Leveson report: accuracy is "the foundation stone on which journalism depends"

What did Lord Justice Leveson say about the accuracy of the press?

In his report Lord Justice Leveson refers repeatedly to the first clause of the Editors' Code of Practice:

1. Accuracy
The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.

As he notes (Chapter 6 9.1), there is good reason for this: "It is not by accident that the Editors' Code begins with a requirement for accuracy: it is the foundation stone on which journalism depends."

However, Lord Justice Leveson claims that the problems with basic accuracy in parts of the press are a cause for "significant concern" (Chapter 6 9.1).

At worst, he said he had seen evidence of "deliberate invention and fabrication of stories" and "deliberately misleading headlines". The Inquiry had also been presented with instances of "careless or reckless inaccuracy", a failure to factcheck invented stories and a tendency for certain newspapers to report political and social issues inaccurately in order to support their own agenda or the assumed views of their readers (Chapter 6 9.1) .

At the same time, Lord Justice Leveson admits that it's inevitable that inaccuracies will appear in newspapers because of the number of stories published and the speed at which they're written (Chapter 6 9.2), a view shared by Full Fact. However, the public are unlikely to be sympathetic in the case of a story that a journalist has knowingly exaggerated or intentionally falsified (Chapter 6 9.21).

Lord Justice Leveson argues that there is a "powerful public interest" in readers being able to judge facts or opinions for themselves. If newspapers were to make a habit of identifying their sources, a reader would be able assess any evidence on its merit. Lord Justice Leveson states that this should be the default position and it should only be disregarded if there's a problem of confidentiality (Chapter 6 9.16).

While journalists are not always to blame for a fabricated story (it might - as far as the Inquiry could tell - have arrived on their desk from a source thought to be genuine), there is also evidence that sometimes factchecking by the press is "limited (if not slapdash) at best" (Chapter 6 9.17).

Lord Justice Leveson acknowledges that a single inaccuracy might go viral and can "very quickly become 'popular truth' by virtue of repetition in other newspapers, blogs and websites". In his evidence to the Inquiry (which Lord Justice Leveson quotes in his report), the former tabloid journalist Rich Peppiatt admitted that sometimes newsrooms operated on the basis that a story was "too good to check" (Chapter 6 9.22-23).

In the case of misleading headlines and teasers, Lord Justice Leveson does not accept the argument that sub-editors are often blameless (that if they're not the author of the article in question, they might not realise that their headline contradicts what a journalist has written). He argues that it is logical that the sub-editor would have read the article in order to compose the headline (Chapter 6 9.32).

In summary, he notes: "faced with a fiercely competitive market, some titles have found themselves on the wrong side of the line between an attention-grabbing but accurate headline and an embellished but inaccurate headline" (Chapter 6 9.34).

Lord Justice Leveson does not condemn the newspapers' habit of failing to distinguish between fact and comment in their reporting, even though the Editors' Code of Practice requires this (Chapter 6 9.38). In fact, he calls it "an inevitable part of press reporting in the 21st century" - that purely factual journalism is almost impossible, and that readers don't want it anyway (Chapter 6 9.39).

However, this doesn't mean that newspapers shouldn't be criticised for manipulating the facts of a story to fit their own agenda - on issues such as immigration, Britain's membership of the EU and welfare benefit claimants (Chapter 6 9.41-54). As Lord Justice Leveson points out, "there is an important distinction to be made between 'taking an angle' and plain inaccuracy". If the public is not accurately informed, the democratic process is hurt.

Indeed, Lord Justice Leveson suggests that the PCC's approach of only allowing complaints from the affected individual may have allowed "a degree of impunity" in this regard. While a representative organisation may be far better placed to monitor and complain about certain inaccuracies - including the kind that impede the development of good policy - under the PCC's system it could be difficult for them to make a complaint in this way.

Lord Justice Leveson concludes that there is a subculture within the press that will on occasion practice journalism that is "deliberately, recklessly or negligently inaccurate" (Chapter 6 9.76). This cultural strand exists because of the pressure on journalists to produce scoops, to write stories with shock value and to capture the interest of their newspaper's readership (Chapter 6 9.77).

A new regulator would need more robust powers to set out these standards more clearly and to enforce them more firmly (Chapter 6 9.78).

How have the press dealt with complaints?

The Inquiry concluded that the way the press treats those who complain about stories was often unacceptable citing "substantial evidence of poor practice", and that the complaints process can be "protracted, complicated and expensive." Newspapers were often found to be reluctant to correct a point of fact in an article - either at all, or in a satisfactory way. There is evidence that newspapers often refuse to give a correction the publicity it is due -  in other words, the same prominence as the offending article (Chapter 6 12.16).

(Lord Justice Leveson deals separately with those complainants who have sought apologies for defamatory statements, rather than corrections of fact.)

Lord Justice Leveson notes that some newspapers have adopted an "adversarial approach to complaints" even though a corrections mechanism is in the interests of the press. After all, if the public trust a newspaper, they will be more likely to buy it (Chapter 2 passim). However, the PCC did not have the authority to determine where a correction or apology should be printed and how many column inches it should occupy (Chapter 6 12.28). Lord Justice Leveson proposes that any new regulator should have this power.

Lord Justice Leveson observes that most newspaper stories are accurately written and that many mistakes are honest. However, he also notes: "Being free is not the same as insisting on a free-for-all without any accountability of any sort." (Chapter 2 12.6).

He continues, "In that regard, the value of the work carried out by Full Fact is extremely important and I am pleased to recognise that Full Fact can claim to be one of the organisations that does seek to 'guard the guardians'."