LONDON: Britain’s newspaper industry yesterday rejected Prime Minister David Cameron’s cross-party plans for a new regulatory system to rein in the much-criticised scandal-hungry press, and submitted its own rival proposals instead.
Last month, the government published plans to overhaul press regulation following a public inquiry, set up in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal at one of Rupert Murdoch’s titles, which called for radical changes to address public outrage.
But the Newspaper Society, a body which represents national and local titles which had argued the government’s plans could imperil press freedom, announced they had rejected the proposals for “state-sponsored” regulation.
The Newspaper Society said the industry would apply for its own royal charter to establish a new system, which it said would address the issues raised in the inquiry headed by senior judge Brian Leveson.
However, unlike the government plans, which had the support of all three main parties, it would not allow parliament to change the royal charter.
News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch’s News Corp., Associated Newspapers which publishes the Daily Mail, and Trinity Mirror were among the publishers to back the rival industry system.
A brief statement from the government’s culture department said they would need to look at the plans.
Reuters
