An inquiry into the press in Britain had been done six times in less than 70 years before being requested again in 2011 by, then Prime Minister, David Cameron. This particular inquiry, called The Leveson Inquiry due to it being chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, was requested due to a multitude of press related events that caused both public and political upset. One of these particular events was the phone hacking of Milly Dowler. Milly Dowler was a 13-year-old girl who went missing and was then found dead in 2002. In 2011, however, it was discovered by a reporter from UK’s The Guardian, Nick Davies, that an employee from News of the World had “apparently hacked into Dowler 's voice-message system, deleted messages, which gave her family and
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This story dominated British media in the summer of 2011 and reinserted the Dowler family into the public eye, but also made countless people question how such an event escaped public knowledge for so long. The Milly Dowler scandal was not the only reason for the inquiry. Before that situation came to full light in 2011, in 2007 Clive Goodman, associated with the previously mentioned News of the World, and former private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were imprisoned for hacking cell phones of the Royal Family, as well as other high-profile British celebrities. Years of dealing with the build-up of press related scandals finally led to The Leveson Inquiry being commissioned and a final attempt at changing the English press industry for the better.
There were three areas of concern addressed in the Inquiry. It focused on the relationship of the press with the public, the police, and politicians. While newspapers had been seen to be an unbiased and fairly reliable source of news for centuries …show more content…
The sad truth is that little progress has actually been made. There is a new body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which oversees the press, hears complaints, and makes sure the Code of Practice is being followed. The problem lies in the fact that IPSO refuses to apply for recognition by the Press Recognition Panel, which is the recommendation body created as proposed in the Leveson Inquiry (Lloyd). IPSO, being an independent organization instead of a state-backed one, cannot then be considered a positive result of the inquiry because it is lacking the fundamental element that Lord Leveson thought would stop corruption in the press once and for all. There is also the question of whether the Leveson recommendation is what will truly help the British press, or if the UK should take inspiration from other countries who thrive in journalism. Lloyd, in his piece on the Leveson Inquiry and its results, compared the press in Finland and Britain. Although Finland is a smaller country than England, it “was judged by RSF (Reporters sans Frontieres), the global journalists’ NGO, to be the freest in the world” (Lloyd 393). Whereas one of the issues, when it came to the press in Britain ,was that the regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission, was journalist run, the Finnish Code of Practice which is completely
This story dominated British media in the summer of 2011 and reinserted the Dowler family into the public eye, but also made countless people question how such an event escaped public knowledge for so long. The Milly Dowler scandal was not the only reason for the inquiry. Before that situation came to full light in 2011, in 2007 Clive Goodman, associated with the previously mentioned News of the World, and former private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were imprisoned for hacking cell phones of the Royal Family, as well as other high-profile British celebrities. Years of dealing with the build-up of press related scandals finally led to The Leveson Inquiry being commissioned and a final attempt at changing the English press industry for the better.
There were three areas of concern addressed in the Inquiry. It focused on the relationship of the press with the public, the police, and politicians. While newspapers had been seen to be an unbiased and fairly reliable source of news for centuries …show more content…
The sad truth is that little progress has actually been made. There is a new body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which oversees the press, hears complaints, and makes sure the Code of Practice is being followed. The problem lies in the fact that IPSO refuses to apply for recognition by the Press Recognition Panel, which is the recommendation body created as proposed in the Leveson Inquiry (Lloyd). IPSO, being an independent organization instead of a state-backed one, cannot then be considered a positive result of the inquiry because it is lacking the fundamental element that Lord Leveson thought would stop corruption in the press once and for all. There is also the question of whether the Leveson recommendation is what will truly help the British press, or if the UK should take inspiration from other countries who thrive in journalism. Lloyd, in his piece on the Leveson Inquiry and its results, compared the press in Finland and Britain. Although Finland is a smaller country than England, it “was judged by RSF (Reporters sans Frontieres), the global journalists’ NGO, to be the freest in the world” (Lloyd 393). Whereas one of the issues, when it came to the press in Britain ,was that the regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission, was journalist run, the Finnish Code of Practice which is completely