WorldView: Liam Lawlor's death and the way it was reported in a number of newspapers have catapulted the issues of defamation, privacy, a press council and ombudsman into public discussion once again, writes Paul Gillespie
Ireland's legislation and media practice are quite underdeveloped in these respects. There has been a prolonged standoff between a Government unwilling to change the draconian 1961 defamation legislation and a print media jealous of their independence as they developed to meet the needs of a more affluent, well travelled and diverse society. The lack of a proper framework over the last 20 years has seen standards fall, as Ireland encountered celebrity culture and tabloid penetration from Britain. Politicians have on the whole preferred to keep the restrictive legislation in place than revise it. Media have been fearful of government regulation.
But it now looks as if there will be new legislation on defamation and privacy, linked to an initiative taken by the various print media stakeholders to set up a press council and ombudsman system independent of government but grounded in statutory recognition. This could happen fast, since a lot of the preparatory work has already been done. But it remains contentious within the media - and in the Cabinet too, as was seen when several Fianna Fáil Ministers insisted last June that privacy legislation should accompany defamation law reform, drawing on their own encounters with intrusive reporting over recent years.
There is plenty of international experience to draw upon as this is done. At a conference last week in Sofia journalists from Bulgaria and neighbouring Balkan states involved in the southeast European network for professionalisation of the media heard a variety of views on how best to go about it.
Press freedom and independence have become constitutive features of democratisation in official discourse there, including the conditionality laid down by the European Union for prospective membership. NGOs, human rights groups and the International Federation of Journalists have become actively involved in these debates.
That had made a genuine difference in many of these states, as new legal norms and better standards are developed. But in practice it is difficult indeed to develop genuinely independent media and to keep governmental and commercial pressures at bay. We heard how weak the print media are and how fearful journalists are to talk about it on the record from a survey carried out by the network. Many of them welcome foreign investment as a source of new ideas and better practice, but that too needs close attention to standards - and to the notion that it pays in the longer term to be ethical, since this encourages public credibility and market share.
Bulgarian print journalists started from scratch several years ago in their search for optimal models of independent ethical regulation. They began by surveying best practice around Europe and elsewhere.
Most regulatory bodies, they found, are mixed bodies with editors and journalists represented; 80 per cent also have members of the public and non-media on them. Denmark and Finland bring together press and broadcasting media, but most keep them separate. In Luxembourg and Cyprus the state funds regulatory structures; journalists do so in Belgium, Iceland and Switzerland; journalists and publishers do so on a 50/50 basis in Slovakia, Germany and Israel. But in most cases the media owners foot the bill.
In Britain membership of the Press Complaints Commission is drawn from editors and lay members, with no journalists represented and media owners pay the costs. The commission has been in operation for 15 years, based on an editorial code of practice drawn up by a committee of editors and revised annually - lately especially concerned with celebrity issues and harassment by photographers.
The numbers of complaints from the public come to 3,500 annually in Britain (mostly concerned with accuracy, 25-30 per cent with privacy and 15 per cent with discrimination). Several hundreds of corrections and apologies are published each year by print media, after being investigated by the commission staff, with an average 37-day turnover.
The service is free, anonymous (if desired) and mostly effective. The only sanctions involved are mandatory and prominent publishing of the findings. Editors have the obligation to do this written into their contracts and feel embarrassed doing so, but there has been little or no refusal to comply.
Elsewhere the numbers of complaints dealt with by press councils are substantially smaller. A great deal depends on the perceived legitimacy of the system, especially of the code of practice adopted. In Bulgaria three prominent editors and a representative of the IFJ drafted it following a comprehensive survey of journalists which provoked a lot of public interest. It was signed a year ago by all the main media organisations at a public ceremony in the presence of the president, prime minister and speaker of the parliament. They opted for one-third editors, one-third journalists and one-third lay membership. The code and procedures are publicised in each of the media, which have an obligation to publish findings.
Issues arising from these experiences which should be of interest here in Ireland include the following. Press ombudsmen handle most of the complaints before they go for formal ruling (and some newspapers, such as this one, publish corrections and clarifications on their own initiative). Should they be able to handle inter-media disputes? What about conscience clauses, where journalists have the right to refuse assignments if they are believed to break a code of practice? What is the best combination of representatives on these councils, as between editors, proprietors, journalists and lay people? Should there be wide public access to complaints or should they be heard in private? How should the code of practice be drawn up?
In Ireland the likely model will include an independent press ombudsman and press council statutorily guaranteed and self-regulating. Legal reform would allow apologies to be made without admitting liability and a new provision of reasonable justification for publishing in the public interest. But the precise details of how this will be done deserve an informed public debate drawing on experience elsewhere.