Here I am at Commentator on the ghastly Leveson Report:

First, the Leveson report fails to grasp the most important feature of the current ‘press’ scene, namely that the industrial model of newspapers is busily dying. We are moving back (or more precisely forward) to something much more like the original 18th century free-for-all. We are the media. Everyone’s PC and smart phone is now a printing press. Twitteristas and YouTubers report ‘news’ far faster than so-called mainstream media outlets can keep up.

You might think that that is better or worse than what we have now. And you may be right. The key point is that in any sense that matters this situation is a priori unregulatable, except by focused state brutality.

Second, the Leveson report lacks any sense of proportion. Yes, some newspapers connived in eavesdropping on private telephones. But the number of telephones concerned was a vanishingly microscopic proportion of all telephones in the country. Yes, some newspapers improperly or unfairly exploited private misfortune and undeservedly wrecked some reputations. But how in principle to balance those misdeeds against the mountains of normal, competent, helpful reporting and analysis represented by the industry’s daily output as a whole? As a famous Ambassador used to say, some things are important – but don’t matter.

Third, and most important, in a free society there are ways to get results that empower citizens and due process alike. Existing laws against phone-hacking can be enforced. Regulations stopping police officers from leaking details of investigations can be upheld. Newspapers that tell lies about people can be sued for libel. Readers can vote with their wallets and stop buying newspapers that overstep reasonable limits. Newspapers can be shut down. And so on.

The point is that none of this requires “regulation” by the state. All that is required is that established systems work properly. If they don’t work properly, why should we expect new systems to work any better?

Good question.

And it concludes with my favourite quote. Unattributed, just to see who’s paying attention.

For a closely argued but quite devastating look at the way a Leveson-style media sector might or might not work in practice, try Mick Hume:

Those who decline the invitation ‘voluntarily’ to sign up to the new system would be threatened with having to pay ‘exemplary’ damages and ‘one-way costs’ if they were taken to court. That is, they would be made an example of by the authorities. That looks like an indirect form of taxation on dissident newspapers – exactly 300 years since the Crown first taxed the newly unlicensed press in 1712, to try to stop the masses reading about what their rulers were up to. What is more, publications outside the new regulator would be faced with being overseen by Leveson’s proposed ‘back-stop regulator’ – Ofcom.

As for the notion of a kitemark for a ‘recognised brand of trusted journalism’, this attempt to depict the freedom of the press like the double-glazing market ought immediately to raise the questions: ‘recognised’ by who? ‘Trusted’ by who? Much of the evidence to the Leveson Inquiry dripped with fear and loathing of the popular press, and that prejudice is clear between the lines of the report.

It is not hard to imagine what view the new regulators might take of ‘good’ journalism. Their kitemark would be a form of ‘ethical’ licensing, a badge of conformism. After all, what such marks usually tell us is ‘this product is safe and child-friendly’. We might note that none of the rule-breaking convention-busting heroes of the historic struggle for a free press in Britain, such as John Wilkes in the eighteenth century or WT Stead in the nineteenth, would have qualified for any such kitemark, and were all the better for it.

… There is a striking difference between Leveson’s proposed protection and the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The Lord Justice suggests, in his usual wordy style, that it will be lawful to interfere with the media ‘insofar as it is for a legitimate purpose and is necessary in a democratic society’, thus leaving the door open for further state intervention.

By contrast the short and sweet First Amendment states that it is illegal for the US Congress to pass any law ‘abridging the freedom of speech or of the press’. In other words, it is never ‘legitimate’ or ‘necessary in a democratic society’. If Lord Justice Leveson’s almost-one-million-word report had instead echoed those few words, we would be far better off now.

These and other underlying dangers in the report give the lie to claims that Lord Justice Leveson and his supporters are committed to a free press. The entire spirit of his report is to inhibit press freedom – imposing external standards, threatening reporters with prison sentences, cutting off sources of information, restricting access to police and politicians and so on.

There is now nothing else to say on the matter.

Other than “Please – just go away”.