Press Regulation

[ckn]

I'm not that bothered really about the story, I'm annoyed at yet again the media getting something wrong and getting away with a simple ribbon story in their paper as a consequence.

Daily Mail and Telegraph led on Wednesday with the story about Nicola Sturgeon disrespecting Britain and the Queen over a flag.  Then they posted this today:

What they didn't post in their correction was that Salmond actually cleared it with the Queen in advance and it was the Queen who brought up the subject over which flag was most appropriate when she was up there.

Both papers had it as their primary news story all of Wednesday on their sites, splashed across the landing on their site.  Go to the Mail now and search for Sturgeon on the entire home page and you get nothing.

This is a yet a further example that the media require stronger regulation.  The media, with their ability to influence people with a headline alone, should be forced to give the same level of coverage to "corrections" as the original story.  If it means that they lose an entire day's front page to them saying "sorry" then that's the cost they must pay for getting it wrong in the first place.

[Trojan]

 

42 minutes ago, ckn said:

I'm not that bothered really about the story, I'm annoyed at yet again the media getting something wrong and getting away with a simple ribbon story in their paper as a consequence.

Daily Mail and Telegraph led on Wednesday with the story about Nicola Sturgeon disrespecting Britain and the Queen over a flag.  Then they posted this today:

What they didn't post in their correction was that Salmond actually cleared it with the Queen in advance and it was the Queen who brought up the subject over which flag was most appropriate when she was up there.

Both papers had it as their primary news story all of Wednesday on their sites, splashed across the landing on their site.  Go to the Mail now and search for Sturgeon on the entire home page and you get nothing.

This is a yet a further example that the media require stronger regulation.  The media, with their ability to influence people with a headline alone, should be forced to give the same level of coverage to "corrections" as the original story.  If it means that they lose an entire day's front page to them saying "sorry" then that's the cost they must pay for getting it wrong in the first place.

But they're not, and until we have a government with the guts to implement Leveson in full they never will be. The press in this country is a disgrace.  They can do what they like and print what they like and no one has long enough pockets to stop them.

[gingerjon]

The speed of the correction about this (and a few others there have been recently) makes it obvious they knew the story was false. You don't correct that quickly unless you know you have no defence at all.

So, the conclusion has to be that we have a media that is happy to lead with distortions and lies because there is no problem to them in doing so.

[RidingPie]

I think regulation is the wrong word for the media as everyone (hopefully) wants a free press and regulation, as a word, implies stifling freedom in some way. Personally I would hold the press to standards, based on honesty, integrity, and accuracy of facts.

What stick you hit them with when they breach the standards I am unsure but it needs to be tougher than now.

I freely admit I haven't read Leveson, hopefully it more than covers those bases. The current government won't do anything that upsets Murdoch, Dacre et al. for fear of losing their support.

[Bob8]

18 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

The speed of the correction about this (and a few others there have been recently) makes it obvious they knew the story was false. You don't correct that quickly unless you know you have no defence at all.

So, the conclusion has to be that we have a media that is happy to lead with distortions and lies because there is no problem to them in doing so.

The UK is unusual in that it is now normal for scientists to prefer not deal with the press at all.  This is because scientists are bad at communication;
Scientists to press:  We have found A is correct!

National newspapers report: Scientist confirm B and A was nonsense all along!

Later newspapers report: Turns out B was fault, just shows we cannot trust scientists.

National press journalists then say scientists have to improve their communication.

[Trojan]

1 hour ago, Bob8 said:

The UK is unusual in that it is now normal for scientists to prefer not deal with the press at all.  This is because scientists are bad at communication;
Scientists to press:  We have found A is correct!

National newspapers report: Scientist confirm B and A was nonsense all along!

Later newspapers report: Turns out B was fault, just shows we cannot trust scientists.

National press journalists then say scientists have to improve their communication.

When I was a kid there used to be a joke newspaper called "Billy's Weekly Liar"  this title could apply to any of today's papers.

[Saintslass]

I think if you introduce press regulation then you have to apply the same rules to the TV and internet media outlets also because they are just as guilty - if not more so - of making claims which are later unjustified and they are probably more influential these days than print media.

However, personally I feel uncomfortable with regulating the press in the way the OP implies (reference to Leveson).  What could be done is to regulate where corrections are placed in print/online and visual media, namely on the front page/lead story.

[RidingPie]

5 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

I think if you introduce press regulation then you have to apply the same rules to the TV and internet media outlets also because they are just as guilty - if not more so - of making claims which are later unjustified and they are probably more influential these days than print media.

However, personally I feel uncomfortable with regulating the press in the way the OP implies (reference to Leveson).  What could be done is to regulate where corrections are placed in print/online and visual media, namely on the front page/lead story.

I agree wholehearted with your first comment. Such regulation should be applied to other media (though if we have to start somewhere it should be the print media with a view to it being throughout).

Your second point though, I feel the stick needs to be bigger and financial, not just printing an apology in the same type face on the same page.... after all their may be more important front page news that day.

[Saint Toppy]

25 minutes ago, RidingPie said:

I agree wholehearted with your first comment. Such regulation should be applied to other media (though if we have to start somewhere it should be the print media with a view to it being throughout).

 

I agree with regards to the same regulations for all. The traditional press no longer have the monopoly on 'news' as they once did, and actually probably more damage is now done through false stories on social media than through one false story in 1 newspaper.

Applying the same levels of regulation to the internet as to the press requires a huge undertaking and the full cooperation of the global hosts of these internet sites, virtually  none of which are British and fall under the direct control of UK laws & regulations.

Regulating new stories is now hugely complex and near impossible to police

[Bedford Roughyed]

Broadcast TV is already regulated by OFCOM.  When complaints are upheld they are broadcast at the same time slot/programme.  

[Just Browny]

14 hours ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

Broadcast TV is already regulated by OFCOM.  When complaints are upheld they are broadcast at the same time slot/programme.  

Not like Saintslass to spout cobblers. Part of the whole point of Leveson was to try to bring written press standards up to those fulfilled by the broadcast media.

[Saintslass]

17 hours ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

Broadcast TV is already regulated by OFCOM.  When complaints are upheld they are broadcast at the same time slot/programme.  

Not quite - see 5.2.

[Saintslass]

3 hours ago, Just Browny said:

Not like Saintslass to spout cobblers. Part of the whole point of Leveson was to try to bring written press standards up to those fulfilled by the broadcast media.

You should do your research before spouting your insults.

[Bob8]

2 hours ago, Saintslass said:

Not quite - see 5.2.

I am not sure how that refutes his point?

[Farmduck]

On 1/26/2018 at 11:13 PM, RidingPie said:

I think regulation is the wrong word for the media as everyone (hopefully) wants a free press and regulation, as a word, implies stifling freedom in some way. Personally I would hold the press to standards, based on honesty, integrity, and accuracy of facts.

What stick you hit them with when they breach the standards I am unsure but it needs to be tougher than now.

I freely admit I haven't read Leveson, hopefully it more than covers those bases. The current government won't do anything that upsets Murdoch, Dacre et al. for fear of losing their support.

Part of the problem is that the current options for bad press stories are very slow and ineffective. Any court action will take years and will only produce money, without ersing the impression planted by the original story. In the case at hand, since there is no financial loss, there isn't any avenue to use the courts.

One of the best examples recently was the Canadian case of the "hijab scissors girl," which travelled around the World before Police had a chance to say it was a complete fabrication.

[Padge]

The press are their own worst enemy, they have proved time and time again they cannot control their excesses and cannot self regulate.

Its time for a three strikes and you are shutdown law. Sometimes only the big stick is the answer.

I'll settle for on the third strike if you want to continue then for 12 months they have to publish with a blank front page or a page saying No Front Page News Because We Are LIARS

[Dave T]

I think it should be quite simple.

All apologies for false and incorrect stories should take the same page and space of the whole original article. If that is a five page spread, tough.

There should also be annual stats compiled, this table should have to be present in every copy of each paper/website which highlights the number of complaints and %upheld - versus the rest of the market.

Papers will soon be more careful if they are regularly losing their front page and if they have to be public about how often they lie.

I dont think too much morr regulation is needed. As long as you are being honest they should crack on.

[Padge]

Without a legal framework of regulation they will just ignore any 'gentleman's' agreement.

 

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, Padge said:

Without a legal framework of regulation they will just ignore any 'gentleman's' agreement.

 

Sorry i didnt mean a voluntary code. 

[kiyan]

All very good points, but when more and more people get their news from online sources , how do you regulate a blogger in China who is quoted in the UK?

Most false news starts within social media and (unless you want to become a dictorship) there is no way to legislate that.

You can counter it by making sure sources like the BBC are  factual and neutral.  If you do that then people will start to seek confirmation of what they read.

Governments (of all types) stopping spinning events to their agenda and being honest would help as well!

[ckn]

21 minutes ago, kiyan said:

All very good points, but when more and more people get their news from online sources , how do you regulate a blogger in China who is quoted in the UK?

Most false news starts within social media and (unless you want to become a dictorship) there is no way to legislate that.

You can counter it by making sure sources like the BBC are  factual and neutral.  If you do that then people will start to seek confirmation of what they read.

Governments (of all types) stopping spinning events to their agenda and being honest would help as well!

That's entirely the point though, I want to be able to trust, with a fair degree of certainty, the news that is generated by the professional UK media.  I want someone independent with power over them to slap them hard enough depending on how bad their conduct becomes.  I want there to be severe consequences for media companies and their owners when they deliberately lie, I want them to have lesser consequences, but still not trivial, for when they're caught being reckless with the truth.

This isn't a modern problem, I want the trash like the Sun's Hillsborough coverage to have legal consequences on the journalists who lied and there to be consequences on the paper itself if prints the lies of others without at least some objectively reasonable editorial rigour.

If a newspaper wants to print something as opinion then they should be required to say that clearly rather than the more modern pretending that opinion=fact.

I'm not asking for editors to be flogged or anything like that, here's an example though, think back to the Hillsborough coverage where the Sun had almost its first ten pages covering the story, they should have been forced to print retractions, written by independent regulators, on exactly the same amount of pages, in the same order and the same font sizes.  If they run out of retraction coverage then they start again until the pages are full.

Many of the worst culprits are "eye for an eye" type opinion dribblers, surely that's just the sort of "justice" they call for themselves, isn't it?

[ckn]

And here's my point.  Despite the Mail publishing a correction and Alex Salmond making it clear that it was the Queen who raised the subject and approved the change eight years ago ago, it's still the most read article on the Telegraph of the last week.  I took this screenshot not even two minutes ago.

It's still very clearly saying that Nicola Sturgeon's administration have ordered the change.  That's just not true.  Yet, the Telegraph simply don't care that they're continuing to publish that story.

[Saint Toppy]

9 hours ago, ckn said:

If a newspaper wants to print something as opinion then they should be required to say that clearly rather than the more modern pretending that opinion=fact.

 

Probably 95% of all news in all papers is opinion and interpretation, nobody just presents the facts. Every paper just takes the basic facts and then presents them according to either the political alignment of the paper or the beliefs of the individual journalist. It doesn't matter which paper you look at, left or right leaning, they're all doing exactly the same.

[gingerjon]

Stop calling it press regulation and start calling it 'telling the truth'.

I don't care if you believe we'll be better off outside the EU (for example), I do care that your argument you make is based on things that are objectively truthful.

[Saintslass]

32 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Probably 95% of all news in all papers is opinion and interpretation, nobody just presents the facts. Every paper just takes the basic facts and then presents them according to either the political alignment of the paper or the beliefs of the individual journalist. It doesn't matter which paper you look at, left or right leaning, they're all doing exactly the same.

The same can be said for TV news 'reporting'.  So much of it is opinion now.