Orwell lecture calls for newspaper regulator 'with teeth'
Birkbeck welcomed Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-Chief of Guardian News & Media.
Birkbeck welcomed Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-Chief of Guardian News & Media, as he delivered the George Orwell Memorial Lecture on Thursday 10 November.
Speaking on a day when News International executive chairman James Murdoch faced further questioning by MPs over the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, Mr Rusbridger called for a new independent regulator 'with teeth' for the newspaper industry.
Mr Rusbridger suggested a new regulator should also offer a “one-stop-shop” mediation service for libel and privacy cases as an alternative to the courts. The service could offer a quick, cheap and responsive way of resolving cases for news organisations which signed up.
“Most journalists didn’t want the courts, the state, Europe or MPs to regulate the press. Doesn’t logic suggest that we should be proposing a new body which would offer a plausible and effective alternative to those who would interfere?” he said.
On phone-hacking, Mr Rusbridger said the scandal had exposed the widespread fear of the “untouchable” News International Corporation, and suggested that Parliament should spend as much time thinking about issues of market dominance as they currently do about regulating the content of newspapers.
He said there had been “an almost willful blindness in British police, press, regulatory and political circles” to acknowledge what had been going on.
“All the forces in civil society that you would normally expect to be engaged in such a situation failed. The simplest explanation is a combination of fear, dominance and immunity. People were frightened of this very big, very powerful company and the man who ran it. And News International knew it. They had become the untouchables of British public life. “
“There became an unspoken reciprocity about the business and regulatory needs of Mr Murdoch and the political needs of anyone aspiring to gain, or stay in, office. On top of all this, there was – as we now know – a private intelligence operation. No wonder people were frightened of this company and may have decided not to challenge it.”
Mr Rusbridger described the UK’s current competition and plurality framework as muddled, preventing, for example, the Kent Messenger Group from buying seven local papers while nearly allowing the biggest media company in Britain to double in size.
“If the laws are inadequate to the task [of blocking the BSkyB bid] it is, bluntly, time to change our laws and I hope MPs and Peers spend as much time thinking about the issues of market dominance as they currently are about regulating the content and behaviour of the press."
Mr Rusbridger concluded by saying it was an “incredibly anxious time for journalism, with even the most powerful and professional newspapers clinging on to financial viability.”
Pointing out that the best of journalism – the reporting of Guardian journalist Nick Davies – had driven out the worst, he added: “Over the coming period we’ll hear many uncomfortable truths about failed regulation, distorted priorities, illegal practices and a betrayal of both the public and the public interest. But it’s also a once in a generation chance to celebrate great reporting, to think again about what journalism at its best can do and what it should be.”
The George Orwell Memorial Lecture is held annually and is funded by the George Orwell Memorial Fund. The speaker is invited to choose a topic, on the proviso that it should have been of interest to Orwell.