Press Regulation.

I have been asked by a reader why I oppose the press regulating themselves. And what has this to do with the inland waterways? 

It's simples - this blog covers my thoughts on many aspects of the waterways. It also covers my thoughts on many other day to day issues. Including Cameron Cosy with Press it seems to me that we have lost sight of the reality of their misdeeds. By the smoke and mirrors of misinformation and sleight of hand, the press are up to their old tricks once more.

Kate and Gerry McCann have lost a beautiful child. The Portuguese police were investigating the circumstances. The British press without doubt wasted police time and in my mind hindered the investigation. The press put the spotlight of blame on perfectly innocent people, without a single shred of evidence. Each newspaper was trying to outdo the other with more and more lurid copy.  As far as I am concerned the McCann case was the greatest scandal in the history of our news media. 

Lets not forget that Milly Dowler's murder also played a significant role in the phone-hacking scandal. Where once again the press interfered in an ongoing police investigation. It was revealed that News of the World reporters had accessed her voicemail while she was reported missing. The resulting outcry from the British public contributed to the closure of the newspaper and led to a range of investigations and inquiries into phone hacking and media ethics, in British media. The courts are about to deal with those involved.

However, not one editor, faced formal reprimand as a result of the McCann coverage, furthermore no measures have been taken to prevent a repetition. That is what the Leveson enquiry was intended to do.

Express Newspapers paid £550,000 to Gerry and Kate McCann, who had sued over more than 100 stories about them in the group's four titles, some of which were "grossly defamatory". The McCanns could have sued 10 more newspapers.

Express Newspapers agreed to pay £375,000 in libel damages to the friends of Kate and Gerry McCann who were with the couple when Madeleine McCann disappeared. 

Involving hundreds of “completely untrue” news reports, that were published on front pages month after month in the teeth of desperate denials, can only be systemic. The welfare and whereabouts of Madeline was worth much less than the price of a newspaper.

It seems that others can be villified by the press for their misdeeds, but not the press themselves.

"We want scapegoats," wrote Max Hastings in the Daily Mail, as he surveyed the wreckage of the banking industry. "And when we have the names, like the profiteers of the First World War, they should be perceived as men and women whom decent people will not share a park bench with." 

Patrick O'Flynn, of the Daily Express, "Setting aside the quite understandable desire for revenge against the reckless bankers who enriched themselves for so long at our expense, there are other perfectly sound reasons for insisting that the bosses of British finance are dispatched to the nearest jobcentre."

Editors found that the image of Madeleine or her name in a headline, was a daily necessity. If anything like the same standard of outrage were applied to the people running national newspapers. Many would have been sacked years ago for their conduct in the McCann coverage. No explanation has emerged besides the obvious one: that this was all done to sell newspapers.

Later...