Our chance to extend Freedom of Information

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 18 January 2008 at 12:34
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, Law

Three years after the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act, journalists have been given their first chance to say how they think the Act should change.
Up until now it has been a hard fight just to hang on to existing rights of access to information under the Act.
But a public consultation – due to end on 1 February – has asked journalists how coverage under the Act should be extended.
Gordon Brown has publically stated his commitment to Freedom of Information and the press, so this would seem like a golden opportunity to increase our right to know.
Press Gazette believes that the simplest and fairest way to extend the Act is for it to include any private company or organisation performing a public function and funded by the taxpayer.
And in the case of companies which perform some public functions – like those running Private Finance
Initiative jails, schools and hospitals – they should be subject to the Act for their publicly funded work.
Stories like Network Rail’s disastrous Christmas engineering works over-running, and the collapse of London Underground company Metronet, suggest that many of these public/private companies should the subject to greater transparency.
They are spending our money, yet at present we have no right to demand minimum levels of transparency from them.
The increasing reach of the private sector means it is not just questions about financial probity which are currently going unanswered, but questions about the care of the elderly, the education of children, and the roofs over our heads.
Why should there be one set of rules for a local council press officer but another set for their equivalent at a housing association or city academy?
For details of how to contribute to the consultation go to the Ministry of Justice website.

Thank Gord for that

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 31 October 2007 at 11:23
Tags: Freedom of Information

Back in March, then Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown pledged his commitment to supporting freedom of the press when he addressed industry figures at a Journalists’ Charity lunch.

He told them: “It’s easy for politicians to say one thing and do another – but I do think we should defend British liberties and that we can be a beacon for the world with the contribution our press makes.”

This week Brown proved that he is as good as his word when he scrapped proposals that would drastically water down the Freedom of Information Act by allowing public authorities to reject far more requests on cost grounds.

With its many caveats and exclusions – the Freedom of Information Act is far from perfect. But it has undoubtedly shifted the balance away from a culture of public secrecy towards one of openness.

The proposed FoI fees regime would undoubtedly have tilted the balance back the other way – giving faceless functionaries the power to bat away FoI requests with impunity – the way they could do with any press inquiry before the act came into force just under three years ago.

It is also fantastic news for journalists – and for an open society – that Brown has decided to scrap plans to greatly increase secrecy in Coroner’s Courts.

The proposals would have given coroners the power to ban journalists from naming the deceased in reports of inquests effectively making such proceedings secret.

Gordon Brown may have annoyed many journalists with favouritism to the BBC over his announcement that a general election was off and with the apparent spin which surrounded that period.

But he deserves all journalists’ thanks for two announcements this week which have huge positive implications for press freedom.

Brown should act to lift restraints on journalism

Posted by Press Gazette on 1 June 2007 at 08:00
Tags: David Cameron, Freedom of Information, Gordon Brown, Journalism, Milton Keynes Citizen, NUJ, Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Sally Murrer, Tony Blair

When card-carrying NUJ member Gordon Brown takes up office in Number 10 Downing Street this month, he has one clear way he can create a point of difference with former PR man David Cameron and predecessor Tony Blair.

Through straight-talking and by putting an end to spin. This is something he has already hinted at, and it can only be hoped that Brown will also remember his roots, on Scottish Television in the early 1980s, and call a ceasefire in this Government’s often open hostility towards the press.

British journalism is already under threat like never before, because the internet is eroding much of its economic base. If Brown wants a press capable of more than live-blogging the latest episode of Big Brother, he might want to look at easing some of the constraints on serious journalism.

Like ditching the proposed Freedom of Information and Data Protection Regulations, which the Government has clearly signalled are aimed squarely at journalists and would greatly reduce our ability to use the Freedom of Information Act by massively increasing the number of requests thrown out on cost grounds.

He also needs to look at why the police are intimidating local newspaper journalists and locking them up in the cells as part of routine police enquiries. Milton Keynes Citizen reporter, and mum of three, Sally Murrer has had her life turned upside down after spending a night in the cells earlier this month because local cops didn’t like the fact that one of their number had apparently leaked her a story. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Government is currently reviewing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and could make it even easier for police to seize journalists’ notebooks, computers and contact books.

A healthy body politic is impossible without good journalism and Brown would be well advised to remember that, for the sake of both his short-term popularity and the longterm public good.

FoI exemption: what are our MPs trying to hide?

Posted by Press Gazette on 25 May 2007 at 13:46
Tags: Freedom of Information, Press Gazette Leaders

Some 96 MPs voted to exempt themselves from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act last week – 78 Labour and 18 Tories.

There is still hope that the Lords will throw out the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, thus closing what could become a shameful loophole in the legislation.

The Mail on Sunday this week made much sport of the fact that the sponsor of the bill, David Maclean, had claimed a quad bike on Parliamentary expenses (albeit as a result of multiple sclerosis-related mobility problems).

Helpfully, they’ve also listed the names of every MP who backed the legislation. Far be it for Press Gazette to tell its readers how to do their jobs – but surely it is worth making good use of FoI to find out about their local MP’s expenses, before it’s too late.

All news organisations should be more open

Posted by Press Gazette on 3 May 2007 at 08:00
Tags: BBC, Daily Mail, Freedom of Information, John Witherow, Paul Dacre, Richard Wallace, Sly Bailey, Trinity Mirror

Last week’s High Court judgment upholding the BBC’s limited derogation from the Freedom of Information Act highlights a hypocrisy of British public life.

News organisations – although highly concerned with openness in others – can be among our most opaque public institutions.

Solicitor Steve Sugar challenged the BBC under the FoI Act to release the Balen Report – assessing whether its coverage of the Middle East was biased.

But the corporation successfully argued that the report was covered by a clause in the Act which exempts the BBC from disclosing information about its journalism.

Legal nitpicking aside, the BBC is an enormously powerful public-funded organisation and should release this report, irrespective of the Act. If certain paragraphs need to be omitted to save the confidentiality of individuals, so be it.

The BBC could argue that subjecting its journalism to FoI would place it an unfair disadvantage compared to commercial players. But perhaps there is a case for subjecting all news organisations to some form of FoI.

Without journalism, public life would have almost no accountability, democracy would not work and the police and judiciary would operate behind a cloak of darkness. But journalistic organisations have none of the same obligations towards openness that public institutions now have under FoI.

The likes of Lord Rothermere, Paul Dacre, Rebekah Wade, Richard Wallace, Sly Bailey and John Witherow – to name a few offenders – almost never open themselves to the scrutiny of a journalistic interview, despite being public figures wielding huge power. If any of them reading this has a change of heart, Press Gazette is happy to supply questions.

Breakthrough for Press Gazette FoI campaign

Posted by Dominic Ponsford on 29 March 2007 at 11:29
Tags: Department for Constitutional Affairs, Freedom of Information

The Government showed today that it has taken on board the massive and unprecedented opposition from Britain’s journalists to its proposals to water down the Freedom of Information Act, by announcing a second round of consultation on the plans.

The proposed Freedom of Information and Data Protection Regulations would have had a massive impact on journalists’ ability to use the FoI Act.

Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information Maurice Frankel said that under the new rules: “Any penetrating requests would be very likely to be refused in future.”

This Government has had a rocky relationship with the press in recent years, but it now deserves credit and thanks for listening to the argument and thinking again on these dreadful FoI proposals.

Hopefully, Press Gazette’s Don’t Kill FoI Campaign had some impact on the decision-making process. It would have been a foolhardy government indeed to ignore the views of the editors of nearly every national and daily newspaper in the land – who signed our e-petition.

The extended consultation period, until 21 June, will mean that the final say on the new FoI rules is likely to lie with Gordon Brown, rather than Tony Blair.

Let’s hope he is true to his word and honours the commitment he gave editors and newspaper executives at a Journalists’ Charity lunch earlier this month, when he said: “It’s easy for politicians to say one thing and do another — but I do think we should defend British liberties and that we can be a beacon for the world with the contribution our press makes.”

Falconer forgets that we journalists act on readers’ behalf

Posted by Press Gazette on 28 March 2007 at 10:01
Tags: Charlie Falconer, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Freedom of Information, Journalism, Journalists, Press Gazette Leaders, Tony Blair

Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer has illustrated once again that he has only the dimmest understanding of the way journalism works. It’s a scary thought, considering the huge influence the Department for Constitutional Affairs has on our working lives.

Defending plans currently under consideration by the Government to massively increase the number of Freedom of Information requests thrown out on cost grounds, he perversely told an audience of lawyers last week that the “Freedom of Information Act is one of the greatest reforms for which this Government will rightly be remembered.”

And defending his proposals to, in the words of the Newspaper Society, “neuter” the act for journalists, he said: “The Government did not introduce freedom of information in order to do something ‘for journalism’.

We did it for the public.

“The job of the Government is not to provide page leads for the papers, but information for the citizen. Freedom of information was never considered to be, and for our part will never be considered to be, a research arm for the media.”

What Falconer apparently doesn’t understand is that journalists are in large part honest agents, acting on behalf of ordinary citizens — their readers — who don’t have the time themselves to do the work of holding public authorities to account.

Thank God that we live in a society where commercial news organisations are willing to pay people to spend large parts of their day filing requests for information to Government on everything from the hygiene inspections at local restaurants to details of the advice to the Prime Minister on the legality of his invasion of Iraq.

We are not some malign commercial force acting outside society, as Falconer appears to believe, but an important and intrinsic part of the civic democracy which he is paid to uphold.