Today's final extract from the book After Leveson* is by Professor Chris Frost, head of journalism at Liverpool John Moores university. A former president of the National Union of Journalists, he gave evidence to theLeveson inquiry alongside the NUJ's general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet.
As the debate over the form of a new press regulator continues, he considers some of the problems that are still taking time to sort out...
Lord Justice Leveson's report was always going to be controversial. While he, along with many politicians and most of the public believe we need a regulator with teeth, and one that has universal writ, there are some, particularly those working in journalism, who believe any regulation risks damaging the concept of a free press.
Journalists are trained to be sceptical to the point of cynicism about the different agendas people bring to the business of the media. They are well aware that the desire of many people to limit the power of the press is often driven by the basest of motives.
So it is hardly surprising that journalists should be particularly suspicious of anything that has the stated intention of improving standards with its clear implication of control.
But wanting to prevent those with base motives from covering their tracks is not, of itself, a good enough reason to write anything you want.
I have yet to meet anyone who thinks one should be allowed to write a lie about someone and publish it as journalism. Nor is the press itself immune to base motives.
The individual's right to free expression, the right to free opinion and the right to receive information are vitally important in a democratic, free society but none of these is under any threat from a press regulator.
People will still be able to express themselves face to face, in letters, emails, publications, blogs tweets and elsewhere, as they do now.
The difference between free expression and press freedom
Press freedom is generally taken to mean the freedom of newspapersand magazines to write what they like restrained only by the law of the land (itself a regulation, of course).
The big difference between free expression and a newspaper's freedom to publish is the huge power a paper exercises in order to push its views to millions of people. And the other factors is the limited ownership of newspapers that leads to tight control of the range of views people receive.
Many who gave evidence to the inquiry were concerned that one of the biggest impediments to a free and pluralistic press in the UK is ownership. A commercially driven press, answerable to its shareholders, puts just as many limitations on a free press as any government in a mature democracy.
Claims have been made that we are returning to the days of John Miltonand press licensing. However, the idea that Leveson's regulator risks returning us to the 1644 government that Milton thwarted is fantasist nonsense.
Milton wrote the Areopagitica as an appeal to parliament to rescind the licensing order that would have brought publishing under government control, ensuring that an official censor would need to approve a writer's work before publication. No such order has been either suggested or considered by Leveson, or anyone else.
The only potential for limitation is the alleged "chilling effect" that would stem from being required to follow an accepted code of practice, even though I don't recall anyone previously condemning the current editors' code of practice as chilling free expression.
Some people seem to argue that press freedom is so important that the press should be allowed a licence available to no one else. I can see no good argument for this – the press should be allowed exactly the same right of free expression as anyone else, neither more nor less.
Should the press be able to publish what it likes?
It is no longer the sole outlet for public debate and the presentation of news to support comment and opinion is a commercial activity that should require adherence to understood and shared standards. To do otherwise is to invite governments to legislate as they have done with the right to reputation, fair trial and (to a lesser extent) privacy.
The big divide in the debate about press freedom is twofold: Should the press be able to publish what it likes? Are there consequences that may, or should, follow that?
Leveson leaves the first unchanged and all newspapers will still be able to publish what they like. However he does propose that publishers should take responsibility for ensuring their newspapers follow generally agreed norms of journalistic behaviour.
We already accept that the law says what publishers must do in order to protect individual rights. The state has a battery of laws that interfere with press freedom in order to prevent harm or the breach of individual human rights.
Those who oppose the need for tougher self-regulation should be wary for it would be but a small step for the law to develop incrementally to support higher standards in a way that would be far more dangerous to press freedom than a regulator.
It is clear that the public is no longer prepared to leave those decisions in the hands of a press that is either unwilling (for fear this may be a breach of free expression) or unable to regulate (for fear it will damage its commercial opportunities). And there is also a clear Commons majority for strong regulation.
Back to the problem we faced in there first place
Those championing statutory underpinning are adamant that it is not statutory regulation, although opponents don't see it that way. Lord Black, representing the broad swathe of the publishers, told Leveson that press regulation should be free of statutory intervention.
Some Leveson witnesses even wanted a statutory regulator, harking back to the proposal made by Sir David Calcutt in his 1993 review of thePress Complaints Commission's initial 18 months of operation.
Leveson, though not minded to use the statutory option, was willing to suggest that if self-regulation failed it should be replaced by a statutory regulator.
This was Leveson's warning about the key problem identified by most witnesses at the inquiry. What happens if a major publisher refuses to join the new regulator?
So after 16 months of hearings, and scores of witnesses, we have come back to the problem we had in the first place: should we have regulation or not, because a halfway house of self-regulation without some kind of backstop legislative support/recognition/underpinning or statutory regulation is simply not going to work?
The debate will go on. But the way forward for the industry is stark: try to get a regulatory body, probably underpinned by statute, everyone can live with or get stuck with one that it doesn't want.
*After Leveson? The future for British journalism, edited by John Mair, is published by Abramis. It is available at a special Media Guardian price of £15 from richard@arimapublishing.co.uk