Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Prash Naik, Controller of Legal & Compliance, Channel 4, David Jordan, Director of
Editorial Policy and Standards, BBC, and Valerie Nazareth, Head of Programme Legal
Advice, BBC—Oral evidence (QQ 273–325)
element of trust that David raised, I think there is a greater recognition of trust in television
content than in some newspapers at the lower end of the market, but probably equally good
trust at the broadsheet end. They are two different models, so to try to shoehorn them
into a new system to cover both now is too late in the day.
Q1191 Martin Horwood: But in other areas of public policy where we have
some sectors that are working well and some that clearly are not working very well we
generally try to emulate one with the other.
Prash Naik: There are certainly elements of the way we are regulated that provide a
helpful model. We pay a licence fee. The ultimate sanction in certain cases, but not for
Channel 4, is revocation of a licence or shortening of a licence. I am not sure how you
would emulate that model with newspapers.
Q1192 Martin Horwood: Perhaps Mr Jordan would comment on this. The
broadcasting code applies also to non-publicly-funded broadcasters and appears to work
equally well.
David Jordan: I think there is something pretty fundamental about the state licensing
newspapers, as it were. The really difficult question to answer is whether you believe that
should be the case in any free society. I think that is a very difficult hurdle to cross.
Q1193 Martin Horwood: But do you also agree that in practice the broadcast
media are just as free as the print media in this country?
David Jordan: For example, the BBC has had to struggle hard and long to assert the
independence it now has. I am not sure it would be a good idea for newspapers to have to
go through the same process. If you read the history of the BBC, it is in effect a series of,
shall we say, disagreements—at their politest—between government and the BBC about
certain issues in which the BBC has struggled to assert its editorial independence. It has
succeeded in doing so and is now viewed the world over as being independent and impartial.
But I am not sure you would want newspapers to go through the same process in a bid to
prove they were in fact independent of whatever the regulator or licensing system was.
There are profound and fundamental implications in going down a statutory route for
newspapers in terms of freedom of the press. We need to think about them very carefully
before venturing down that road.
Q1194 Mr Llwyd: What do you think would be the impact on broadcasters of a
statutory tort of privacy, essentially along the lines of the current privacy law?
Valerie Nazareth: I am not sure that in the long term it would have very much
impact, or that it is necessary. We have article 8, which the courts interpret and balance
with article 10. Any statutory tort would have to have regard to the same factors, and the
courts would in effect have to decide on those competing factors. In the long term it
probably would not have that much impact.
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