The editor of the Independent on Sunday has voiced fears that Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals on press regulation could harm newspapers’ ability to hold those in authority to account.
John Mullin told The Drum that he would not support the Leveson Report’s suggestion of a new media watchdog underpinned by law because of the risk it would bring of political interference.
He said: “It is the first time in 317 years in this country that we will have state involvement in the governance of the press, which we are very much against because we believe it is against the constitutional principle.
“I think in a pragmatic way our job in the current climate is becoming harder and harder because MPs etc feel a little bit of wind beneath their wings. I think this will just help them feel a little more powerful and us a little bit weaker. We’ll have to battle through all of that.
“We need better regulation, of course we do. But everyone in the industry has conceded that. What we don’t like is the idea of statutory underpinning because it’s an important principle of freedom of expression.
“Statute does cross the Rubicon. Once you allow politicians into the system… give them an inch and they take more and more as time goes on.
“I think all the offences we’ve seen committed recently are covered by the most important regulation of them all – that’s the law of the land.
“There are laws to tackle phone hacking, there are laws to tackle contempt of court, there are laws to tackle breaches of privacy. All those are there. The failure has been to apply them.”
Mullin said there are “a number of very problematic things” for journalists in the 1,987-page report into press standards.
“The thing that probably hits us hardest is the whole business of declaring meetings between police and press, and relations between politicians and the media.
“It looks to me on one level like that’s outlawing or putting beyond good practice the off the record briefing. And of course off the record briefings are the very lifeblood of the newspaper industry in this country.
“Without having access to people who are telling us things that their bosses wouldn’t necessarily want us to be told, we can’t hold those in authority to account the way we should be holding authority to account in any mature democracy.”
Asked how he planned to cover the story in Sunday’s edition, Mullin said he was tempted to make the paper a Leveson-free zone.
“I suspect our readers are getting heartily sick of all of this. We all know where we stand on it but the debating will go on before we finally decide what we do.
“How do we do it on Sunday? Part of me would quite like to make it a Leveson-free zone but part of me recognises that we probably can’t do that.”