On Monday, July 22, iNews reported that the Sun and Sunday Times gave last-minute election endorsements to Labour following “private assurances” that Keir Starmer would not implement Part Two of the Leveson Inquiry to investigate criminality and relationships of corruption between the media and the police. While Hacked Off contest the iNews interpretation based on an interview with Lisa Nandy, the new culture secretary, it is certainly the case that Labour did not commit to Leveson Part Two in its manifesto.
Politicians and press are both quick to justify the lack of media regulation and further interrogation of the press based on the familiar argument that press freedom is paramount for a healthy democracy. But what does this really mean in the current context? It is worth a quick recap on the history of the Leveson Inquiry before jumping to the conclusion that dropping media reform supports democratic well-being.
In 2011, the News of the World, owned by Rupert Murdoch, stood accused of illegal, unethical behavior through the systematic phone hacking of politicians, members of the royal family, celebrities, and murder victims and their families. Murdoch subsequently closed down the News of the World, and several ex-editors and journalists found themselves under criminal investigation. Prime Minister David Cameron, publicly embarrassed by his employment of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his director of communications when Coulson was arrested in July 2011 for allegations of corruption and phone hacking, then called for an inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Brian Leveson to investigate the issue.
The reasons phone hacking took place are complex. Analyses point to the increasing entanglement of political and media elites as news coverage has taken on an ever-more-important role in policy-making and elections and (on the whole) fewer and fewer people vote; the failure of the Press Complaints Commission (the…
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Auteur: Natalie Fenton
