John Horgan

PRACTICE REVIEW: MAINTAINING FREEDOM WITH RESPONSIBILITY

There are several fundamental reasons why the state should not involve itself in the regulation of the press. However, there are also more practical reasons why self-regulation can be a preferable alternative, benefiting journalists and the public alike. It is flexible, non-bureaucratic and highly effective at delivering practical solutions to problems. Ultimately, self-regulation can raise standards and provide effective redress to those who are wronged by the press. But it does so by working with journalists, not against them. What follows is an examination and analysis of the origins and practices of the press regulatory bodies of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, together with an exploration of current issues and solutions adopted, and the identification of future issues deriving from convergence, accountability and effectiveness.

Saving us from Ourselves: Contraception, Censorship and the 'Evil Literature' Controversy of 1926

In the history of Irish public policy on communications. the ban on the publication of information about contraception merits a special place. It existed for half a century. and the circumstances of Its elaboration and Implementation offer a special insight Into the sensitivity of Irish governments on matters of sexual morality, as well as into public and media attitudes to the controversies Involved.

Regulating for Trust in Journalism: standards regulation in the age of blended media

Lara Fielden’s achievement is substantial. She has written a book which, some 12 months after its publication and despite all the Levesoniana in the interim, is still highly topical and likely to remain so for quite some time. This is because, instead of trying to reform a manifestly complex number of independent regulatory systems for different media*a landscape that features both overlaps and gaps*she takes the bold step of trying to imagine how a decent regulatory system would look if we could create one unencumbered by the past, but without ignoring the real issues and problems that have arisen. In one sense, indeed, many of the issues being explored by Levenson are irrelevant to her theme*not because they are unimportant, but because they concern alleged breaches of the criminal law (intercepting phone messages, corruption of public officials, etc.) which are, in any commonsense interpretation of the meaning and scope of ‘‘regulation’’, matters for the police and the judiciary rather than for any type of regulator that might be contemplated. Among other things, the book is also an extraordinary compendium of the best contemporary thinking, with enlightening contributions from well-chosen interviewees inserted*without evident Procrusteanism*into her discussion of the key issues involved. Her principal recommendation for the future is for a system of different tiers of selfselectable regulation, in which media of any kind could opt for whichever level of regulatory stringency they felt most appropriate (some, centrally important media might have to be assigned perforce to one of the higher tiers of regulation), and agree to operate to specific standards by which their readers, listeners or viewers would be entitled to judge them. Up to a point, Lord Copper. No matter what forms of regulation evolve in the wake of Leveson or otherwise, a number of thorny questions will still lurk in the undergrowth. One of the most critical, of course, is the issue of the road map: even assuming that there would be broad agreement on a platform-neutral, tiered regulatory structure, how on earth would we get from here to there? This is in essence a political question and she was probably wise not to attempt to answer it. Again, what is the relationship between redress, accountability, and regulation? Much of the recent confusion has been the over-use of regulatory language in relation to institutions that are not really regulators but complaint-handling systems, like the Press Council of Ireland and many other Press Councils (including the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) as it departs skyward). Complaint-handling, and redress for people adversely affected by the abuse of institutional power, are in every sense essential checks for every powerful institution, including the media. But where does redress for justified complaints shade into regulation?

The great war correspondent: Francis McCullagh, 1874–1956

Trotsky of Russia knows Francis McCullagh. So does President Calles of Mexico. Peter, the King of Serbia, was McCullagh’s friend. The headhunters of the upper Amazon list Francis McCullagh as one of their principal deities. The warring tribes of Morocco call him blood brother. A room is always ready for him in the imperial palace of Siam. The latchstrings of hundreds of Siberian peasant huts are out in anticipation of his coming.

Anti-Communism and Media Surveillance in Ireland 1948-50

Ireland in the immediate post-war period offers, to the student of Cold War politics and intrigues, some unusual insights into the nature of political surveillance in general and to the surveillance of the press in particular, according to documents recently released by the US State department and made available in the US National Archives in Washington. Politically, the situation was becoming more volatile. Fianna Fail, which had been in power continuously since 1932 and had won its most recent election in 1944, was coming under increasingly vocal criticism from two key groups of erstwhile supporters: urban workers, who had been chafing under wages stand-still orders for much of the war and who were disappointed that the end of the conflict had not produced much in the way of material benefits; and republicans, many of whom had been interned during the war, and some of whom felt in any case that a sense of drive and purpose was missing from Fianna Fails approach to the national question.