Thursday 14 March 2013

National press disunited: Look whose missing










The "industry" gave its response to the latest Leveson developments today but look whose missing...no Guardian, Independent, Mirror [which had other problems to deal with today] or FT reps have signed the statement.

It says: "We share the Prime Minister’s frustration at the way in which talks about the future of press regulation have broken down and legislation has been hijacked.

"The Prime Minister is right to reject statutory regulation of the press – free of political control for 300 years - as fundamentally wrong in principle and unworkable in practice.

"The industry has spent many weeks in negotiating a new independent system of self regulation, based on the Leveson principles, which provides £1 million fines and the toughest system of regulation in the western world. We have made major concessions in order to reach agreement, although there are elements of the proposed reforms – such as exemplary damages – to which we remain opposed. However, this need not stop a new regulator being put in place.

"We agree with the Prime Minister that matters cannot be allowed to drift on and that we need now to deliver real change.

"The UK’s newspaper and magazine publishing industry will rise to the challenge. We are ready to move with speed to establish a new system of tough, independent, effective self regulation which delivers fully on the Leveson principles and will provide real protection for members of the public. We will aim to get the new regulator up and running as soon as possible."

Paul Ashford Northern and Shell

Guy Black Press Standards Board of Finance

Tim Blott Scottish Newspaper Society

Paul Dacre Daily Mail Group

Barry McIlheney Professional Publishers’ Association

Murdoch MacLennan Telegraph Media Group

David Newell Newspaper Society

John Witherow News International

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