Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 5 November 2007 at 09:36
Tags: Sky News, Society of Editors, Society of Editors, skynews
Alistair Stewart of ITN is chairing the fist session of the conference, which also features Sky News’ Adam Boulton, Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, Advertising Association chief executive Baroness Peta Buscombe and Sir Igor Judge, president of the Queen’s Bench Division.
Chakrabarti: There is no crisis of trust in the news media. Britain’s news media is among the best in the world. “If you don’t believe me, go to Singapore and read the Straits Times where on any given day there are headlines like ‘Good Governance is the key to progress’”. Or go to the US, where Diana is on the front page while the president is being impeached, she argues. You wouldn’t have heard of Liberty if it wasn’t for the media, she says. “It is the most level playing field that we operate in, much more than the courts or Parliament”.
If and when Sir Ian Blair resigns it will not be because he was ordered to do so by a court or by the Home Secretary, Chakrabarti argues, it will be because he was held to account by the media. John Lloyd or Tony Blair would consider this a bad thing, but many Londoners would disagree. Liberty has been seeking investigations into the practice of state-sponsored kidnapping and torture. Only the media engaged with it, where the home office and police failed to investigate.
Tony Blair’s “Feral beast” speech was “ridiculous” she said, which is really highlighted by the fact that he picked the Independent as his example. “I have been loved and loathed in different parts of the media, but it has allowed me to operate. If the Sun thinks I’m the most dangerous woman in Britain, I say good — Britons can sleep more soundly tonight.”
Privacy vs. free expression is going to be sticky area. We don’t need to see JK Rowling’s children unpixilated. But free expression is under threat in Britain with ever more new legislation. Jack Straw should start the free expression audit with planned legislation on incitement to homophobic and religious hatred. Liberty has had to intervene in a case about whether the BBC should be prosecuted over airing Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Boulton: Talking about the Cherie Blair incident in which she categorically denied making the comment “that’s a lie” reported by a Bloomberg reporter. This was reported as fact by everyone.
The feral beasts speech: “I don’t think it was ridiculous but I wonder how many subs that particularly tautology would have got past.” But its conclusions were ridiculous. He seemed to think there was an absolute divide between news and comments. I don’t think there is such a divide. There is a divide between news and prejudice.
Convergence means that print is becoming more like broadcasting, so it might be correct to have the same type of regulation, Blair suggested. That’s long been a goal of certain political forces to do this.
“We need to be cautious about online — I feel what we offer collectively online is our brands and our reputations. People come to use because they trust the information we provide and trust the resources we put into providing that information.”
“Although there is a great deal of emphasis now on interactivity, my experience on my blog is that the comments are by and large not worth the paper they’re printed on. They can be extremely vicious and unpleasant, but where they are useful is that they keep us honest.”
Boulton closes by relaying a quote from Nick Robinson about a discussion about allowing viewers online to set the running order of a programme. Robinson said: “A pub ball with a webcam is still a pub ball”.
Judge: Sir Igor starts with an amusing story about a goat that “could not be identified” after being the victim of a sexual assault.
At the start of the question and answer session, the Daily Mail’s Robin Esser asks a question from the floor for Alistair Stewart: “Isn’t the Internet completely unregulated and beyond the law?” Stewart replies that whatever the truth of what is online, it doesn’t matter if people perceive it to be less spun than what is in mainstream news sources.
Just because something is written in paper and ink doesn’t mean it’s accurate, retorts Boulton.
Buscombe points out that the PCC covers newspapers’ web content and advertising regulators are following suit. Then she goes on the attack, saying that the Daily Mail sometimes bites the hand that feeds it in the advertising industry.
Esser retorts that only a tiny fraction of the internet is controlled by the PCC. Not 99 per cent of the Internet.
Chakrabarti says “talking about the Internet as a good or bad thing is like talking about the sea as a good or bad thing. It’s here to stay and there’s lots of it. People will increasingly go to a place that they trust. That is where the future of your industry lies.”
Mirror editor Richard Wallace is put on the spot, asked whether anything has changed at the Mirror since he became editor after his predecessor was forced out.
Wallace ducks and replies with a defence of newspapers’ ability to be more accurate than rolling news in television or online. During the Virginia Tech massacre, Wallace says, television’s information was wrong for most of the day as they were it updating throughout the day. If the Mirror had printed as fact that the shooter was someone else, he would have had to resign, he said. The internet is a great thing, but not necessarily for accuracy. Hindsight is often a great thing for accuracy. On the 7/7 bombing day, some newspapers in New Zealand reported that a suicide bomber had been shot during the 7/7 attack.
“We [newspapers] are lambasted for being last with the news, but I hope … that we still remain as the place where you can find trust,” says Wallace.
