Phone hacking, concerns over media ownership and a number of high profile character assassinations of innocent citizens have inevitably led to calls for increased regulation of the media in the UK and to a lesser extent, here in Ireland too.
One of the most interesting proposals is one which was raised at the Labour party conference in Liverpool recently. The idea of ‘like for like redress’ as they put it, means “mistakes and falsehoods on the front page receive apologies and retraction on the front page”.
It’s surely no coincidence that in the wake of this, the Daily Mail has followed the lead of the likes of the Guardian by starting its own corrections and clarifications page (now being watched eagerly by liberal media bloggers), showing a hitherto unheard of desire for self regulation.
Such a rule would clearly be of value if it does act as a deterrent to careless or poorly sourced reporting. If it makes media think twice before running the sort of stories they did on Chris Jeffries[1] or the Sun’s infamous Hillsborough coverage[2] then obviously it’s a positive move.
It remains to be seen how it would work in practice though. Although in theory, if you are wronged by the media, you want everyone to know you were wronged, in reality one might think twice about having your picture back on the front page or the false story repeated again, even with a mea culpa. Clear guidelines would need to laid out for any such redress to ensure it actually benefits the wronged party.
This is the problem with any retrospective punishment – the damage has already been done. Of course the only proper solution is better care in journalism in the first place, honest mistakes are one thing, but careless reporting of and/or knowing misrepresentation of the facts simply shouldn’t be acceptable.
JB