Full Fact, English PEN, the Media Standards Trust and Index on Censorship argue that politically-appointed Special Advisers should not be allowed to see any confidential material that is now accessible by Ministers. They are also asking Lord Justice Leveson to publish the names of any senior civil servants who will now be allowed to see such confidential material. And they have asked for details of any requests to redact such material that are made by the Government. These concerns stem from the organisations’ interest (and the public interest) in the transparency of the Inquiry process, and consequent public faith in the Inquiry and its outcomes.

Read the full application here

1. How is the Media Standards Trust (MST) funded?

Over 80% of MST funding comes from grants from charitable foundations. The rest comes from donations from supportive individuals. The trust does not accept contributions from corporations. Charitable foundation grants are detailed in the annual report and accounts.

2. Why does the annual report not contain the names of individual donors?

Donations from dozens of private individuals make up a small part of the MST’s annual budget. No single donation from an individual has exceeded two percent of our expenditures.  Information about these donations is disclosed to the appropriate authorities each year.  We do not disclose publicly the names of individual donors without their explicit permission.

3. How is the Hacked Off campaign funded?

Hacked Off is funded by grants and donations, made to a Hacked Off bank account managed by the Media Standards Trust. This includes a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Other donations have come from individuals who support the campaign (see http://www.justgiving.com/hackedoff).

4. What is the relationship between Hacked Off and the MST?

The Media Standards Trust houses the Hacked Off campaign and provides administrative and strategic support. The campaign manager, and one of its founders, are employed by the Media Standards Trust. Many of the campaign’s activities and supporters have no direct connection with the Trust.

5. Who runs the Hacked Off campaign?

Martin Moore, the director of the Media Standards Trust, and Professor Brian Cathcart, from Kingston University, direct the Hacked Off campaign. It is managed by Thais Portilho-Shrimpton.

6. How much of the MST funding comes from its trustees?

Less than 10% of MST funding comes from its trustees.

7. What does the MST receive funding to do?

The MST exists to promote and advance the education of the public in the understanding and knowledge of the media in a modern society. The MST receives grants for core funding and to undertake specific projects.

8. How is journalisted.com funded?

Journalisted.com is funded out of the MST’s general funds. It receives no sponsorship, no advertising, or other commercial revenue.

9. Who runs journalisted.com and decides which journalists will be profiled?

Journalists who write regularly for national, and many regional and local, newspapers are profiled automatically on journalisted.com. Journalists can claim their profiles and add information to them. Any journalist no on journalisted.com can create their own profile

10. How is churnalism.com funded?

Churnalism.com is funded out of the MST’s general funds. It receives no sponsorship, no advertising, or other commercial revenue

11. What is the relationship between churnalism.com and the MST?

The MST created and runs churnalism.com

12. How was churnalism.com US funded?

Churnalism.com US was funded by a grant from the Sunlight Foundation which asked the MST to work with them on a US version of churnalism.

13. What is the relationship between the MST and the Orwell Prize?

The MST administers and houses the Orwell Prize on behalf of the Council of the Orwell Prize. It also contributes to its costs.

14. How is the Orwell Prize funded?

The Orwell Prize is funded by the Media Standards Trust, Political Quarterly, and George Orwell’s son, Richard Blair.

15. What is the MST Press Review Group?

The MST set up a Press Review Group, chaired by Anthony Salz, to submit recommendations to the Leveson Inquiry for reform of the current system of press self-regulation.

16. What relationship do the members of the Press Review Group have with the MST?

All of the members of the press review group are unpaid volunteers.  The chair of the Press Review Group, Anthony Salz, is a trustee of the MST. The other members of the group were invited to participate in a personal capacity and have no other relationship with the MST.

17. How is the Press Review Group funded?

The Press Review Group is supported from general funds and specific donations, including a donation from the Garfield Weston Foundation.

18. What is the MST’s involvement with the Cardiff University local news project in south Wales?

The MST runs a joint research and development project with Cardiff University School of Journalism in Port Talbot, analysing the state of local news in South Wales and exploring ways in which to reinvent it. The project is supported by a grant from the European Union and run by Rachel Howells, a journalist and PhD student at Cardiff University.

On 28^th February an Independent Inquiry for the Australian Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) published its findings, recommending a complete overhaul of news media regulation and the concentration of regulatory authority in a single body with responsibility for print, broadcast and online news.

The 6-month inquiry, led by a Former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and a distinguished academic, was in part prompted by the dramatic developments surrounding the UK press in July 2011, and the pre-eminence of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp – through a subsidiary, News Ltd. – in his country of birth. The other main catalyst for the Inquiry is the DBCDE’s ongoing Convergence Review, and, while the breadth and scope of its main recommendations accordingly go beyond the remit of the Leveson Inquiry, the proposed model of ‘enforced self-regulation’ contains some ideas that are relevant to current discussions of the future shape of UK press regulation.

Framing Arguments for Reform

The Inquiry sets out five questions to guide the consideration of reform that could just as easily inform the deliberations of Lord Justice Leveson and his team:

• Is there a problem and, if so, what is its cause?
• What are the social costs of the problem and who bears them?
• What regulatory mechanisms are available to mitigate the problem and is any one better than the others?
• What is the cost of implementing the proposed regulation?
• What are the likely benefits of implementing the proposed regulation?

The problem, they propose, is one of market failure – information asymmetry, concentration of ownership, and a lack of trust in the news media – combined with the failure of the existing system of self-regulation to maintain standards or deal with irresponsible reporting. Sound familiar? In response, their investigation of the social costs of regulatory failure prompts a spirited argument in favour of robust and effective regulation – a powerful counterpoint to the oft-repeated position that increased regulation of the press always results in a net loss to the public good (Paras 11.17-11.19):

In the context of the press, and of the media more generally, the costs of the harm produced by an ineffectively self-regulated free press are borne not by the media and their consumers but by other sectors of the community. This includes those subjected to adverse reporting, who have no meaningful redress at law, and the community as a whole insofar as it depends upon the news and public affairs reporting in order for democracy to function properly. As a consequence, media outlets have little interest in reducing those costs.

It is not possible to quantify the costs of the harms and risks identified. However, given the in-built limits on the effectiveness of the [present] self-regulatory model adopted by the press, there is reason to consider that the costs associated with market imperfections and with the social harms caused by the media will be significantly reduced (although not eliminated) by more effective regulation.

Further, to the extent that the media currently does not bear the costs of the harms it causes, an improved structure could to some extent transfer the costs associated with that harm from consumers and other affected individuals to the media. Assuming that media outlets are rational actors, this shift in cost-bearing ought to provide an incentive for them to act to avoid causing unjustifiable harms and so reduce the costs of the market imperfections in that way. If media outlets continue to cause unjustifiable harm, it is proper that they bear the costs of doing so rather than simply shifting those costs to the victim.

In considering the spectrum of possible regulatory responses (rejecting maintenance of the status quo and the opposite extreme of government licensing) the inquiry alights on two credible options. These are: the creation of an independent statutory body to replace the existing Australian Press Council (APC), with increased funding and powers; and the creation of a similar body, but with an extended remit to cover the broadcast news and current affairs standards functions of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The hallmarks of a new regulatory system should be possession of the backing of law and the absence of the ability to ‘opt out’, and the presence of adequate enforcement: “the media, like any social institution, should be accountable for its performance” (Para 11.27).

The Inquiry, doubtless because of its proximity to the ongoing convergence review and its terms of reference, opts for a multi-platform regulator covering print, online and broadcast news. Insofar as such an outcome – whatever other deficiencies it may possess – is beyond the scope of the Leveson Inquiry, the provisions of the report are considered here on the basis of how they might apply to the future non-broadcast regulatory context of the UK.

The Model – ‘Enforced Self-Regulation’

An independent statutory body – the News Media Council (NMC) – would be established, free from government influence through an independent appointments procedure, but funded via government. An independent committee, perhaps of senior lawyers and academics, would appoint a full-time independent Chair and 20 part-time members (50% lay appointments, 50% female). Industry candidates would not include managers, directors and shareholders of media organisations.

Funding – ostensibly to ensure independence from the industry – would be obtained from government via a transparent process. The emphasis is on ensuring adequate funding after the shortfalls of the APC.

The principal function of the NMC would be “to promote the highest ethical and professional standards of journalism” through: the preparation and review of standards, via setting both non-binding aspirational principles and detailed codes of practice; investigation and resolution of alleged contraventions of standards through complaints or on its own motion; the production at regular intervals of reports on the state of the Australian news media; educating the news media about the contents of standards; and educating the public about the standards and about the existence and role of the NMC.

The authority of the NMC is to be conferred by statute, and its jurisdiction is therefore bound by a legal definition of what constitutes the ‘news media’, such that no eligible body can opt-out of the system. The Inquiry adopts that of the New Zealand Law Commission’s recent report, subject to a ‘minimum threshold’ below which no regulatory obligations apply. This would be determined by size of potential readership, or by number of annual hits in the case of online outlets.

The complaints function is designed for speed of resolution, and so complainants should be obliged to waive any possible future action they might have; the Council would preferably not deal with cases in which litigation is pending or where courts may ultimately be involved. Complaints will initially be dealt with via mediation; failing that, a complaints panel would make a subsequent decision.

Remedial powers following complaints and own-motion investigations would be:

• To require publication of a correction
• To require withdrawal of a particular article from continued publication (via the internet or otherwise)
• To require a media outlet to publish a reply by a complainant or other relevant person
• To require publication of the NMC’s decision or determination
• To direct when and where publications should appear (Para 11.74).

The NMC will have no powers to impose fines or award compensation. Following a successful decision/correction a form of privilege should ensure protection from further legal proceedings for both the NMC and the publication. In the event of non-compliance with a decision, the NMC or the complainant would be able to obtain a court order compelling compliance.

Lessons for Leveson?

The proposal contains some attractive features, but ultimately the system of  ‘enforced self-regulation’ suffers from being both overly-intrusive in relation to issues of news standards and content, and somewhat lacking in its ability to punish breaches of standards. The latter point is surprising given the prominence of the concern that harms caused by the news media have widespread and severe social consequences.

The overall plan of independent statutory regulation is credible, provided that appointments are independent and transparent. The system for appointment set out by the inquiry has merit, as does the balance of the Council itself. The application of a legal definition of news outlets, precluding opt-outs and with a ‘minimum threshold’ requirement positively reflects the democratic and social obligations and responsibilities that should be placed on news organisations, while ensuring that individual blogs and newsletters are free from regulatory control.

It is possible to envisage such a system being a applied in the UK: once a news outlet triggers a defined criterion of size or reach (reflecting its capacity to confer social costs and benefits), it would automatically come under the aegis of the new regulator and be subject to its rules and sanctions.

There are, however, some drawbacks. Granting the Council powers to set and control standards of content and codes of practices removes much of the news industry’s power to ‘self-regulate’. The focus on setting and regulating standards also risks dislocating journalists and their practices from the content of the code, and seems unnecessarily paternalistic in its application. The boundaries of the regulator and ‘self-regulation’ on this issue are not precisely defined in the report.

The system of funding is inherently problematic, regardless of the mechanisms of transparency put in place. While statutory backing of a new regulator is acceptable given the conspicuous failings of self-regulation in both Australia and the UK, any government ties to funding of the press should be rejected. The motivation of the Inquiry is to separate funding from the industry, but it is possible to achieve independent and adequate funding without involving Parliament. For instance, a regulator could set an annual budget that is then levied from publications on a transparent basis, as is already achieved in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The lack of economic sanctions is surprising given the report’s preoccupation with achieving enforceability of regulation. This is also reflected in the reluctance of the Council to consider complaints where courts may be involved at a later date (although the Council has the ability to report legal infringements uncovered in the course of an investigation to the appropriate authorities). More detail is certainly needed on the complaints and sanctions side, but it appears at present that the NMC is not intended to sanction publications alongside court judgements.

Overall, the Australian Inquiry provides a lot of suggestions for those involved in UK press regulatory reform to mull over. It is, to date, one of the most comprehensive of a growing field of alternative models to be placed before Lord Justice Leveson. It proposes a regulator based much more on statutory mechanisms than anything yet put forward here. For this reason it necessarily broadens the discussion in the UK and is an interesting counterpoint to those who reject any statutory mechanism out of hand. The report has already gathered criticism at home, and doubtless such a proposal would draw similar fire in the UK. However, it also has its supporters in Australia and ought to feed into Leveson’s thinking here.

Dr. Gordon Ramsay is a Research Fellow at the Media Standards Trust and Visiting Scholar at the University of Westminster’s School of Media, Art and Design

The proposal is written by Hugh Tomlinson QC and emerged out of roundtable discussions organized by the Media Standards Trust, and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. At the round table discussions were senior newspaper figures, lawyers, academics, and those with long experience in broadcast news.

This is not the Media Standards Trust’s proposal – we will be submitting our own proposal to the Leveson Inquiry in May – but we think it is an important and helpful contribution that merits serious consideration.

It outlines how a new adjudication/arbitration body, modeled on the construction industry, could provide speedy and fair redress for ordinary people who cannot afford – and do not want – to go to court, while at the same time shielding publishers from the potentially ruinous costs of defamation or privacy proceedings.

As an experienced QC, Tomlinson has been able to illustrate exactly how such a system might work – a system which many editors have already told Lord Justice Leveson they would be very interested in exploring.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, told the Leveson Inquiry:

“I think if this adjudication bit could be built into the role [of a new system] and acknowledged by law in libel — let’s come back to privacy later — and that there were significant advantages in costs and in the speed and ease of settling these disputes, that would be a significant imperative for any publisher to come in” (Oral Evidence, p.108, 17 January)

Rusbridger detailed his own view of how this might work in his Orwell Lecture.

John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times, told the Leveson Inquiry:

John Witherow: “I think your ideas [Lord Justice Leveson] on arbitration are very interesting. Or mediation.  We used mediation in some defamation cases.

Lord Justice Leveson: I think they’re interesting too, but more significant than that, again, if you’re going to require people to go down that route, there has to be a framework that requires it.  You’d have to set up an arbitral system –

John Witherow: Yes.

Lord Justice Leveson: — which allows it to happen very quickly, but that would be law again.

John Witherow: Yes, and it would replicate the courts, in a sense, wouldn’t it?

Lord Justice Leveson: In one sense, I don’t mind that.” (Oral Evidence, p.47, 17 January)

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, told the Leveson Inquiry:

“… I think it’s promising, to look at whether this new body, the Media Standards Board, whatever you want to call it — by the way, it will have to have a new name — can offer an arbitration process or some form of resolution where parties do not immediately resort to the court, forcing news organisations to employ highly expensive barristers, and before you know where you are, you’ve seen £100,000 plus disappear.  We don’t have that kind of money.” (Oral Evidence, p.59, Tuesday 10 January)

In such a system as the one drawn up by Tomlinson, a professional adjudicator could hear the arguments from both sides at short notice, and deal with them quickly and inexpensively. S/he could then award damages, direct the publication to apologise, dictate other sanctions, or find in favour of the publisher.

The complainant or the newspaper would not then be precluded from taking the case on to the high court – such a preclusion would compromise their Article 6 rights (to a fair hearing) – but the court would take the adjudication into account when reviewing the case. In other words, it could become very costly for either side to keep pursuing it once the adjudicator has made a decision.

Hugh Tomlinson will be introducing his proposal at a debate organized by the Media Standards Trust and Hacked Off in the House of Commons on Wednesday 29^th February. Max Mosley will be responding to the proposal as will, we hope, an advocate of the PCC’s contract based proposal (for more information please contact thais@hackinginquiry.org).

They are right to have been concerned. The recession, coupled with a structural decline in the print press and the new competitive demands of digital media have meant that, in the print press at least, there is less spent on original, from the ground up, journalism. This is particularly true at local level where circulations have plummeted and advertising revenue has fallen off a cliff in the last decade. There is evidence that in certain local areas there is now sparse reporting of council meetings and court cases, and little scrutiny of other public authorities. This is certainly the case in south Wales, where we run a joint project on the future of local news with Cardiff University.

The Lords’ report makes some sensible recommendations. It presses the government to offer further tax breaks or other financial incentives to help news through this ‘difficult transitional phase’. With this in mind it urges the government to rethink existing charity law to make it clearer that investigative journalism counts as a charitable purpose. It recommends that news organisations keep an audit trail of decisions, which could then be used as a defence against legal action. It also raises entirely valid concerns about the growth of public relations, and the opaque use of public relations material by journalists. This leads it to the excellent recommendation that:

“journalists themselves be transparent in their use of press releases particularly online where barriers to publishing links to press releases are low” (Paragraph 278).

As the creators of churnalism.com, built for exactly this purpose, we would most certainly endorse this recommendation.

These recommendations, though useful, would have been more helpful with some flesh on the bone. Tax breaks for investigative journalism makes sense, but what taxes? Withdrawing VAT zero rating from news organisations that do not join a regulatory organisation would be a very powerful incentive to join, but would it be illegal under EU law – as the Committee suggests it might – or not? And is 25% the right threshold for invoking the public interest test? The Committee farms this question off to Ofcom, Leveson and the CMS Committee when it could have suggested criteria itself.

The report has also, in my view, missed some critical opportunities. It comes out against public interest defences for journalism in law. Its rationale for this is that ‘it is not realistic for all relevant existing criminal laws to be changed’. This seems like an odd reason given that you would not have to change all relevant existing criminal laws. A statutory public interest defence for disclosure could be written into a bill (say the Protection of Freedoms Bill), with reference to the various laws to which it applies (e.g. RIPA, Computer Misuse Act, Official Secrets Act). Not only is this realistic, it’s relatively straightforward.

The alternative the report suggests – the publication of decisions based on public interest by prosecuting authorities – fudges the problem. The difficulty, as a number of editors have explained at Leveson, is that publications do not currently feel properly protected when doing something they know to be in the public interest, but which may involve practices which break the law. James Harding, editor of The Times, told the Leveson Inquiry:

“The world we live in now is very odd, because I fear that the public interest defence we have is currently too narrow and not sufficiently robust, but more than that, it’s very uneven, so it applies to some laws and not to others. So we’re in the odd situation that blagging — you can impersonate your way to securing a document, but you could not buy that document, say, from the knowledge that you had a public interest defence” (Leveson Inquiry, 17^th January, Morning Hearing).

If editors feel this way, then individual journalists and others exposing information in the public interest, will feel it even more acutely. Only with a statutory public interest defence will they feel in a strong enough position to investigate where they might need to break the law.

The report also falls into the trap of blurring the financial health of the incumbent news industry with the future of journalism. “[W]e welcome the Government’s removal in June 2011”, the report says in paragraph 159, “of the local cross-media ownership restrictions; this should also help support local media outlets by enabling them to consolidate across media platform”. Ownership rules are anachronistic, that’s true, but it is naive to think their relaxation is likely to lead to investment in investigative journalism. One need only look at how many of the incumbents have, when given the choice over the last decade, chosen to cut editorial costs rather than sacrifice profits.

The Lords Committee also shies away from criticising the government’s Local TV plans. This is a shame because the plans represent a massive missed opportunity when it comes to investigative journalism. The government plans to spend £25 million on transmitters with a shelf-life of 3-5 years, and another £15 million on television programming that will be only marginally about public interest journalism. Imagine, if instead of spending the money on transmitters and features programming, it turned the £40 million into an innovation fund for news, similar to the Knight News Challenge in the US. Organisations and individuals could apply for funds for innovative news projects, new investigative journalism ventures, and entrepreneurial news initiatives. Suddenly, an issue where there is real cause for concern would blossom with energy and creativity. And all without spending any more than has already been committed.

Now that would have been a radical, forward looking recommendation.

Working for The Orwell Prize (Media Standards Trust)

Location London

Salary In the region of £25,000 pro rata

The Media Standards Trust is looking for a new administrator for the Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing.

The successful candidate will be required to:

• Administer the entry process (which includes calling for entries from publishers, editors, journalists and bloggers; logging entries and upholding eligibility rules; and liaising with judges)
• Organise events (including the launch debate, shortlist debate, awards ceremony), and explore organising standalone events and events at literary festivals
• Promote the Prize to the press and the public, especially press around the longlist, shortlist and winner announcements
• Manage relationships with publishers, news organisations, bloggers, literary festivals, Orwell experts, bookshops and others
• Maintain, edit and curate the Orwell Prize website, diary blogs, twitter feed, newsletter, YouTube channel and flickr stream
• Work with the director of the Prize, the director of the Media Standards Trust and the Council of the Orwell Prize
• Develop the Prize
• Manage interns

Applicants should have:

• An interest in and understanding of journalism, politics, new media and political writing
• Some knowledge of the works of George Orwell and willingness to learn more
• Excellent organisational, time management, research and computer skills

The successful candidate will be taking over the job in the middle of the Prize cycle – just before the judging of the longlists – and will therefore need to be a quick learner and able to start at the end of February or beginning of March.

Please apply with a CV and covering letter to OrwellPrize@gmail.com.

Closing date: Friday 17 February 2012

Interviews are likely to be conducted w/c 20 February.

Start date will be end of February or beginning of March.

A copy of this advert can be found at w4mp and on the Orwell Prize website.

In addition to a written witness statement, the MST has so far submitted the following as evidence (click on the titles to read the documents):

• A More Accountable Press (2009, referred to as Submitted Evidence #1 in Martin Moore’s written statement)
• Can independent self-regulation keep standards high and preserve press freedom? (2010, Submitted Evidence #2)
• PCC Statistics: a critical analysis by the Media Standards Trust (unpublished, 2011, Submitted Evidence #3)
• Did the PCC fail when it came to phone hacking? (2012, Submitted Evidence #4)
• Privacy: Submission to the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions (2011, Submitted Evidence #5)
• Press Self-Regulation: A History in Five Reports (forthcoming, to be submitted separately, Submitted Evidence #6)
• The Future of Investigative Journalism: Submission to House of Lords Communications Select Committee (2011, Submitted  Evidence #7)

You can also watch video of the oral evidence session, or read a transcript, on the Leveson Inquiry website.

Martin was giving evidence alongside Will Moy, of Full Fact.

Did the PCC fail when it came to phone hacking?

Many within the press have argued that the Leveson Inquiry is unfortunate and unnecessary, a political distraction partly designed to divert attention from politicians’ links with News International, and a threat to press freedom. They also argue that self-regulation was not to blame for the phone hacking scandal: it was a failure of law, not the Press Complaints Commission.

This pamphlet argues that those claiming the PCC did not fail in the case of phone hacking are wrong. It will show how, although its defenders are justified in saying it did not have the remit or the resources to deal with the scandal, it still failed: by claiming responsibility for regulating newsgathering without the resources or the powers to do so; by giving the deliberate and misleading impression that it was investigating phone hacking and associated problems; and by claiming there were no serious problems and no signs of malpractice beyond one rogue reporter, without having any evidence to show whether there were or were not.

This forms part of the MST’s submission to the Leveson Inquiry.

PCC Statistics: A critical analysis by the Media Standards Trust

An analysis of the measurements of success of the PCC based on its own statistics, including an independent audit of the MST’s findings by Full Fact.

The research in this report was undertaken in the first half of 2011 but was not published due to external developments in the phone hacking story from July 2011.

This report has since been submitted to the Leveson Inquiry.

“[Nick] Davies’s work…has gained no traction at all in the rest of Fleet Street, which operates under a system of omerta so strict that it would secure a nod of approbation from the heads of the big New York crime families” Peter Oborne, The Observer, April 2010

“There seemed to be some omerta principle at work that meant that not a single other national newspaper thought this could possibly be worth an inch of newsprint” Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, Newsweek, 2011

Tom Watson MP grabbed headlines last November when he accused James Murdoch of being a “mafia boss” and operating a code of silence, but he wasn’t the first to use the “media omerta” analogy in the phone hacking scandal.

The media’s treatment of developments had been markedly selective. Curiously, it was not just the News International titles that avoided certain avenues of inquiry, following The Guardian’s 2009 revelation of widespread voicemail interception.

In a chapter of a new book about phone hacking we examine Oborne and Rusbridger’s assertions that the press significantly under-reported the phone hacking scandal – a news story which would eventually lead to the demise of the News of the World, several high profile resignations and the ongoing Leveson Inquiry.

Despite significant revelations in July 2009 about the possible extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, coverage of the issue in the press was minimal. Exempting The Guardian and The Observer, a trawl of the articles published in the UK’s major national press titles between 10 June 2006 and 10 November 2011 reveals a failure to report the phone hacking scandal in a sustained and systematic manner.

As shown in our graphs here, there are distinctive patterns in levels of coverage and angles chosen by different national newspaper titles. Coverage only picked up after an investigation by the New York Times at the end of 2010 and the revelations of July 2011.

The story warranted very little newsprint before the major developments in 2011. Whereas The Guardian had written 237 articles by the end of 2010, The Independent had 83, the Daily Telegraph 46, and The Times 43. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tabloids gave the story barely minimal coverage. By the close of 2010, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday had written 38 articles, The Sun 17, and the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror a mere 11 [more on methodology here].

At various times between 2006 and 2011, aspects of the phone hacking story were simply not reported by British journalists. In the words of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, they were apparently ‘blinded’ to ‘the significance of the issue’.

In our chapter we look deeper into the ways media covered the story. We argue that explanations for the non-reporting of the phone hacking scandal need to delve beyond simplistic, if valid, assertions of industry cover-up.

To understand why the majority of national newspapers didn’t regard phone hacking as newsworthy, it is necessary to unpick a tangled web of contributing factors.

We explore competing professional, political and commercial interests; the failure of other organisations – particularly the Metropolitan Police – to investigate the matter thoroughly; and the intimidating power of News International.

On this occasion, a large part of the media failed to deem its own industry’s scandal ‘newsworthy’ enough to warrant proper attention, which has ramifications far beyond the phone hacking scandal.

The inclination for journalists not to regard a scandal within their own industry as ‘newsworthy’ is hardly surprising, but other stories might also be suppressed for a similar combination of professional, political and commercial interests – a fact that ought to be considered by Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry and other bodies considering the question of press regulation.

The vigour of journalism and healthy democratic debate is not merely dependent on the effective regulation of what is reported, it is also dependent on ensuring that harmful illegal activity is regarded as sufficiently ‘newsworthy’ to be investigated and reported.

A new system of regulation should not only end the abuse of self-regulation by the News of the World, it should also consider whether newspapers ought to be independently held to account for their editorial decisions regarding ‘newsworthiness’.

Our full chapter is available on the Social Science Research Network here. It is an extract from The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial, edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair (Arima 2012). The book was launched at an event in London on Tuesday 7 February.

Daniel Bennett has recently finished his PhD in the War Studies Department, King’s College, London. Judith Townend is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, City University London.