by Brian CathcartIn January, amid fanfare from the big national newspapers, a delegation from an international press trade body called WAN-IFRA visited London on a ‘fact-finding mission’ to explore ‘concerns’ about press freedom in the UK, notably the Royal Charter.Who are they? WAN-IFRA is an international trade association whose principal UK member is the Newspaper Publishers’ Association (NPA), the club of national papers that includes the Sun, the Mail, the Mirror and the Telegraph – the leading opponents of the Charter. And before the fact-finders even arrived, WAN-IFRA showed its colours by declaring the Charter to be ‘a set of repressive statutory controls’.The mission has now produced its report and it could hardly have suited WAN-IFRA’s chief UK members better if they had written it themselves. The report swallows the industry’s arguments almost whole, to the exclusion of the views of, for example, the great majority of British people, the victims of press abuses, Parliament and those in this country who are most concerned about freedom of expression.Here are ten key ways in which WAN-IFRA got it wrong:1. Victims. The report never once mentions victims of press abuse in its entire discussion of press self-regulation. Its report is wholly focused on what suits the press and it ignores both the shameful record of the newspapers in, as the Leveson report put it, ‘wreaking havoc in the lives of innocent people’ and the need to protect British citizens in future.2. Debate. It complains repeatedly of a lack of consultation and debate on self-regulation in the UK. Nearly three years have passed since the Prime Minister and the public declared the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) a failure, leading to a 14-month public inquiry, four months of cross-party political discussion and thousands of national newspaper articles on the subject. Lack of debate has not been the problem: intransigence by NPA members has.3. IPSO. The report says the planned PCC clone, IPSO, deserves a chance because ‘the new self-regulator proposed by the press will meet most but not all of the Leveson Report recommendations’. Yet the only serious analysis to date of the IPSO paperwork shows that it satisfies only 12 of the 38 relevant Leveson recommendations, and that it fails on independence, effectiveness, arbitration and complaints handling among other important points. No one in the industry has seriously challenged this. (Every member of the WAN-IFRA “fact-finding” mission delegation was given a copy of that analysis yet the report fails to mention it or give any reasons for its opposite conclusion.) 4. Press freedom law. The report complains of ‘a lack of constitutional-level guarantees for freedom of expression’ in the UK, yet fails to make clear that the Leveson Report proposed a statutory ‘British First Amendment’ – and that it was the UK press that rejected the idea.5. Exemplary damages. WAN-IFRA completely misunderstands the significance of exemplary or punitive damages, suggesting that ‘punitive damages for non-compliance are an explicit threat’ to papers that do not join a Charter-recognised self-regulator. There is no such threat. Punitive damages are not new in English law and what the Charter does is offer member publishers immunity, so this is not a stick for the press but a carrot.6. Arbitration. The report makes a complaint about the Royal Charter that has already been addressed and remedied. It says: ‘Regional newspapers are particularly alarmed at the prospect of having to fund a scheme that would inevitably open the floodgates to compensation claims.’ Yet the regional papers’ demand for an access fee to deter unjustified claims was granted last October – one of many concessions to newspapers that have done nothing to shake their intransigence.7. False narrative. The report entirely accepts a false narrative of the political agreement on the Charter that has been propagated by national newspapers in the teeth of clear and consistent denials by all who were actually involved. The Charter had already been agreed between the parties before Hacked Off was invited give its view as representatives of victims – as all the party leaders had publicly promised to do. This was explained to WAN-IFRA delegates verbally and in writing.8. Exclusion of industry. The report makes a theme of the exclusion of press leaders from consultation on the Royal Charter. Again this is incorrect. Press leaders were given more time to give their views at the Leveson Inquiry than any other group, and then and afterwards they have maintained a very busy programme of meetings with ministers and other politicians. By their own account, these were ‘intensive’ in the Charter preparation period. Many concessions were made on the basis of their representations. What newspapers are complaining about is not that they were excluded, but that they did not get everything their own way.9. Omissions. Victims are not the only ones ignored. The report does not take account of the views of many civil society groups that gave evidence to Leveson. Nor does it acknowledge the views of the hundred and more writers, theatre and film directors, actors, human rights lawyers, journalists, television presenters and academics who have signed the Leveson Royal Charter Declaration. This evidence was given to the WAN-IFRA delegation. 10. Recycling. In every instance above, and in many others, the WAN-IFRA report merely recycles distortions and dishonest arguments put forward over the past three years by its UK members in the NPA. WAN-IFRA’s delegates supposedly came to find facts; instead they have been deaf to the facts about victims, IPSO, arbitration, press freedom and much else, and they have merely echo what they were told by their own members in this country.