by Daisy CooperPeter Oborne’s resignation from the Daily Telegraph last week was accompanied by trenchant criticism of his former employer. But Oborne has always been independent-minded and critical of wider aspects of the British press, and he set out some of his criticisms when he gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Here are some of his most pertinent remarks, followed by comments from Hacked Off.

1. ON PRESS TREATMENT OF VULNERABLE MINORITIES

“I do think that vulnerable minorities are pursued by some newspapers in an invidious way.”“Normally the press aligns itself with the government of the day and will take the side of the powerful against the weak, or the majority against the minority.”For years, the big newspaper groups gave themselves – through the now discredited Press Complaints Commission - the power to reject complaints from groups. The PCC insisted that it was only obliged to act on a complaint if an individual who had been directly affected by the story made the complaint. The press defended this system as a defence against attempts by lobby groups wishing to gag the press but the effect was to limit the number of complaints; potential code breaches went unrecognized when an individual did not wish to complain or no named person – rather than a group or an ethnic minority - was affected.The new fake regulator IPSO, a reinvented PCC, has relaxed its rules slightly. Its regulations state that IPSO “may, but is not obliged to consider complaints... where an alleged breach of the Editors’ Code is significant and there is substantial public interest in the Regulator considering the complaint, from a representative group affected by the alleged breach.” Whilst this appears to be an improvement for representative groups, the words ‘significant’ and ‘substantial’ establish a threshold that Leveson rejected as unfair.At the Leveson Inquiry, representatives of Travellers explained:“The result [of the PCC’s reluctance to accept third party complaints] is that as long as they are carefully worded, derogatory references to Travellers can be published repeatedly, as they were in the Sun’s ‘Stamp on the camps’ campaign, without committing any offence. Yet it is clear that articles of that sort do cause substantial damage to the rights and reputations of Travellers, fanning hostility against them in settled communities.”For travellers, read women; Muslims, Poles; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; those with eating disorders; the mentally ill; the disabled; those claiming benefits and many other groups in society that may sometimes be targets of hostile reporting. Such groups are not above criticism – no one is – but they ought to be able to have their complaints heard if it appears that the code has been breached. IPSO threatens to block the path to regulatory remedy for many such complainants.

2. ON MONOPOLY OWNERSHIP

“Throughout my professional career the British media has been dominated by the Murdoch empire, which typically forms an alliance with the political party in power.”“[Another point], of course, is monopoly ownership, whether it is a good thing that one group should have, as has been the case in recent decades, such a dominance defined by the City regulation as – 25 per cent is monopoly control, I believe, and they have one group having 35 or 40 per cent.“It seems to me that there’s nothing very complicated about applying British monopolies legislation to the media”.Whilst media ownership formed part of the Leveson Inquiry’s remit, Leveson did not make any detailed recommendations on the issue. Many feel this was a missed opportunity. These 5 shocking statistics on the concentration of media ownership in Britain show why:• 3 publishers account for 70% of the national daily circulation• 5 publishers account for 90% of the national daily circulation• 5 companies control 75% of regional daily newspaper circulation• Almost 1 in 4 local government areas are not covered by a daily local newspaper (100 of 406)• Almost 1 in 3 local government areas have just 1 single publisher with a 100% monopoly of the local newspaper market (143 of 406)Source: http://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A-Case-for-Action1.pdf

3. ON PRESS AND POLITICANS

“Meetings between journalists and politicians should be viewed as a potential conspiracy against the public, even more so meetings between ministers and editors and proprietors.”The Leveson Report recommended that political leaders publish a statement explaining their party’s policy towards conducting relationships with the press. The Liberal Democrats are the only party to have done this.Leveson also recommended that party leaders, ministers and front bench opposition spokespersons should “consider” publishing quarterly reports detailing meetings with media proprietors, newspaper editors or senior executives, as well as “a fair and reasonably complete picture, by way of general estimate only, of the frequency or density of other interaction (including correspondence, phone, text and email) but not necessarily including content.”To date, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has published all ministerial meetings. The Conservatives produce quarterly reports where the “purpose” of the meeting is given, but is not detailed. There is no evidence of the party producing a “reasonably complete picture” as suggested. The Liberal Democrats have resolved to “put in place policies and procedures which fully comply with Leveson’s recommendations on the relationship between the press and politicians” but these have not yet come to fruition. There are no commitments in the Labour Party’s “Better Politics” Policy Commission, nor any commitments from the Green Party or UKIP.During the inquiry, Peter Oborne said he was ‘sceptical about more regulation’ but after 12 months of deliberation, receiving testimonies from 378 individuals and 120 organisations, considering four models of regulation, and producing argumentation and conclusions comprising four volumes and 1,987 pages, Leveson’s conclusions were clear. To break the “pattern of cosmetic reform” which had characterized the press for the previous 70 years, he recommended that the press continue to regulate itself, but that it be subject to an external audit every few years. The independent audit body would check that any self-regulator met the 38 criteria set out by Leveson as the litmus test for whether that self-regulator was ‘effective’ for the public and ‘independent’ of the industry and politicians. IPSO – the industry’s snub to Leveson – meets only 12 of those 38. Without a ‘Leveson-compliant’ self-regulator, the press will be free to “treat vulnerable minorities… in an invidious way” and cosy up to politicians. Without action to break up the concentration of media ownership, a handful of companies will continue to dictate the news.