by Brian CathcartAfter all the hostile propaganda about Leveson and about the Royal Charter that was agreed by Parliament in March, working journalists could be forgiven for thinking that their working life is about to become more difficult and less satisfying. The opposite is true. Set aside the special pleading of some proprietors and press executives and it’s clear the new system will bring significant benefits for those journalists who have standards and integrity – in other words, the vast majority. Here are six good things about the Leveson Royal Charter:1. The new system will be independent of the club of proprietors, executives and editors who let journalism downThe Press Complaints Commission system was never meant to serve the interests of working journalists. The PCC, the Code Committee and PressBoF existed primarily for the benefit of proprietors and editors. Sometimes, for sure, they stood up for journalism, just as sometimes they helped the public, but if ever corporate interests and those of ordinary journalists were in conflict, there was only one winner.^[1]PressBoF (the Press Standards Board of Finance) runs the PCC – it holds the purse strings, appoints the chair, controls the articles of association and even manages the committee that writes the code that the PCC is meant to enforce.^[2] And who are the members of PressBoF? All eight are top newspaper executives and representatives of proprietors; none of them is there to represent the interests of journalists and only one could possibly be described as a working journalist.Now look at the harm they have done. If the reputation of journalism has been damaged in recent years, PressBoF must take a big share of the blame. Their job was to uphold standards but they failed to respond appropriately to a succession of major scandals and the result was a collapse in public trust.^[3] If they had acted in a firm and timely way against those who shamed journalism the Leveson Inquiry might not have been necessary.The Leveson Royal Charter takes away PressBoF’s influence and makes the regulation system independent.2. The new system will be free of political control – more so than the PCC ever was.In the argument over the future of regulation, journalists have one consistent demand: there should be no political control of the system, no means by which governments could censor or meddle with what is published.^[4] The Leveson Royal Charter goes to great lengths to ensure there can be no political interference – but PressBoF wants to give politicians a role at every level.Leveson recommended self-regulation, but to ensure that the new self-regulator could not be another poodle of the proprietors and editors he said it should be periodically inspected by a second body, the ‘recognition panel’. And he left no doubt that this body must be completely independent of both industry and politicians. This is what the Leveson Royal Charter sets up, and the Charter itself is protected from government interference by a special clause in an Act of Parliament.^[5] So, in approving the Leveson Charter, Parliament also made it harder than ever for politicians to influence the system.PressBoF, by contrast, advocates a system that doesn’t have that protection, and even worse it wants to allow working politicians to hold senior posts in both the regulator and the recognition panel.^[6] Every time PressBoF gets its hands on a Leveson-compliant regulation proposal it tries to delete the ban on working peers with party affiliations holding positions of influence. (It may be relevant that four of the five chairs of the failed PCC, including the current one, Lord Hunt, have been working political peers, and that the current chair of PressBoF, Lord Guy Black, is also a working political peer.^[7])The Leveson Royal Charter will deliver what journalists rightly demand: self-regulation that is free from political influence.3. For the first time, journalists will help write the standards code. The code of practice under the PCC was the ‘Editors’ Code’, written and updated by a committee composed exclusively of editors. Journalists working at the coal face were never involved, even though the code is very important to them – it is the standard against which all complaints from the public about their work are judged.Under the Leveson Royal Charter the committee that writes the code will be made up of one-third editors, one-third independent lay people and one-third working journalists.^[8] So for the first time journalists who are not editors will have a say in the code that governs their professional conduct. Every reporter and every sub-editor knows that working journalists often take different views from their editors on how best to do their job, especially when the editors double as managers. It’s time those different views were heard.4. Journalists will be less vulnerable to chilling by legal threats, and better able to defend their work.Because of the very high cost of defending legal actions in English courts, journalists have long been vulnerable to chilling by wealthy or litigious people and organisations, including some with no-win-no-fee deals.^[9] Editors and executives would sometimes decide to correct and apologise, or not publish at all, even when they felt a story was entirely legitimate, rather than risk a long, bruising court battle that might cost a six- or even seven-figure sum. When this happened journalists were either prevented from publishing good stories or given no chance to defend and justify their reporting.Under the Leveson Royal Charter the self-regulator will offer a cheap, quick arbitration service for libel and privacy cases.^[10] Claimants will be obliged to use this service or, if they insist on going to court, will not be able to recover their costs from the newspapers, even if they win.^[11] Since the costs in arbitration will be lower than in court cases, the pressure on news publishers to cave in early to avoid financial risk will be correspondingly reduced. And journalists will have a far better chance of being able to defend their reporting on its merits than they do now.In addition, news publishers inside the self-regulation system will enjoy near-immunity from the risk of exemplary damages in court cases (though in practice these are rarely awarded).^[12]5. For the first time, journalists under pressure to do unethical things will have a hotline to the regulatorJournalists are sometimes bullied by their superiors into doing and writing things that break the law or breach the code, in the absence of any public interest justification.^[13] Under the Leveson Charter the regulator will provide a hotline by which this can be reported, giving journalists a new protection in the workplace.^[14]6. This is a golden opportunity to rebuild public trust in journalism.The Leveson Royal Charter is a chance to rebuild trust and show the public that the majority of journalists, who genuinely care about ethical standards, will no longer tolerate the reckless minority who don’t.Decent, self-respecting journalists already try to be fair and accurate. Properly trained journalists know to keep decent records. Any sensible journalist will discuss with colleagues and superiors the complicated issues that come up relating to taste, decency and respect for the people they write about. And when a professional journalist gets something wrong – as every journalist sometimes does – he or she knows that the record should be promptly corrected. Journalists like these have nothing to fear from effective, independent self-regulation.But the industry is undeniably tainted by the actions of the minority, and so the journalists who are not reckless and unethical need to show the public that a line has been drawn and things are changing. They need to demonstrate that they are ready to be held to decent standards by a body that won’t let them off the hook every time something goes wrong. All the evidence shows that this is what the public expects, and it is exactly what journalists would demand of any other group in the same position.Journalists will never be popular; the job is not like that. But they do a vital job and they mostly do it well, so they are capable of commanding far more respect than they do. By embracing change, distancing themselves from wrongdoing and showing they are ready to be accountable, they can begin to build public trust. And with higher levels of trust the job may even get easier in some ways, and more rewarding.What happens next?The Leveson Royal Charter is likely to receive formal Privy Council approval in the next few weeks, but thereafter things will inevitably move slowly. Charter approval starts the process by which a truly independent recognition panel is appointed, which will take months. In the meantime news publishers will set up a new self-regulator complete with an arbitration service, also a big undertaking. Once both bodies are in place the recognition process can happen and after that the new system can begin work. (There is no requirement that all the news publishers back the self-regulator at the outset.) It is not going to be quick, but that is because no corners are being cut – and because it’s worth taking the time to get it right.And what about the PressBoF draft Royal Charter?It is a dead duck and we can forget about it. Though the government has agreed to consider it, this draft has no hope of meeting the criteria for approval and should be seen as nothing more than an attempt by proprietors to delay the progress of the Leveson Royal Charter – the charter that was democratically approved by all parties in Parliament on March 18.Brian Cathcart is Executive Director of Hacked Off._________________________________________________________________________________________

^[1] For example, they don’t condemn closures, job cuts or pay cuts, but in contrast they have always opposed ‘conscience clauses’ in journalists’ contracts and they now want a loophole to escape any requirement to introduce a whistleblowers’ hotline to the regulator for journalists.

^[2] See the Leveson Report Vol IV http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0780/0780_iv.pdf Part J, chapter 3.

^[3] See Leveson Report Vol IV http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0780/0780_iv.pdf Section J chapter 8

^[4] See for example the submission to the Leveson Inquiry of Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary: ‘It is vital that any changes in press regulation have at their heart the protection of press freedom in the UK.’ http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Witness-Statement-of-Michelle-Stanistreet.pdf

^[5] See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2012-2013/0152/13152.20-26.html Section 96

^[6] See http://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Press-Standards-Board-of-Finance-Ltd-Petition-and-Draft-Charter.pdf e.g. Schedule 1, clause 2.4; Schedule 3, clause 5.

^[7] Lord McGregor (Social Democrat), Lord Wakeham (Conservative), Baroness Buscombe (Conservative), Lord Hunt (Conservative). Lord Hunt and Lord Black (Conservative) are both active in the Lords: see http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peers/

^[8] See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/142808/18_March_2013_v6_Draft_Royal_Charter.pdf Schedule 3, clause 7

^[9] See for example submission by PressBoF and others to DCMS Select Committee, 2009: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmcumeds/362/362ii.pdf Ev110, par 28: ‘Publishers defending actions are now in a hopeless situation.’

^[10] Charter, schedule 3, clause 22.

^[11] Crime and Courts Act Section 40 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/22/section/40/enacted

^[12] Crime and Courts Act, Sections 34-9

^[13] For newsroom bullying, see for example evidence of Matt Driscoll to Leveson Inquiry: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Witness-Statement-of-Matthew-Driscoll.pdf and NUJ survey results: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/nov/21/nationalunionofjournalists.mediaunions

^[14] Charter, schedule 3, clause 8D. On PressBoF wriggling, see https://hackinginquiry.org/news/pressbof-charter-application-a-wrecking-manouvre/ Part 3, clause 9.