SWEETENING THE PRESS PILL
The press is unpopular, and the Press Council works badly.
Paul Johnson suggests two reforms THE press in Britain is deeply disliked by the public. The dislike, which occasionally verges on hatred, seems to be common to all classes and categories. Attacks on the press, even if they are totally unjustified, always get a sympathetic hearing. Hence the success, for instance, of the anti-press play Pravda, which otherwise has no merit. Journalists assume that the freedom of the press is a popular cause. They are mis- taken. I do not believe that government action to curb media activities would be widely resented or resisted. The media would have to fight their own battles without much public backing. It is true that the kind of press censorship a Labour government might impose, designed to restrict reporting and comment on certain groups — left-wing trade unionists, mili- tant blacks, homosexual activists, Irish republicans and political extremists gener- ally — would be unpopular and resented, but only for the reason that the people to be thus protected from the press are even more widely and deeply disliked than journalists themselves.
The press is unpopular primarily because it is inaccurate and intrusive, usually in conjunction. Vast numbers of people can give an instance, from their own experi- ence or that of neighbours, friends or relations, of bad press behaviour. With this in mind, the voluntary system of discipline embodied in the Press Council was set up, in order to forestall some kind of compul- sory control by parliamentary statute. It appeared to work for a time but must now be regarded as a failure. The council itself no longer carries much authority, primarily because of changes in its composition. The journalistic heavyweights who once made it respected in the profession have de- parted. The lay membership, as often happens in such bodies, inclines increasing- ly towards the Left, and the council is thus becoming identified with causes the Left holds dear. I finally lost confidence in the council when it sought to censor an editor- ial critical of homosexual behaviour. Edi- tors are growing increasingly impatient at the council's obsessive attempts to prevent the reporting of the colour of those men- tioned in news-stories, another case of attempted censorship and another instance where the council's line appears to reflect the current preoccupations of the Left rather than the concerns of the public. If the council cannot speak for ordinary people, as opposed to political sectarians, it has no moral standing at all and editors would be right to ignore it. We have not yet got to this point but we are not far off either.
The press supported the voluntary sys- tem because the probable alternative of statutory control seemed far more objec- tionable. I have never wholly agreed with this view. Bearing in mind the decline in the effectiveness and authority of the council, and the likelihood of a growing political demand for more harsh measures, I would welcome two reforms. The first is a statutory right of reply. This works well in a number of countries. It is not the sensational change which its supporters and opponents believe it to be — in practice it is productive of much tedious copy, no bad thing. But it does make editors more careful; it does accord with `It's either Boy George singing or a cry for help.' most people's notion of natural justice, and it does remove one of the chief and most justified public complaints against over- weening press power. Whatever editors may say, the press here could live perfectly happily with such a law. It would probably cause more difficulties for television, where in some ways it is more needed.
Secondly, I believe the overwhelming majority of people in Britain would like to see a law to protect privacy from unwar- ranted media intrusion. Nothing makes me more ashamed than the misuse of press power (television is less of an offender in this respect) to invade private lives. My guess is that anger at such behaviour is the biggest single factor in creating hostility to the press. The right to privacy is one of the most important human rights because it protects one of the deepest human needs. Even famous public figures, from prime ministers to pop stars, shoud be given some privacy. It is particularly important to protect the privacy rights of those for- tuitously involved in the glare of public life — the spouses and children of those in the news. There was a peculiarly repellent example of this kind of invasion of privacy in the current issue of the Mail on Sunday, involving the 16-year-old daughter of Mrs Victoria Gillick. Mrs Gillick is not, strictly speaking, a public figure, though she has become very well known for taking on the BMA on an important point of principle governing the relationship between doc- tors, parents and children. She has per- formed a useful service, at considerable cost to herself, in subjecting this point to the test of law. The issue is highly con- troversial. Millions of people share her view; millions disagree, often hotly. She and her family have, I believe, been subjected to a great deal of harassment, some of it physical. The editor of the Mail on Sunday is entitled to disagree with Mrs Gillick's view and say so in his paper. But he should leave her family, and particularly her children, out of it. It is precisely this kind of behaviour which makes the press loathed and fuels the demand for statutory controls.
A privacy law will not be easy to frame. I would favour a carefully restricted enact- ment, though it should certainly in my view carry a prison sentence as a last resort in the case of an editor, reporter or photo- grapher who persistently and grievously harasses a private individual. Editors, in particular, must be made to realise that abuse of the press's freedom may involve risking their own. There is nothing more calculated to instil a few moral values into an editor than the anticipatory clang of a cell door. Protecting privacy by law would leave all the legitimate rights of publication wholly intact. But, even more than a statutory right of reply, it would convince the public that the press is under reason- able control, and therefore spike the guns of those who really do wish to destroy its freedom.
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