When the press goes bad

Politics can be a nasty business, but for real venom try the media when a critical report about the industry is published.

The Culture, Media and Sport committee has published its report on Press standards, privacy and libel which covers a range of issues including the landmark Max Mosley privacy ruling, how the McCanns were treated, the News of the World phone hacking scandal and (although you won’t read about it in the Welsh media) there is a section dealing with the insensitive way that reports of teenage suicides in Bridgend were covered by the papers.

The impression to be gained is that the industry has done very little in the way of self-regulation since a succession of warning from ministers to newspaper proprietors & editors that they were drinking in the last-chance saloon. What appears to be sanctioned privacy infringements, say MPs, mean that the Street has only itself and a “toothless” Press Complaints Commission to blame for a series of nasty court judgements and so-called super-injunctions.

Understandably, the Guardian decides to focus on a series of findings about News International and the seemlingly institutionalised approach to mobile phone ‘blagging’ - as the practices is supposedly known in the industry. The venerable Beeb also takes a similar self-righteous tack, despite several references in the report to broadcast media failings.

By comparison, the Independent does a workmanlike job on the report’s less than draconican recommendations and ponders if the eventual outcome, under a different government, might be legislation to restrict rather than uphold press freedoms.

The Telegraph chooses instead to emphasise how MPs see an urgent need to stem libel tourism in the UK where costs awarded to plaintiffs are reaching new records - whilst adding a touch of controversy by alleging that references to bullying by Andy Coulson were tacked onto the 167 page document at a very late stage in its completion.

The NoW aspect of the committee's conclusions does not get much of a mention in the Times – for obvious reasons – but its legal section carries the message that newspapers and broadcasters run the risk of increased damages in privacy actions if they fail to tell people in advance what they will be publishing.
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Update: We're surprised to discover that neither BBC Wales or the Western Mail has picked up on the comments by the committee about reporting of suicides in the Bridgend area and the respective roles of the media and Press Complaints Commission. Given that there are a number of important recommedations for editors, we have reproduced the relevant section and recommendations here.