The Leveson Inquiry

[Beanz]

Will the British Government continue to rely on the tired old argument of freedom of speech and the idea of maintaining a healthy sharp toothed skeptical press to propagate an unhealthy nepotistic relationship with the press in which they allow an incestuous press complaints commission to regulate it's own rabid pack of press hounds, all led by the same hunt masters who simultaneously apparently represent the league against cruel sports ?

[Andre]

Dunno.

[Gandalf]

I'm not really sure what is being asked, but the whole process seems convoluted and I don't see why. Phone hacking is a criminal act and stalking a person is immoral and I think the press needs to be accountable for these two things. Anyone caught for doing these things needs to be put in prison when you see people being put away then the message gets hammered home.

I just don't understand the need to stalk celebrities 24/7. They are not that interesting. If I did that I would be given a restraining order, but the press get a free pass. If I was famous there would be a lot of broken cameras. Not cool.

[Beanz]

[Beanz]

The Leveson Inquiry

[Beanz]

http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20539192

[Beanz]

I'm not really sure what is being asked, but the whole process seems convoluted and I don't see why. Phone hacking is a criminal act and stalking a person is immoral and I think the press needs to be accountable for these two things. Anyone caught for doing these things needs to be put in prison when you see people being put away then the message gets hammered home.

I just don't understand the need to stalk celebrities 24/7. They are not that interesting. If I did that I would be given a restraining order, but the press get a free pass. If I was famous there would be a lot of broken cameras. Not cool.

You are right that accountability is not something that can be avoided by declaring some random public interest cause when a media organisation is harassing the bereaved families of dead innocents. Self regulation is a joke in which an increasingly seedy and frivolous tabloid culture is seeking to ignore any code of dignity and carries on as it likes safe in the knowledge that it's own editors are running the press complaints commission. It has to change but Politicians are so deeply inserted into media barons cosy crevices that I fear they will pontificate and bring up a silly muzzling argument to protect the bastards that violate the rights of dead murder victims. I am not so much posing a question as trying to stimulate a discussion in an interesting ethical debate that is happening right now.

[Gandalf]

My previous post was somewhat simplistic concerning a multi faceted issue. I agree with you, you have a bed in with politicians and newspapers and the trouble with enquiries is that nothing tends to change. They are largely about telling the people something is being done, but really things get swept under the carpet and nothing much really changes.

The British tabloids in particular are a venomous and out of control species of media and unfortunately are the papers most people read. The only defence is that I think the better newspapers in the UK are pretty darn good. Far from perfect as any news source is, but a world away from the dross that crawls beneath.

[Kirkland Laing]

They shouldn't be allowed to restrain the press in any qway. The government restricts so much information already that anything that does get out is worth any price in terms of press intrusion etc. My only complaint about the press is that they hacked the phones of a bunch of fucking celebrities. They should have hacked some consequential people instead.