The following is taken from Richard Ayre’s keynote speech at the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe Conference 2024, hosted by Impress.
“I want to say a few words today about three things. About a fire that happened. About a fire that never happened. And about publicly accountability for both.
“Seven years ago 72 people died when fire engulfed Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey block of flats in London. For a full one hour and thirty-five minutes after the fire brigade arrived residents on the upper floors were told not to try to escape: “to stay put”. To stay inside their flats. So that’s where they stayed. And that’s where many of them died. By the time they were told they could try to escape it was too late.
“The public enquiry into what happened has blamed failings by architects, by suppliers, by builders, by the fire brigade, by local government, by civil servants and by government Ministers. And in response to those findings our national press has been demanding they should be called to account. They should face justice. Some should face jail. And there should have been better regulation.
“A century earlier 73 people died at a hall in Michigan when one of the guests at a Christmas Party shouted “fire!” There was no fire. But there was a stampede. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Justice of the Supreme Court later declared that the First Amendment of the US Constitution – which guarantees the right of free speech – did not mean that anyone could falsely shout “fire” in a theatre.
“This July, three little girls were stabbed to death at a children’s dance party in Stockport. Within hours social media posts purporting to carry news of what had happened named the killer as an illegal immigrant who was Muslim. Both claims were untrue. He was neither a Muslim nor an immigrant. But in the hours and days that followed there was street violence, night after night, and attacks on immigrants and ethnic minorities in many towns around England. Hundreds of people involved have since been sent to jail.
“At the end of that week one of our most reputable newspapers reported from the town of Middlesbrough, where rioters had kicked down doors, burned vehicles, threatened local people and attacked the police. Perhaps in an attempt to explain the community tensions, the newspaper declared that there were many wards of Middlesbrough where Pakistanis and Bangladeshis outnumbered what it called “the indigenous population”.
“Another two weeks passed before the newspaper, in two sentences buried away at the bottom of, I think, page 22, referred back to that claim and added simply “This was incorrect: there are no wards where this is the case”.
“Their report had been false, but it was published at a time when homes, business and hotels around the country had been wrecked, when the Government’s crisis COBRA committee had been meeting regularly, and when people from many ethnic minorities were genuinely in fear for their lives.
“It seems to me that, in a modern context, the newspaper had falsely shouted “fire” in a crowded theatre. Whether by mistake, or through carelessness, or by a simple failure to check their sources, this was an error that demanded more than a sentence on page 22.
“Now, the press cherishes its role in holding the powerful to account. We should all cherish that. But the press themselves are among the most powerful influences on our daily lives. We depend upon them to tell us the truth. They purport to tell us things they think we should know. They often tell us what to believe. They sometimes try to tell us how to vote. There is no reason on earth why a powerful Press should not itself be held publicly and independently accountable.
“As press regulators in a democracy we at Impress have more than one duty. We have a duty to the press to defend their freedom of expression – their right to choose their own agenda; their right to express opinions; their right to ask questions that authority doesn’t want answered; their right to irritate, annoy and offend.
“But we have an equal duty to the public, to the people: to defend them from falsehood masquerading as truth; to defend their rights to personal privacy; to defend them from intimidation and harassment by a press that sometimes panders to public prejudice, sometimes seems to nurture it.
“Political parties, when they want votes, typically promise to cut back on red tape, to reduce bureaucracy, to ignite a “bonfire of regulation”.Though “bonfire of regulation” is not a term you’re likely to hear any time soon from politicians as we remember the victims of Grenfell Tower.
“The legacy newspapers may be haemorrhaging readers but they still exercise an almost Svengali influence over governments. Twelve years on since the Leveson Report proposed, and Parliament endorsed, a system of press regulation entirely independent of both politicians and the industry, successive governments have failed to implement those proposals in full and not a single one of the old Fleet Street newspapers is independently regulated.
“Good journalists should be so proud of the work they do for us all that they want to be both recognised for it and accountable for it. I’m proud to be a journalist and I’m proud too to be a regulator. Impress is proud to be a regulator. We’re proud to set our own regulations, not to be told either by governments or by editors what is and what isn’t allowed. We’re proud to administer those regulations fairly, freely and independent of any political or industry influence.
“Truth in news media has never been under such threat. As the power of online news grows it has reached into almost every community on earth. You don’t need to be literate; all you need is not to live in the most inaccessible reaches of the Amazon or in North Korea and you can access news about the world you’ll never see for yourself. But you may never know whether it is really news or merely fiction. The British press and we as regulator share one common interest: we must enable the British public to seek and to find news they can put their faith in.”
Media enquiries
Louie Chandler: louie@impressreg.org.uk / 02033076778
About Impress
Impress is a champion for news that can be trusted. We are here to make sure news providers can publish with integrity; and the public can engage in an ever-changing media landscape with confidence. We set the highest regulatory standards for news, offer education to help people make informed choices and provide resolution when disputes arise.
