Britain
Leveson’s inquiry
The Desmond defence
Jan 12th 2012, 17:31 by J.B.
MOST of the newspaper folk who have testified to the Leveson inquiry into the British press, set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, have been rather supportive of the inquiry’s aims. Although they have strongly defended free speech, they have tended to concede that some form of stricter newspaper regulation is in order. A few have the zeal of converts to the regulatory cause. And then there’s Richard Desmond.
Mr Desmond, who owns the Daily Express and the Daily Star newspapers, testified this afternoon. The effect was akin to one of those strings of small explosives that, when your correspondent was a child, friends would occasionally smuggle into the country from France. His competitors are “idiots”, he explained. He attacked the Daily Mail, calling it the “Daily Malicious”. He called the inquiry “the worst thing that’s ever happened to newspapers” and suggested he would very much like to be rid of it. He complained bitterly about the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, whose name nonetheless slipped his mind.
There was a particularly splendid moment when Mr Desmond was reminded that Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared in 2007, had objected to fully 38 stories published in one of his newspapers over a four-month period. Mr Desmond apologised for that. But he went on to calculate that (since the newspaper was running roughly one story a day) it had probably published something like 65 stories in those four months that were not objectionable. That’s more than half of the total.
Mr Desmond also explained why he has so little time for the Press Complaints Commission, which regulates newspapers and is now, in the wake of the phone-hacking revelations, broadly regarded as toothless. It had “scapegoated” his newspapers, explained Mr Desmond. He spoke of the PCC as a particularly useless variety of trade association. Why had his papers withdrawn from the PCC? For the same reason that he might, in theory, one day decide to leave Britain—because he did not respect its laws and institutions.
Unlike Paul Dacre, the editor of Mr Desmond’s least favourite newspaper, the owner of the Express and the Star did not come to the Leveson Inquiry with a fully worked-out defence of the industry, or even of his own publications. He could not come up with a convincing explanation of how they ought to be regulated. Much of what he said was unimpressive. But Mr Desmond can run a newspaper profitably (something that is beyond some of those who have testified to the inquiry) and he is a crucial figure precisely because of his contempt for regulators. If the Leveson inquiry cannot come up with a form of regulation that Mr Desmond either wants to submit to or is forced to submit to, it will fail.
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Readers' comments
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The main problem the newspapers have, in this debate, is all these people who run tabloids or who work in the tabloid press are so thoroughly objectionable.
I wouldn't want them on my side if I was arguing that the sky is blue.
Bertymandias... The media say what colour the sky is... Not you
The media are on a powertrip... They have power without responsibility... They cannot be wrong... It is OUR fault if the media screw up... Like servant class oiks... They expect to be MADE to be responsible
We the public could pass laws defining the colour of the sky... the bureaucratic approach
Or we could have a director of propaganda... Dr Goebbels... to tell the media the sky is blue
Or we could tell the BBC to get off its arse... and say the sky is blue... and defy the private media to say otherwise
Here in Canada, the CBC is a joke... the Castrating Broad Corporation... Where do they find those weird women?... And the BBC World Service is just as bad... They have sold out to the self-centred anti-social Feminist agenda
Let's see some discussion of the real issues
ow4744... Richard Desmond's gonads cannot match your great uncle clive's
Power without responsibility - the definition of the 4th power.
Is great uncle clive, Richard Desmond?
Can't somebody please hack into his domain?
If we had a more credible BBC, there would be less of a problem with the private media
If we got the minorities, misfits and female eunuchs out of the BBC
If the BBC operated a daily newspaper and/or weekly newsmagazine delivered FREE to every household in the country... paid for by the advertising
We can't hold the private media to the same standards as the public media... The failure of the media is the fault of the public media
Perhaps I watch too much BBC World Service
"If we got the minorities, misfits and female eunuchs out of the BBC"
You are such a brazen, arrogant & ignorant BIGOT. Makes the bilge rise within..
Bon voyage... Nirvana-bound
It revolts me how... whenever the finger of blame is pointed at anyone... so many members of the public gang-up to dump on him...
That's how powerless people protect themselves in tyrannies like Stalin's Russia... In Henry VIII's England, Anne Boleyn's own brother testified against her... thinking to score brownie points with his master
Desmond is doing his job... His display of gonads seems to spook some of you
I repeat... If we want a more responsible media, we start with the BBC
Living in Canada, I am mainly familiar with the BBC World Service, which is a Feminist freak show... It has to be seen to be believed... (If you don't watch it, you won't have a clue what I am talking about)
We (collectively) pick on Desmond because we (collectively) haven't the guts to face the real issues
I should have mentioned the DSK affair, rather than Anne Boleyn's brother
The instinct to gang-up on accused people is pathetic beneath contempt... Does that make more sense?
Your nasty blanket tirade against whole groups/classes cannot be classified as just finger-pointing. It's called blatant stereotyping or bigotry, dude.
Now, as for my take on Desmond/trashy tabloids, do read my earlier comment, here. Incidently, I do watch BBC a lot. Far more eddifying than suffering the assinine FOX, CNN or other mediocre-at-best, American news media organs, spewing their infantile & one-sided garbage.
"Dirty" Des is a bit thick innit! He's also a little fish in a big pond. Leveson inquiry were his 15 minutes of fame. Nobody takes this midget seriously. Please point me to the website to donate to his one-way ticket out of here. I hear Iran is pleasant at this time of year.
Why blame the sleazy, predatory, bottom-feeding tabloid vultures for doing what their equally sleazy & salivating patrons & benefactors - the masses - eagerly & voraciously encourage them to keep-on-a-spewing, for them to gorge on??
A sick society spawns a pletora of sick tabloids, DUH..
I am in the midst of reading Conrad Black's latest volume of self-justification. I wonder what the noble lord would say about this inquiry.
"His competitors are 'idiots,' he explained."
"[The PCC] had scapegoated his newspapers, he explained."
Allow me to point out that assertions are *not* explanations. Granted that voters often confuse the two, especially when asserted by charismatic, photogenic politicians, but the job of the journalist is to see through such smoke and mirrors so to bring the facts to light.
If journalists don't know fact from fiction, assertion from explanation, then they are merely PR tools promoting a particular viewpoint; enflaming the population rather than enlightening them. When they do this, they have lost their role as partners in the democratic process. Getting news reporting back on track, is what any new regulation should be focusing on.
Desmond is a pornographer. Surely that is all that needs to be said!
Selling fiction appears to be more profitable than selling the truth...
Sure why not let him write the regulations then? Shut up shop and let the industry write it's own rules...because we've seen how good they are at policing themselves... :-/
Hi,
Leveson’s inquiry
Question: Where you aware that you did unbeknown before doing it in full conscience of the relevance in retrospect of what happened 1963 in and on a Tuesdays to those accused of not being mentioned in your news paper before it was printed.
Answer: Yes
What an obvious conclusion ! Do you get paid for this? Wow ! Don't tell me, but did you go to Oxbridge or an Ivy League? Maybe Daddy or chums got you this job?
Truly, he is the Daily Beast.
"If the Leveson inquiry cannot come up with a form of regulation that Mr Desmond either wants to submit to or is forced to submit to, it will fail"
Third option...the new regulations and institutions impose such levels of decency that Desmond and people like him are forced to leave. But Desmond is so anti-immigration how would he justify leaving Britain to immigrate into another country....one rule for him and one for everyone else? What an ugly character.
Saying such things as I am about to say seems to be blasphemous to many but nonetheless; if Richard Desmond is the only sort of person who can run a print newspaper profitably these days then perhaps it is time to be rid of them.