News paper regulation

 Task One: Media Magazine article and questions

Read the Media Magazine article: From Local Press to National Regulator in MM56 (p55). You'll find the article in our Media Magazine archive here. Once you've read the article, answer the following questions:

1) Keith Perch used to edit the Leicester Mercury. How many staff did it have at its peak and where does Perch see the paper in 10 years' time?

130 

If it is still print, it will will be weekly, expensive and very small circulation

2) How does Perch view the phone hacking scandal?

Views it as really bad but through reactions were disproportionate and that regulation isn't the answer.

3) What does IPSO stand for and how does it work?

Independent Press Standards Organisation

A newspaper has 28 days to deal with a complaint. If it hasn’t been resolved, the complainant can then take it to the IPSO Complaints Committee, which will decide if the Editor’s Code of Practice has been broken. If it has, the Committee can insist on corrections and demand that they be placed on a particular page.

4) What is Perch's view of newspaper ownership?

Keith does not believe that businesses such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns The Sun, The Times and 39% of Sky, should be forced to sell some of their titles to ensure that no one person or company can control too much of the media.

5) Do you agree with his view that broadcast news should have less regulation so that TV channels can support particular political parties or people?
No

Task Two: Newspaper regulation exam question

Write an answer on your blog answering the following exam question:

What are the arguments for and against statutory regulation of the newspaper industry? [20 marks]

Aim to write an answer of around 400-500 words featuring at least three detailed paragraphs. Make sure you cover both sides of the debate. This topic could well be our 20-mark essay at the end of Paper 1, Section B so it's great preparation for the summer exams.

After the Leveson Inquiry it was requested that all newspapers sign up with a regulatory company that is approved otherwise there will be financial consequences. This was decided in hopes to prevent something like the hacking scandal again and brought about independent companies such as IPSO and IMPRESS. IMPRESS completely the regulatory laws and is much stricter than IPSO but IPSO has more newspapers signed up with them including the major newspaper companies whilst IMPRESS doesn't. It is argued that all news papers should be strictly regulated so to use IMPRESS but many people argue against that idea and prefers newspapers to stick with IPSO.

One argument against statutory regulation is that, if there were to be another incident or something reported that an individual involved doesn't enjoy, it would be much easier and cheaper to sue and get compensation than it would be with a government controlled company. This makes production much easier for the company and legal concerns much cheaper for individuals, thus not putting anyone in a difficult position. However, you could argue against this and say that legal concerns wouldn't happen often or at all if the government was in control or had final say in production process for regulation. This means no one will have to feel the need to sue as there will never be anything offensive or unethical.

One argument for statutory regulation is that independent bodies have failed to prevent abuse and unethical actions within the production team such as for the phone hacking scandal and other intrusions of people's privacy both 'ordinary' and public figures. This failure means that without strict regulation the regulatory bodies can not be trusted to ensure that the people working for them won't commit unethical acts anymore, and the only way they can be trusted is through strict monitoring - statutory regulation. However, incidents like the hacking has always been a thing since the 90's when reporters hacked into people call logs to discover information about people's lives, but, it has yet to happen with IPSO being the main regulatory body. This could mean that what they need isn't statutory regulation but better policies. IPSO has various policies to ensure that all things reported are ethical and not an intrusion. It not being regulated too strictly allows them to be able to report certain things that most definitely need to get out to the public (e.g. Epstein scandal) and not have any prevention.  

406 words.