Older tabloid journalists must not be scapegoated, and their reputations blackened, to exaggerate the effectiveness of the Press Complaints Commission

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Older tabloid journalists must not be scapegoated, and their reputations blackened, to exaggerate the effectiveness of the Press Complaints Commission

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Influential editors and others are exaggerating the misdemeanors of the past in the hope of proving that newspaper self-regulation has been a remarkable success.
They claim the press of more than 20 years ago was ‘outrageous’ and ‘scandalous’ and that today, thanks to the Press Complaints Commission, it is ‘vastly better behaved’.
Twenty years ago there was no scandal to compare in scale or gravity with current phone hacking allegations; and today’s newspapers seriously breach the law of contempt, ruinously for some people, in ways previously unthinkable.
The slur that older journalists, almost as routine, stole photographs of bereaved people verges on being an ‘urban myth’.
The excesses in tabloid conduct in the 1970s and 1980s were no greater than today’s, and possibly a good deal less.
The DCMS must acknowledge this when it reviews press regulation following the Leveson Inquiry.

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