities in the USA – they aren’t. If you take that premise and read backwards then it was easy for Obama to introduce his healthcare bill because ‘he controlled’ Congress. Only he didn’t. Some of the hardest fought battles on the bill were with his own side.

2. A Democrat defeat will put the Republicans on course for the Whitehouse

This is complete falacy for a number of reasons. On a practical point, the party infrastructure is so different, so unconnected, so unrelated that the same infrastructure that delivers for a Senator cannot necessarily be prodded back into action for a Presidential candidate. Moreover, the Republican party means lots of different things. And actually, in the primaries for these midterms, many wise commentators considered the biggest losers to be the Republican party, whose stalwarts lost to Tea party activists left, right and centre.

3. That Obama is doomed after winning so comprehensively just 2 years ago

Obama may be doomed, but worse people have come back from heavier – and more unified – defeats than he to win a second term. And mostly, second terms post WWII are the norm. Secondly, he didn’t win all that comprehensively. Given the legacy against which he was fighting, you could suggest that he should have done an awful lot better.

4. The Tea Party is a revelation

The Tea Party looks odd in the UK. But its people are not new. Its fundraising does not come from unusual sources. And it is unlikely to win a national election. Protest movements rarely do. It hasn’t conquered the Republican party. It isn’t a united movement. Not all Republicans are tea party members. This has a real impact on the political management of Congress.

Does any of this matter? Probably not. We will still watch soft American political dreams like the West Wing or brash films with a powerful President like Independence Day. And we can even kid ourselves that the US President is the most powerful man in the world – or even that the US is the most powerful country in the world. Meanwhile, China will continue to quietly pull the strings.

No related posts.

He believes that newspapers “have weakened self-regulation by under-resourcing it”. Like the select committee and Nick Davies, Whittam Smith is critical of the lack of involvement of ordinary journalists in the Press Complaints Commission. Mr Whittam Smith also believes that the PCC’s remedy is not used correctly. He takes aim at the prominence of adjudications:

“To make an editor print an apology in exactly the same position and with exactly the same weight as the offending article would, I know from how I used to feel when the subject came up, cause almost unbearable anguish. The humiliation of it!”

But Whittam Smith is misleading on some aspects of reform of press self-regulation. He opposes fines, which is a reasonable position, but marshalls misleading language for his argument. Whittam Smith writes that “with money at risk, newspapers would want to be represented by lawyers at hearings”. This is undoubtedly true but obscures the fact newspaper’s legal teams already deal with the PCC.

Whittam Smith believes that fines would be unfair because some newspapers are wealthy and some are less so. But if you don’t pay for a TV licence the fine is not altered according to your personal wealth. The Media Standards Trust argues for a different principle: that the fine should be different according to the seriousness of the offence, rather than the wealth of the offender.

He also argues that fines would require statutory regulation because some newspapers would refuse to pay. That’s not the case. As the Media Standards Trust’s submission to the PCC’s governance review made clear, there are other bodies which fine their members without statutory backing. The newspaper would be bound by the terms of the contract of membership to pay the fine. If they refuse, they have breached that contract. They would always be free, though, to leave the PCC. But that’s the essence of self-regulation.

Andreas Whittam Smith is wrong on two fundamental issues. Firstly, he sees the principle of self-regulation as analgous to a City private members club, where the incentive is that one is reluctant to be dismissed. That hasn’t worked for the City and that’s not sufficient incentive for the modern newspaper industry that’s competing for readers globally and is facing economic pressures from amateur journalism. Self-regulation must become a badge of honour, a competitive edge; a set of standards which gives readers (the customer) something to know that they can value what they read.

Secondly, he writes of the relationship of a newspaper with its readers as follows:

“Newspaper editors don’t have a lot of time for what lay people may think of their methods”

If he is right, perhaps Mr Whittam Smith has highlighted why newspaper readership has collapsed and newspaper groups aren’t confident that if they charged for their work anyone would pay. Perhaps newspapers need to be run by people who care more about their customers, what their customers think of their product and can make a persuasive case for claiming special privileges for their work.

Related posts:

1. Why reform of press self-regulation is harder than it looks
2. PCC adjudication against Scottish News of the World inconsistent and a threat to press freedom
3. Well done, Press Complaints Commission