Media Standards Trust - How Newspapers Covered …...MEDIA STANDARDS TRUST 3 CONTENTS 1. Executive...

How Newspapers Covered Press Regulation after Leveson

September 2014

Dr. Gordon Neil Ramsay

3MEDIA STANDARDS TRUST

CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary 4

2. Timeline of Events 9

3. Sampling and Methodology 12

4. Press Regulation: Overall Figures 17

5. How Each Newspaper Covered Press Regulation 27

6. Coverage of Press Regulation in Leader and Opinion Articles 47

7. Coverage of Press Regulation in Factual Articles 57

8. How the ‘Threat to Press Freedom’ was Portrayed 63

9. How Coverage of Press Regulation Failed to Reflect Public Opinion 73

Appendix 1: Newspaper Coverage Breakdown 96

Appendix 2: All Leader Articles with Classifications 107

Appendix 3: Dataset Variable List 118

Appendix 4: Press Regulation Guide for Coders 121

Appendix 5: Inter-Coder Reliability (ICR) Testing - Methods and Results 129

4Analysis: Press Coverage of Leveson (Part 2)

Press Regulation Coverage: Overall Figures

• Coverage of press regulation in the UK national press was extensive.

In the year following the publication of the Leveson Report, 2,047 articles

were published across the national daily and Sunday press, an average of

5.6 articles per day as compared to 4.0 per day in the 18 months from July

2011 until publication of the Leveson report in November 2012.1 There were

particularly high levels of coverage in three periods: in the aftermath of

the publication of the Leveson Report; around the agreement on the Cross-

Party Royal Charter in March 2013; and in October 2013, when the Royal

Charter was sealed following the Privy Council’s rejection of the newspaper

industry’s own draft Royal Charter.

• The majority of coverage contained some evaluation of Leveson or the

Charter. Over two-thirds of articles (1,421 of 2,047, or 69.4%) contained

one or more evaluative statements on the Leveson Report and/or the Cross-

Party Royal Charter. This was over three times as much as during the 18

months prior to publication of the Leveson Report (436 of 2,016, or 21.6%).

• A majority of the 1,421 articles – news and opinion – which contained

an evaluative statement contained only negative viewpoints. 835

articles (58.8%) contained only negative or critical viewpoints. 217 (15.3%)

contained only positive or supportive views, and 370 (26.0%) contained

both supportive and critical viewpoints.

• Both the Leveson Report and the Cross-Party Royal Charter received a

majority of negative coverage. 55.8% of articles containing a view on the

Leveson Report were entirely critical (i.e. containing not one single positive

reference), outnumbering positive articles by three to one. This rises to

64.5% of articles on the Cross-Party Charter, where the ratio is four to one.

• Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter were widely portrayed as a

threat to press freedom. In total, 862 articles contained this assertion by

a source or by the journalist - over 40% of all articles on any aspect of press

regulation. As a proportion of the 1,421 articles containing a viewpoint on

Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter, this figure rises to 60.7%.

How Each Newspaper Covered Press Regulation

• The majority of national newspapers contained a high proportion of

negative-only coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. Certain

newspapers featured a significant majority of negative-only coverage: for

1 See Part 1 of this analysis: http://mediastandardstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/MST-Leveson-Analysis-090513-v2.pdf

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


every article in the Daily Mail that contained only positive viewpoints, there

were more than 33 that contained only critical views. In the Sun, this ratio

was 1 : 29. Of 18 newspapers that published articles with viewpoints on

Leveson or the Charter,2 14 contained more negative-only than positive-

only articles; in nine titles the imbalance was by a ratio of over five to one.

• Only a minority of coverage – news and opinion – sought to be balanced.

Articles, including news articles, tended to express one single view without

reference to opposing views: in 15 of 18 newspapers containing articles

where views were expressed, the proportion where both positive and

negative viewpoints were included was below 30%; in seven titles it was

below 20%.

• Coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter was mostly negative ,

as contrasted with coverage of the newspaper industry’s Royal Charter

and the newspaper industry plans for a new regulator (IPSO) which

was mostly positive. While on average only 15.3% of articles containing

a view on Leveson or the Charter were wholly positive, 57.7% of articles

with a view on the newspaper Industry’s Charter were positive, as were

65.4% of articles containing a view on IPSO. The results suggest that the

majority of newspapers gave strong support to the newspaper industry’s

own initiatives, and were highly critical of those initiatives that were not

led by the newspaper industry.

• There was a structural difference in how sections of the national press

covered Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. After observing differences

in coverage across groups of publishers, a separate analysis of those titles

published by News UK, DMG Media, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror,

and Northern & Shell found that those titles contained highly negative

coverage (70.5% of articles containing a view were ‘negative-only’), a lower

proportion of positive coverage (on average, around one positive article for

every eight negative articles published), with the ‘threat to press freedom’

frame appearing in 74.5% of articles containing a view. Significantly, this

group accounts for over 90% of weekly national newspaper circulation, and

three-quarters of the national newspaper market. In contrast, those titles

published by Guardian Media Group, Independent Print Ltd, and Pearson

contained half as many negative articles proportionally (34.2% of articles),

less than half as many instances of the ‘threat to press freedom’ frame

(34.4% of articles), a roughly equal ratio of positive to negative articles (1 :

1.2), and were almost twice as likely to publish articles that contained both

supportive and critical viewpoints.

Coverage of Press Regulation in Leader and Opinion Articles

• Leader articles and opinion articles were, by a very large margin,

2 Of the 19 national newspapers featured in the study, one – the Daily Star Sunday – did not feature any articles in which critical or supportive views of aspects of press regulation were included.


hostile to Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. Out of 197 leader articles

in which a view was expressed on Leveson or the Charter, 156 (79.2%) were

negative-only and just 7 (3.6%) were positive-only. In addition, 272 of 369

opinion articles (73.7%) were negative-only, with 55 (14.9%) positive-only.

• Newspapers belonging to News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror,

Telegraph Media Group and Northern & Shell were far more likely to

be negative than those published elsewhere. The relevant opinion and

leader articles published by this group of titles were extremely hostile to

Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter:

- 90.8% of all such articles were negative-only (347 of 382);

- For every positive-only opinion or leader article published by these

newspapers, more than 30 negative-only articles were published;

- 84.8% of leader or opinion articles by these titles contained the

argument that Leveson or the Charter represented a threat to press

freedom.

Coverage of Press Regulation in Factual Articles

• A majority of factual news coverage (i.e. news reports and features)

contained statements for or against Leveson or the Royal Charter. 806

News articles (66.7% of the total) and 49 Feature articles (43.8%) contained

evaluative viewpoints on Leveson or the Charter. For News articles, this

was a fourfold increase on the same measure of coverage in the 18 months

prior to the Leveson Report (14.7%). Of these 806 News articles, almost half

(46.8%) contained negative-only viewpoints.

• As with opinion-based coverage, most of the press focused considerably

more on critical views of Leveson and the Charter. Titles published by

News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group and Northern

& Shell were again far more likely to publish articles containing views

hostile to Leveson than titles published elsewhere:

- 55.7% of all News articles by these five publishers contained only

negative viewpoints, compared with 28.2% in titles published by

Guardian Media Group, Independent Print Ltd and Pearson;

- There were considerably fewer articles containing only supportive

viewpoints (12.9% versus 29.8%)

- The ‘threat to press freedom’ frame was more prevalent in the

newspapers of these five publishers, being present in 65.8% of

articles in which any viewpoint was expressed. This compared

with 38.2% of such articles by other publishers

How the ‘Threat to Press Freedom’ was portrayed

• The argument that Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter posed a threat

to press freedom was very frequently referenced in the national press.

862 articles published on the topic contained the argument – 42.1% of all


articles mentioning any aspect of press regulation, and 60.7% of those in

which a view of Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter was expressed.

• The claim that press freedom was being threatened was often presented

with no supporting evidence, no counter-argument, and without a

quote by an identified source. Less than 30% of articles in which the

‘Threat’ argument was made included specific evidence to justify the claim.

Only 14.8% of these articles included the counter-argument that Leveson

or the Charter did not threaten press freedom or political interference, and

less than half based the ‘Threat’ claim on a quote from an identified source.

• The language used to describe Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter

was emotive, repetitive, and focused on freedom and government

interference. There were hundreds of references to ‘press freedom’

in newspaper coverage of press regulation, and to ‘shackles’, ‘muzzles’,

and ‘curbs’ on the press. Certain phrases were repeated across news and

opinion articles, and several newspapers, indicating a lack of plurality

in the presentation of press regulation. Opinion came increasingly to be

presented as fact, crossing the divide from ‘leader’ and ‘opinion’ articles, to

factual news articles, and there was evidence of arguments being replicated

word-for-word across comment pieces.

How Coverage of Press Regulation Failed to Reflect Public Opinion

• Overall public opinion tended to be at odds with the negative line a

majority of newspapers took on Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter.

The majority of the public, in most polls (even excluding those commissioned

by groups supportive of reform of press regulation) tended to be supportive

of legal underpinning, supportive of the Leveson recommendations, and

supportive of the Cross-Party Charter agreement reached in March, and of

its specific provisions. This was in contrast to the strongly negative coverage

of each of these issues in the national daily and Sunday press across the

whole period of study.

• Individual newspapers did not reflect the viewpoints of their

readership on matters of press regulation. Newspaper readerships

displayed considerable consistency in terms of their support for the

Leveson recommendations and Cross-Party Charter system. While there

was some variation between titles (e.g. Sun readers being less supportive

than other titles), each set of readers tended to be, by a ratio of at least

two-to-one, in favour of their paper joining the Cross-Party Charter system.

When surveyed on other aspects of regulatory reform, they supported legal

underpinning, supported the Cross-Party Charter over the Industry Charter,

and supported the Cross-Party Charter’s system of independent external

review of a new regulatory system.

Therefore, though many media commentators have stressed that press regulation

is not a ‘doorstep issue’ for the public, it was extensively covered by national


newspapers in the year following publication of the Leveson Report. At an average

of almost six articles each day across the UK national press, most newspaper readers

would have been aware of the issue.

Yet, most of them would have read a highly polarized perspective. For over 90% of

these readers almost three-quarters of the articles they read on press regulation

expressed a view. This included seven out of ten news reports.

Of the articles that expressed a view for these readers, 70% expressed only a negative

view. As a consequence, most British news readers would rarely have been exposed

to positive views about the Leveson recommendations or the Royal Charter.

This is despite the majority of news readers – and the broader public – holding

positive views about the Leveson recommendations and the settlement agreed

through Royal Charter. Based on opinion polls over the course of the year following

the Leveson Report, a consistent 50-70% of the public wanted a system similar to the

one Leveson recommended, and on average only 10-25% trusted newspapers to set

up an adequate alternative on their own.

When newspapers’ own readers were polled at various times of the year, on average

50-60% wanted their newspaper to join the Cross-Party Royal Charter system, as

opposed to around 10% who did not. For individual newspapers, results were similar

to the average - even the most anti-Leveson papers did not persuade their own

readers that the Cross-Party Royal Charter should be rejected, or that the newspaper

industry’s own proposed systems were preferable.

Most national newspapers therefore pursued a strong editorial agenda in their

news and comment pieces about press regulation that corresponded with their own

interests and that did not fairly represent the views of their readers or the broader

public.

It is difficult not to conclude that coverage of the Leveson report and its aftermath

did not live up to the democratic ideal of a diverse range of voices representing the

views of the British public.


2. TIMELINE OF EVENTS

29 NOVEMBER 2012 Leveson Report published at 1.30pm. The 1,987-page report included 47 specific recommendations for a system of voluntary self-regulation of the press underpinned by an independent external recognition process. This process was to be supported by legal incentives for those who participated. Later that day the Prime Minister, having had 24 hours advance notice of the Report, rejected Leveson’s use of legislation, while broadly supporting the rest of the recommendations for Press self-regulation. The Deputy Prime Minister delivered a separate statement supporting implementation of Leveson’s recommendations, including statutory underpinning, though took issue with the specific recommendation that oversight of a new regulator should be granted to Ofcom, and also with certain recommendations concerning reform of the Data Protection Act. Labour called for full implementation of Leveson.

4 DECEMBER 2012 At a meeting with the Prime Minister newspaper editors were issued a deadline for reaching an agreement on implementing Leveson.

5 DECEMBER 2012 A meeting of newspaper editors at the Delaunay Restaurant claims consensus on ’40 of 47’ recommendations. However, documents leaked from the meeting indicate that, of Leveson’s 47 recommendations, fewer than half (23) were fully accepted.

10 DECEMBER 2012 Labour publishes a six-clause draft bill outlining underpinning of self-regulation, abandoning initial support for Ofcom as a recognition body.

12 DECEMBER 2012 Times editor James Harding, understood to have been instrumental in co-ordinating newspaper editors’ response to Leveson, resigns. ‘Delaunay agreement’ later said to have collapsed at this point.

13 DECEMBER 2012 Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin announces an initial plan for a Royal Charter to underpin a new press regulator. Newspaper publishers’ associations, including the Press Standards Board of Finance (Pressbof), write to the Culture Secretary to announce that they, not editors, will take responsibility for self-regulatory reform.

31 DECEMBER 2012 An initial draft of a Royal Charter by the Conservatives is distributed to key stakeholders, including newspaper groups.

4 JANUARY 2013 Peter Wright, Editor Emeritus at Associated Newspapers, writes to Oliver Letwin, outlining 14 specific industry concerns with the 31st December draft Charter and specifying ‘red lines’ on issues that the industry would not accept.

31 JANUARY 2013

Campaign group Hacked Off publishes a draft ‘Leveson Bill’.6 JANUARY 2013

Lord Puttnam tables a ‘Leveson amendment’ to the Defamation bill, which would establish a recognition commission for regulatory bodies that provide an arbitration service.


12 FEBRUARY 2013 First draft of the Royal Charter (the ‘February 12th Charter’) published by the Conservatives. This Charter is a considerable distance from the Leveson recommendations, and is diluted from the draft circulated to newspaper groups on 31st December, including specific areas alterations to conform with industry ‘red lines’ as defined by Peter Wright in his letter of January 4th.

Paul Vickers, Chairman of the newspaper industry Implementation group set up to create a new press regulator, described the 12th February draft Charter as ‘the fruit of two months of intensive talks involving the newspaper and magazine industry and all three main political parties.’

The February 12th Charter: keeps control of the Standards Code in the hands of editors; raises the bar for third-party complaints; gives the newspaper industry a veto on appointments to the regulator; reduces the power of the regulator to direct corrections and apologise; limits the power of investigations; and provides no check in the event of failure. There is nothing to protect the Charter from amendment by ministers. Analysis shows that the February 12th Charter would allow a regulator set up in accordance with the Hunt-Black plan (the newspaper industry’s proposal for reform rejected as insufficient by Leveson) to be recognised, with minimal amendments. Records released by the Government later in 2013 show that during January and February 2013, newspaper executives and editors had more than 30 meetings with the Prime Minister, Oliver Letwin, and Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

Labour and Liberal Democrats both reject the February 12th Charter as unsatisfactory and call for changes to be made through cross-party talks.

14 FEBRUARY 2013 Cross-party talks restart to revise the February 12th Charter.

8 MARCH 2013 Lord Skidelsky tables a Leveson amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform bill which would create a form of statutory arbitration and a recognition commission to oversee a new press regulator.

14 MARCH 2013 David Cameron unilaterally walks out of cross-party talks on the Royal Charter. The following Monday a Commons vote is due on amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill that would implement aspects of the Leveson Report. Speculative Parliamentary arithmetic suggests that Cameron, who opposes these amendments, will lose the vote. Cameron therefore needs to agree a Royal Charter with Labour and the Liberal Democrats if he is to avoid a Parliamentary defeat

15 MARCH 2013 Labour and the Lib Dems publish an alternative version of the February 12th Charter that is much closer to Leveson’s original recommendations.

17 MARCH 2013 David Cameron and Nick Clegg agree on a draft Royal Charter. Royal Charter presented to Ed Miliband and then to victims’ campaign group Hacked Off.

18 MARCH 2013 A motion agreeing the text of the Royal Charter was put to the House of Commons which agreed it on a vote without division. Later that session, the amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill providing incentives to publishers that joined a recognised regulator was passed by 530 votes to 13. Also on 18th March, the House of Lords agreed an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill that prevented changes to the Royal Charter without two-thirds support in both Houses of Parliament.


3 MAY 2013 The Government commits to considering the Industry Charter before putting the Cross-Party Charter before the Privy Council. A consultation is launched with a deadline of 24th May.

4 JULY 2013 The decision on the Cross-Party Charter is delayed to give the Privy Council time to consider the Industry Charter.

7 JULY 2013 The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) is announced by newspaper groups as a successor to the Press Complaints Commission.

8 OCTOBER 2013 Industry Charter rejected by Privy Council. PressBoF launches an appeal.

11 OCTOBER 2013 Cross-Party Charter amended slightly to make it map almost exactly to Leveson recommendations (e.g. returning the criteria for the Standards Code to those laid out in the Leveson Report). Concessions also made to industry to allay fears concerning arbitration: publishers to be allowed to opt out of arbitration if ‘serious financial harm’ demonstrated, and the regulator to be given the option of charging a ‘small administration fee’ for arbitration.

24 OCTOBER 2013 Final articles of IPSO are published. Subsequent analysis finds that, of 38 Leveson recommendations for independent and effective self-regulator, IPSO satisfies 12.

30 OCTOBER 2013 Cross-Party Charter sealed by the Privy Council and published. An addition to the 11th October draft makes clear that amendments to the Charter will require the unanimous agreement of the Board of the Recognition Panel (none of whom can be politicians). The timeframe for establishment of the Recognition Panel is amended.

25 APRIL 2013 Some newspaper groups, via Pressbof, propose an alternative Royal Charter (the ‘Industry Charter’). This Charter is further from Leveson than any previous version according to a subsequent report by Enders Analysis. The recognition process is owned by Pressbof; party-political peers are allowed to serve at all levels; the powers of the regulator are diluted; editors retain control of the Standards Code; the investigations process is complex and favours the publishers over the regulator, and the investigations fund to be overseen by those subject to investigation; arbitration to be made optional.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

01/11/2012 01/12/2012 01/01/2013 01/02/2013 01/03/2013 01/04/2013 01/05/2013 01/06/2013 01/07/2013 01/08/2013 01/09/2013 01/10/2013 01/11/2013 01/12/2013

Nu

mb

er o

f a

rtic

les

December

2012

January

2013

February

2013

March

2013

April

2013

May

2013

June

2013

July

2013

August

2013

September

2013

October

2013

November

2013

Leveson Report

published

‘February 12th

Charter’ published

Cross-Party Charter

agreed in the House of

Commons

Industry Charter

rejected by Privy

Council‘Industry Charter’

proposed‘IPSO’ announced

Cross-Party Charter

sealed by the Privy

Council and published


Scope and purpose of the analysis

This project is a continuation of the Media Standards Trust analysis of UK national

press coverage of the Leveson Inquiry.1 If follows directly on from the end of the

previous study, and in most cases uses the same methods, to allow comparisons

between both studies.

The project consists of original research: a content analysis of press regulation in

the UK national press. Since coverage was so extensive – over 2,000 articles – the

majority of the analysis is quantitative, and focuses on the volume, tone and framing

of press regulation over a 12-month period.

This is a descriptive study, and while some contextual analysis is used to contextualise

some of the results, it is not an attempt to determine ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ways to cover

press regulation or to interpret the policy implications of the Leveson Report/Royal

Charter. These issues have been discussed extensively elsewhere. Instead, this

report is intended to create a record of which arguments were deployed, and how

the UK national press covered a public policy issue with significant implications for

its own industry.

Sampling

The source material is national press coverage of press regulation; specifically, news

articles, whether online or in print, published by the 19 main UK national daily and

Sunday newspapers in the UK. The period of analysis follows directly from Part 1,

beginning on the day of publication of the Leveson Report (29th November 2012)

and ending one year later (29th November 2013). This technically covers 366 days, to

account for the staggered publication of online articles throughout the day.

The sample of publications is based on the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s (ABC) list of

national newspapers, excluding major regional titles such as the Evening Standard

and major Scottish newspapers, and the i, which mainly repackages content from

the Independent.

1 http://mediastandardstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/MST-Leveson-Analysis-090513-v2.pdf

3. SAMPLING AND METHODOLOGY


Sampled newspapers

Dailies Sundays

Sun (including Sun on Sunday) Sunday Mirror

Daily Mirror People

Daily Star Daily Star Sunday

Daily Express Sunday Express

Daily Mail Mail on Sunday

The Times Sunday Times

Daily Telegraph Sunday Telegraph

Guardian Observer

Independent Independent on Sunday

Financial Times

The original sample for this analysis includes all news articles published between

29th November 2012 and 29th November 2013, containing any of the following search

phrases:

1. “Leveson”

2. “Royal Charter”

3. “Privy Council”

4. “Independent Press Standards Organisation”

5. “IPSO”

6. “Press Standards Board of Finance”

7. “Pressbof”

8. “Hacked Off”

9. “Press Regulation”

10. “Press Laws”

These searches were applied to three sources: Factiva, Lexis Nexis, and internal

online search functions on each newspaper’s site. Duplicate articles were removed,

and where near-duplicate articles were found, as occasionally happened in online

and print versions of the same article containing the same text, only the longer of

the two articles was retained. Articles which included one or more of these search

terms but which contained no information about press regulation were excluded.

These mostly consisted of stories mentioning other Royal Charters, such as the BBC’s,

or passing mentions of Leveson without any context. Most articles containing the

search terms were relevant for the analysis.

The range of newspaper articles eligible for consideration was limited by whether

they corresponded to four categories: ‘News’ and ‘Feature’ articles, and ‘Leader’ and

‘Opinion articles. This follows the methodology in Part 1 of the analysis, based on


Higgins’ (2006) typology of news stories.2 Therefore, a tiny amount of articles that

contained one or more of the search terms, but did not fit into these categories were

removed.

The final sample consisted of 2,047 articles.

Measuring coverage

The focus of analysis was on the prevalence of certain types of evaluative statements

or opinions about the Leveson Inquiry. This follows the methodological approach of

the previous analysis of Leveson coverage.

In the previous analysis, the arguments or ‘frames’ were: ‘supportive of Leveson’;

‘Leveson as a threat to press freedom’; ‘lack of legitimacy of the Inquiry’, ‘lack of

public interest or relevance of Leveson’. These frames were recorded on the basis

of whether or not they appeared in the text of articles, either attributed to a source

(in the case of a factual news article), or written by a journalist (in opinion or leader

articles, or in the body of a news article).

For the present analysis, this approach was expanded for articles mentioning the

Leveson Report and, latterly, the Cross-Party Charter – with an extended list of

‘frames’ to better suit the circumstances in which the post-Leveson press regulation

debate took place.

The full list of frames were devised after a pilot study which identified which type of

evaluative arguments were being made in support of, or against, the Leveson Report

and/or the Cross-Party Charter. The final list is as follows:

‘Positive’ statements:

• Supportive of Leveson Recommendations: Any statement in support of

(a) the Leveson Report in general, or (b) any of its recommendations.

• Supportive of statutory underpinning of press regulation: either (a)

a statement in support specifically of the Leveson recommendation on

statutory underpinning; or (b) a general statement in support of statutory

underpinning for press regulation.

• Supportive of Royal Charter: Any statement in support of the Cross-Party

Charter, or its specific provisions.

‘Negative’ statements:

• Threat to press freedom: Any reference to either Leveson or any proposed

method of press regulation as a potential threat to press freedom, or to

freedom of expression.

• Criticism of Leveson recommendations/cross-party Royal Charter

provisions: Any critical reference to specific recommendations in the

2 Higgins, M. (2006) ‘Substantiating a political public sphere in the Scottish press: a comparative analysis’, Journalism, 7(1) pp25-44


Leveson Report, or to any of the provisions of the Cross-Party Royal Charter.

• Questions the Legitimacy of the Leveson Report: Critical references that

directly imply that the Leveson Inquiry or Report were flawed, corrupt,

or otherwise illegitimate (including conspiracy, narrowness of remit or

expertise of the judge, misconception in setting-up of the Inquiry, waste of

public money).

• Damage to the UK’s international reputation: Any reference to either of

two approximate arguments: that Britain will no longer set a good example

for press freedom worldwide if Leveson or the Royal Charter system were

to be implemented; or, the implementation of Leveson or the Royal Charter

will be copied by undemocratic governments to crack down on journalists.

• Criticism of the process of agreeing the Royal Charter: Critical references

specifically to the process of agreeing the Royal Charter – references to the

“pizza deal”, “stitch-up”, etc.

These frames were then used to ascertain whether an article was designated:

• ‘Positive-only’ (contained only a combination of supportive frames)

• ‘Negative-only’ (contained only a combination of critical frames)

• ‘Both’ (contained a combination of both supportive and critical frames)

• ‘None’ (contained none of these frames)

In this analysis the focus, for much of the research, is on the prevalence of articles

that contained any of the list of frames outlined here.

In addition to this list, two ‘neutral’ frames were also recorded, to ensure that all

mentions of Royal Charters in the press regulation context were accounted for.

Although these have no bearing on whether the article was ‘positive’ or ‘negative’

in tone, they helped to capture opinions on the Royal Charter process. These were:

Critical of the use of Royal Charter in principle: Any reference critical of

using a Royal Charter in the area of press regulation.

Supports the use of Royal Charter in principle: Any reference in support of

the idea of using a Royal Charter in place of statute to underpin a new system

of press self-regulation.

To summarise: Each article was scanned to see if it contained any references to the

list of eight contextual events listed above. If any of the ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ frames

were recorded in relation to the Leveson Report and/or the Cross-Party Charter,

these were recorded.

A list of other, non-evaluative, variables were also measured as part of this analysis.

The full list of these variables is included in Appendix 3

Some secondary analyses are included in this report. The methods employed in

them are explained in the sections in which they appear.


Validating the methods

Inter-Coder Reliability (ICR) testing was carried out on the framing variables, using

a random sample of approximately 10% of the sample. A full description of the ICR

testing process is described in Appendix 5; the ICR test scores are available to the

public on the Media Standards Trust website.


Overall Figures – Full Sample

The project gathered every print and online article referring to aspects of press

regulation published by the UK national press during a 12 month (or 366-day) period

beginning on the day of publication of the Leveson Report (29th November 2012).1

Table 1 shows the total volume of coverage of press regulation:

Table 1: Total Coverage of Press Regulation, post-Leveson Report (N = 2,047)

Coverage of Press Regulation,

29/11/12 – 29/11/13

2,047 articles

1,153,240 words

Coverage of press regulation in the year beginning 29th November 2012 is extensive.

2,047 articles were published in print and online in the 10 daily and 9 Sunday

national newspapers (full list of titles in Section 3 above), comprising a total of over

1.1 million words (excluding headlines). This is comparable with the Leveson Report

itself, which consisted of 1,987 pages and slightly over one million words.2

Significantly, the amount of coverage over the course of this 12-month sample is

almost identical to the volume of coverage recorded during the 18-month period of

the Leveson Inquiry, signalling a substantial increase in the intensity of coverage.3

Coverage of press regulation following the Leveson Report has also been more

commentary-driven than coverage of the Inquiry itself. Table 2 shows that the

proportion of articles devoted to commentary (leaders and opinion) rose from just

over one quarter (27.6%) over the course of the Leveson Inquiry, to over one third

following the publication of the Leveson Report (35.5%).

Table 2: Proportion of Factual vs. Comment Coverage, pre- and post-Leveson

Report (N = 2,047)

Part 1 (pre-Report) Part 2 (post-Report)

‘Factual’ CoverageNews 1,399 69.4% 1,208 59.0%

Feature 60 3.0% 1124 5.5%

‘Comment’ CoverageLeader 128 6.3% 217 10.6%

Opinion 429 21.3% 510 24.9%

1 The full range of search terms and sampling methods are outlined in Section 3 above.

2 http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/29/leveson-inquiry-report-word-frequencies-statutory-self-regulation

3 From Part 1 of the Analysis: Between 11th July 2011 and 28th November 2012, 2,014 articles were published on the Leveson Inquiry, totalling 1,110,475 words (http://mediastandardstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/MST-Leveson-Analysis-090513-v2.pdf, page 7)

4. PRESS REGULATION COVERAGE: OVERALL FIGURES


As Figure 1 shows, coverage was more extensive in late November and December

2012 (around the publication of the Leveson Report), between February and April

2013 (when the three main Royal Charter drafts – the February 12th draft Charter,

the Cross-Party Charter and the newspaper industry’s Charter – became public

knowledge), and in October 2013 (when the Industry Charter was rejected by the

Privy Council, and the final version of the Cross-Party Charter was sealed).

Figure 1: Number of articles published, by month (N = 2,047)

Table 3 shows that there were substantial differences in the volume of coverage

each national newspaper devoted to the issue. While different styles of publication

(tabloid, mid-market, broadsheet) may be expected to show differing levels of interest

given their varying audiences and news values, there were significant differences

within groups. The Sun, among tabloids, published more articles than the rest of the

daily and Sunday tabloids combined, and more than some broadsheets. In the mid-

market group the Daily Mail took a far greater interest in the subject than the Daily

Express, and within broadsheets the Guardian dominated. 4

4 This rise in Feature articles can be attributed to a large number of lists or infographics explain (a) the Leveson recommendations, or (b) how the various proposed Royal Charter systems would operate

256

357

71

136

398

157

121

89 91

28 31

236

76

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

No

. of

art

icle

s

No view expressed: 626

Positive views only: 216

Negative views only: 834

Both views expressed: 371

Views expressed: 1,421

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Independent on Sunday (N = 21)

Independent (N = 148)

Guardian (N = 403)

Financial Times (N = 97)

Sunday Express (N = 16)

Daily Express (N = 94)

Observer (N = 72)

Times (N = 217)

Daily Star (N = 23)

Daily Telegraph (N = 270)

Sunday Mirror (N = 13)

Mail on Sunday (N = 53)

Daily Mirror (N = 98)

Sunday Times (N = 53)

People (N = 5)

Sun (N = 179)

Sunday Telegraph (N = 33)

Daily Mail (N = 251)

Negative-only'

Both

Positive-only'

None


The Guardian’s comparatively large volume of coverage is partly explained by its

online presence; just under half of its articles were published online-only. In the

entire sample, while the proportions of online-only coverage fluctuated across

different titles, the majority of articles appeared both in print and online, or print-

only. Overall, 484 articles (30.1% of the total sample) were only published online,

with no print equivalent.

By breaking down the balance of types of coverage (Table 4), more differences

emerge. While individual results for publications with low numbers of articles (e.g.

Sunday tabloids, Sunday Express) can be skewed, there are some significant results.

The Sun is notable for devoting slightly under half (46.9% - 39 leader and 45 opinion

articles) of its coverage to commentary – the largest proportion of any daily national

newspaper. Sunday newspapers, which traditionally devote more space to opinion

pieces and interviews, tend to have more ‘opinion’ and ‘feature’ articles than daily

Table 3: Article breakdown, by title (N = 2,047)

Number of

Articles

Percentage of

Total

Number

Online-only

Percentage

Online-Only

Tabloids

Sun 179 8.7% 6 0.3%

Daily Mirror 98 4.8% 13 13.3%

Daily Star 23 1.1% 2 8.7%

Sunday Mirror 13 0.6% 0 0%

Daily Star Sunday 1 >0.1% 1 100%

People 5 0.2% 1 20%

Mid-Markets

Daily Express 94 4.6% 33 35.1%

Sunday Express 16 0.8% 6 37.5%

Daily Mail 251 12.3% 33 13.1%

Mail on Sunday 53 2.6% 2 3.8%

Broadsheets

Times 217 10.6% 36 16.6%

Sunday Times 53 2.6% 9 17.0%

Daily Telegraph 270 13.2% 100 37.0%

Sunday Telegraph 33 1.6% 7 21.2%

Guardian 403 19.7% 199 49.4%

Observer 72 3.5% 2 2.7%

Independent 148 7.2% 7 4.7%

Ind. on Sunday 21 1.0% 2 9.5%

Financial Times 97 4.7% 25 25.8%

Totals 2,047 100.0% 484 30.1%


The Guardian’s volume of opinion articles (132 – approximately one quarter of

the total) is evidently partly due to the size of its online forum ‘Comment is Free’,

although only around half (64 of 132) were only published online, indicating that

a substantial proportion of its opinion pieces relating to press regulation were

included in print editions. In contrast, at the Daily Telegraph, which has another

substantial online comment forum in ‘Telegraph Blogs’, only 16 of 65 opinion pieces

were published in the print version.

It is worth noting here that three publishers (News UK, publisher of the Sun, The

Times, and the Sunday Times; DMG Media, publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail

on Sunday; Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday

Telegraph) account for over 70% of all leader articles published – 154 out of 217. The

significance of this is explored in Section 6 below.

titles as a proportion of their coverage.

Table 4: Article type, by title (N = 2,047)

Titles News Feature Leader Opinion

Tabloids No. % No. % No. % No. %

Sun 92 51.4% 3 1.7% 39 21.8% 45 25.1%

Daily Mirror 64 65.3% 5 5.1% 11 11.2% 18 18.4%

Daily Star 21 91.3% 1 4.3% 0 0% 1 4.3%

Sunday Mirror 2 15.4% 0 0% 2 15.4% 9 69.2%

Daily Star Sunday 1 100% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0%

People 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 5 100%

Mid-Markets No. % No. % No. % No. %

Daily Express 80 85.1% 0 0% 2 2.1% 12 12.8%

Sunday Express 12 75.0% 1 6.3% 2 12.5% 1 6.3%

Daily Mail 145 57.8% 21 8.4% 47 18.7% 38 15.1%

Mail on Sunday 25 47.2% 3 5.7% 8 15.1% 17 32.1%

Broadsheets No. % No. % No. % No. %

Times 161 74.2% 7 3.2% 21 9.7% 28 12.9%

Sunday Times 24 45.3% 8 15.1% 10 18.9% 11 20.8%

Daily Telegraph 172 63.7% 9 3.3% 24 8.8% 65 24.1%

Sunday Telegraph 11 33.3% 3 9.1% 5 15.2% 14 42.4%

Guardian 229 56.8% 27 6.7% 15 3.7% 132 32.8%

Observer 14 19.4% 6 8.3% 5 6.9% 47 65.3%

Independent 77 52.0% 7 4.7% 16 10.8% 48 32.4%

Independent on Sunday 10 47.6% 3 14.3% 1 4.8% 7 33.3%

Financial Times 68 70.0% 8 8.2% 9 9.3% 12 12.4%


Tone of Overall Coverage – Evaluating Leveson and the

Royal Charter

Section 3 (above) outlines in depth the methodology used to calculate ‘Tone’ in

coverage of press regulation. To recap briefly: for each article, the calculation of

tone is based entirely on the presence of a list of ‘frames’, or specific arguments

about Leveson and/or the Cross-Party Royal Charter (see Section 3 above for a full

list and description). In other words, all 1,421 articles contained at least one of the

arguments featured on the list.

Of the 2,047 total articles in the sample, 1,421 (69.4%) contained one or more

evaluative statements for, or against, Leveson and/or the Cross-Party Charter by a

source or within the text of the article. Unless otherwise stated, the results in the

remainder of this section are derived from the 1,421 articles in which criticism or

support for Leveson or the Charter were recorded. Table 5 shows the prevalence of

the different frames in those articles:

Table 5: Number of instances of different arguments, N = 1,421

Critical/‘Negative’ Frames Number Prevalence

Threat to press freedom/freedom of expression 862 60.7%

Critical of specific Leveson Report/Charter recommendations 481 33.8%

Questions the legitimacy of the Leveson Inquiry 116 8.2%

Damage to UK’s reputation 84 5.9%

Critical of the Charter agreement (‘pizza deal’) 140 9.9%

Supportive/‘Positive’ Frames Number Prevalence

Supportive of Leveson Report 364 25.6%

Supportive of statutory underpinning recommendation specifically5 137 9.6%

Supportive of Cross-Party Charter 236 16.6%

This shows that by far the most common argument was that the Leveson

recommendations and/or the Cross-Party Royal Charter represented a potential

threat to press freedom or to freedom of expression. This argument was recorded in

862 articles in total, or 60.7% of all articles containing any frames. 5

The second most common frame was criticism of specific recommendations of the

Leveson Report, or of the provisions of the Cross-Party Charter, which occurred in

slightly over one-third of relevant articles. Third most common were arguments in

favour of the Leveson Report (in general or for specific recommendations), which

occurred in just under one-quarter, followed by support for the Cross-Party Charter.

While Table 5 lists the instances of different frames in relevant articles, Table 6

shows how these instances of frames translated into a measurement of the tone of

5 This figure does not include two articles where the concept of statutory underpinning was supported, but the specific measures in the Cross-Party Charter were rejected.


coverage.

Table 6: Framing: Balance of Tone, N = 1,421

Tone Frequency Percent

‘Positive-Only’ 216 15.2%

‘Negative-Only’ 834 58.6%

‘Both’ 371 26.1%

Total 1,421 -

Of the articles that contained frames, 834 – or 58.6% - contained only ‘negative’ frames

– that is, every opinion expressed in those articles was critical of either Leveson or

the Cross-Party Charter, or both. This is considerably more than double the number

of articles that contain both, almost four times the number that contained only

positive evaluative references, and more than the remainder of the total sample of

2,047 articles (626) that reported on press regulation but didn’t contain a view.

In other words, the largest proportion of all articles on press regulation published

by the UK national press during the 12-month period dating from the publication

of the Leveson Report contained only critical evaluative statements about either

the Leveson recommendations or the Cross-Party Royal Charter (i.e. no supportive

statements at all).

Chart 2: Articles containing viewpoints on Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter (N = 2,047)

256

357

71

136

398

157

121

89 91

28 31

236

76

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

No

. of

art

icle

s


Positive views only: 216

Negative views only: 834


Views expressed: 1,421

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



Guardian (N = 403)




Observer (N = 72)

Times (N = 217)

Daily Star (N = 23)






People (N = 5)

Sun (N = 179)



Negative-only'

Both

Positive-only'

None


As Table 7 shows, the majority of the national press contained a broadly negative

focus on Leveson and/or the Cross-Party Charter. In the Sun, the Daily Mail and the

Mail on Sunday, over 80% of articles containing evaluative references to Leveson

or the Cross-Party Charter contained only negative references. In the Daily Mail,

‘negative-only’ articles outnumbered ‘positive-only’ by over 33-to-1; in the Sun the

ratio was 29-to-1.

Variations are notable between newspaper publishers – News UK titles all recorded

predominantly negative coverage, as did publications at DMG Media, Trinity Mirror

and Telegraph Media Group. Northern and Shell titles were slightly less negative

overall, while the Guardian (but not the Observer), Independent, Independent on

Sunday, and Financial Times all contained relatively greater proportions of positive

coverage and articles that contained both critical and supportive viewpoints. The

difference in coverage across different publishing groups is explored further in

Sections 5 – 8 below.

Table 8 compares the volume of ‘negative-only’ articles on press regulation, with

Table 7: Tone balance, by title (N = 1,421)

Tabloids Positive-only Negative-only Both Total % Negative

Sun 4 116 21 141 82.3%

Daily Mirror 6 52 20 78 66.7%

Daily Star 1 9 2 12 75.0%

Sunday Mirror 4 6 1 11 54.5%

Daily Star Sunday 0 0 0 0 0%

People 0 3 0 3 100%

Mid-Markets Positive-only Negative-only Both Total % Negative

Daily Express 9 33 26 67 49.3%

Sunday Express 6 5 4 15 33.3%

Daily Mail 5 169 26 200 84.5%

Mail on Sunday 2 25 4 31 80.6%

Broadsheets Positive-only Negative-only Both Total % Negative

Times 16 83 37 136 61.0%

Sunday Times 5 30 10 45 66.7%

Daily Telegraph 20 123 46 189 65.1%

Sunday Telegraph 3 22 5 30 73.3%

Guardian 86 86 64 236 36.4%

Observer 10 26 12 48 54.2%

Independent 22 19 56 97 19.6%

Independent on

Sunday6 2 4 12 16.7%

Financial Times 11 25 33 70 37.1%


the full sample of 2,047 articles that contained any mention whatsoever of press

regulation in the year following Leveson. Again, the Sun and Daily Mail stand out,

alongside the Sunday Telegraph – approximately two-thirds of coverage of any aspect

of press regulation in those titles contained wholly negative framing.

Table 8: Proportion of negative-only framing in total press-regulation coverage, by title

(N = 2,047)

Total articles,

full sample (N =

2,047)

Articles with

negative-only

frames

Percentage of

total articles,

negative-only

Tabloids

Sun 179 116 64.8%

Daily Mirror 98 52 53.1%

Daily Star 23 9 39.1%

Sunday Mirror 13 6 46.2%

Daily Star Sunday 1 0 0%

People 5 3 60.0%

Mid-Markets

Daily Express 94 33 35.1%

Sunday Express 16 5 31.2%

Daily Mail 251 169 67.3%

Mail on Sunday 53 25 47.2%

Broadsheets

Times 217 83 38.2%

Sunday Times 53 30 56.6%

Daily Telegraph 270 123 45.5%

Sunday Telegraph 33 22 66.7%

Guardian 403 86 21.3%

Observer 72 26 36.1%

Independent 148 19 12.8%

Independent on

Sunday21 2 9.5%

Financial Times 97 25 25.8%

Finally, Table 9 separates out the coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter as

individual issues. The results show that both attracted a majority of ‘negative-only’

articles, which in the case of the Leveson Report outnumbered ‘positive-only’ articles

by almost 3-to-1. This imbalance was even more pronounced for the Cross-Party

Charter, where over four times as many ‘negative-only’ articles were published than

‘positive-only’ ones.


Table 9: Tone of coverage for the Leveson Report and Cross-Party Charter separately (N = 1,422)

Positive-only Negative-only Both % Negative

Leveson Report (N = 791)6 160 441 190 55.8%

Cross-Party Charter (N = 672) 91 433 148 64.5%

67

6 While these cases contain 42 articles where both the Leveson Report and the Cross-Party Charter were subject to criticism and/or support, the two issues are treated separately.

7 Daily Star Sunday not included as only one article published, containing no views

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

No

. o

f a

rtic

les


Positive view only: 216

Negative view only: 834


View expressed: 1,421

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%



Guardian (N = 403)




Observer (N = 72)

Times (N = 217)

Daily Star (N = 23)






People (N = 5)

Sun (N = 179)



Negative-only'

Both

Positive-only'

None

Chart 3: Balance of tone, by newspaper (N=2,047)7


Summary

Press Regulation Coverage: Overall Figures

• Coverage of press regulation in the UK national press was extensive.

In the year following the publication of the Leveson Report, 2,047 articles

were published across the national daily and Sunday press, an average of

5.6 articles per day as compared to 4.0 per day in the 18 months from July

2011 until publication of the Leveson report in November 2012.8 There were

particularly high levels of coverage in three periods: in the aftermath of

the publication of the Leveson Report; around the agreement on the Cross-

Party Royal Charter in March 2013; and in October 2013, when the Royal

Charter was sealed following the Privy Council’s rejection of the newspaper

industry’s own draft Royal Charter.

• The majority of coverage contained some evaluation of Leveson or the

Charter. Over two-thirds of articles (1,421 of 2,047, or 69.4%) contained

one or more evaluative statements on the Leveson Report and/or the Cross-

Party Royal Charter. This was over three times as much as during the 18

months prior to publication of the Leveson Report (436 of 2,016, or 21.6%),

• A majority of the 1,421 articles – news and opinion – which contained

an evaluative statement contained only negative viewpoints. 835

articles (58.8%) contained only negative or critical viewpoints. 217 (15.3%)

contained only positive or supportive views, and 370 (26.0%) contained

both supportive and critical viewpoints.

• Both the Leveson Report and the Cross-Party Royal Charter received a

majority of negative coverage. 55.8% of articles containing a view on the

Leveson Report were entirely critical (i.e. containing not one single positive

reference), outnumbering positive articles by three to one. This rises to

64.5% of articles on the Cross-Party Charter, where the ratio is four to one.

• Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter were widely portrayed as a

threat to press freedom. In total, 862 articles contained this assertion by

a source or by the journalist - over 40% of all articles on any aspect of press

regulation. As a proportion of the 1,421 articles containing a viewpoint on

Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter, this figure rises to 60.7%.

8 See Part 1 of this analysis: http://mediastandardstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/MST-Leveson-Analysis-090513-v2.pdf


While the previous section presented the overall figures for coverage of press

regulation in the UK national press, the analysis here focuses on how the individual

newspapers covered press regulation.

The focus here is on three areas:

• Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter, including examples of ‘Negative-

only’, ‘Positive-only’ and ‘Both Positive and Negative’ Articles, to illustrate

the nature of coverage

• How other events relevant to press regulation were covered

• The different approaches to coverage by different sections of the press

The results in this section are based – unless otherwise stated – on the subset of 1,421

articles in which viewpoints on press regulation were included.

How the newspapers covered Leveson and the Cross-

Party Charter

As the results of the previous section demonstrated, the UK national press coverage

of press regulation was highly partial and broadly negative about the main proposed

solution: the recommendations in the Leveson Report, most of which were then

incorporated in the Cross-Party Charter.

Over two-thirds of all articles contained an opinion about Leveson and the Charter,

and of those articles, negativity predominated: the number of articles containing

wholly negative views outnumber those that contained only supportive views by

almost four-to-one, and articles containing both critical and supportive viewpoints

by over two-to-one.

While that evidence is significant, demonstrating that the UK national press tended

to oppose the reforms proposed in the Leveson Inquiry, it does not show the degree

of diversity in how the 19 separate titles approached the issue.

This section explores how individual newspapers – grouped, for convenience, by

publisher – covered press regulation. Given the large amount of data, the information

on each newspaper is summarised here. Appendix 1 contains the full set of data for

all 19 newspapers.

For each newspaper, a summary will be included here that lists the following

measures:

• The ratio of articles that contained only negative references to Leveson or

the Royal Charter, against those which contained only positive references.

• The percentage of articles in which Both supportive and critical viewpoints

5. HOW EACH NEWSPAPER COVERED PRESS REGULATION


are featured

• The prevalence (expressed as a percentage of those articles in which a

view was expressed) of the argument that Leveson and/or the Cross-Party

Charter represented a threat to press freedom or freedom of expression.

News UK Titles

The Sun

Summary of coverage in the Sun

Negative vs. Positive

Articles

% articles where

both views

represented

Prevalence of ‘threat’

frame

29 : 1 14.9% 79.4%

The Sun featured an overall total of 179 articles that mentioned press regulation

– a large volume relative to other tabloids, which may be partly explained by the

paper’s seven-day publication.1

Table 1: The Sun - Press regulation coverage data

Articles: With frame(s): 141 Overall: 179

Tone:

Positive-only: 4

Negative-only: 116

Both: 21

Percentage of articles ‘negative-only’: 82.2%

Negative-to-positive ratio: 29 : 1

Frames

Negative Positive

Threat (with % prevalence): 112 (79.4%) Supports Leveson: 12

Leveson/Charter Specific Criticism: 31 Supports underpinning: 3

Questions Legitimacy of Leveson: 13 Supports Cross-Party Charter: 13

International Reputation: 9

Critical of March 17th Process: 12

Of these 179 articles, 141 contained a view on Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter

(expressed via one of the ‘frames’ listed in Section 3 above). Negative-only articles

dominated: 116 in total, or 82.2% of all those articles in which one or more views

were expressed. The ratio of negative-only to positive-only articles was 29-to-1, one of

1 Full results for The Sun and all other newspapers are in Appendix 1


the highest ratios in the sample. Overall, coverage was highly negative – combining

the articles where ‘both’ positive and negative views were expressed with those in

which only one side was represented shows the extent of the imbalance: 137 articles

(97%) contained a negative view, and just 25 (18%) contained a positive one.

As separate issues, the Sun’s coverage of both the Leveson Report and the Cross-

Party Charter was negative – 86.7% (72/83) of articles expressing a view on Leveson

were negative-only, as were 76.7% (46/60) of those where a view on the Charter was

included (these figures for each title can be found in Appendix 1).

The Sun tended to frame press regulation as a threat to press freedom. This frame

was recorded in 112 articles – 79.4% of articles where a view was expressed, and

over 60% of all 179 articles mentioning any aspect of press regulation.

The Times and Sunday Times

Summary of coverage in The Times


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

5.3 : 1 27.0% 61.3%

The Times published a total of 217 articles on press regulation in this period. Of

these 217 articles, around two-thirds (137) contained evaluative statements about

Leveson or the Charter (see Appendix 1). Again, coverage was negative, though

slightly less negative than the Sun (61.3% negative-only, a ratio of over five to one).

Again, Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter each received a majority of negative

coverage, although this time there was a marked difference between the two.

Around half (47.4%) of articles expressing a view on Leveson contained only critical

viewpoints; this figure was 71.4% for articles concerning the Charter. The issue was

most frequently framed as a threat to press freedom – this view appeared in 82

articles (59.9%).

Summary of coverage in the Sunday Times


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

6 : 1 22.2% 77.8%

The Sunday Times published 53 articles on press regulation in this period. 45 of these

articles were evaluative (as opposed to neutral). Two-thirds of evaluative articles

were ‘negative-only’, only five were ‘positive-only’. This represents a negative to

positive ratio of 6:1. The Sunday Times was highly negative towards both Leveson


(64.3%) and the Cross-Party Charter (71.4%). Almost eight in ten of evaluative articles

contained the ‘threat’ frame (35 articles, 77.8% of those expressing a view).

Overall, all three News UK titles expressed an overwhelmingly negative view of

Leveson and the Charter. The Sun’s balance of 29 negative-only articles to every

positive article is notably high, and is accompanied by the fact that under 15% of Sun

articles contained both critical and supportive views. It is instructive, too, that both

News UK broadsheets also contained a substantial imbalance of negative to positive

articles (5 to 1 in The Times and 6 to 1 in the Sunday Times), and low levels of articles

containing both positive and negative viewpoints (27% and 22.2% respectively).

DMG Media Titles

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday

Summary of coverage in the Daily Mail


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

33.8 : 1 13.0% 73.5%

The Daily Mail’s volume of coverage is comparable with many of the broadsheet

newspapers – 251 articles, 200 of which contained a view on Leveson or the Cross-

Party Charter. The Daily Mail was, of all newspapers, the most negative, both in

terms of volume and proportion. 169 articles contained only negative viewpoints

(84.5% of those which contained a view), compared with just five that contained

only positive views – a ratio of over 33:1. Again the ‘threat frame’ was extremely

common, expressed in 147 articles, but other critical frames were also present – 74

articles contained specific criticisms of the Leveson recommendations, 31 questioned

the legitimacy of Leveson, 41 were critical of the process of agreeing the Cross-Party

Charter on March 17th, and 12 contained the criticism that the UK’s international

reputation would be harmed by Leveson.

Summary of coverage in the Mail on Sunday


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

12.5 : 1 12.9% 74.2%

The Mail on Sunday was also overwhelmingly negative, although with a smaller

number of articles overall (53, of which 31 expressed a view), which amplifies the

effect of small variations in numbers. In total, 80.6% of articles expressing a view

contained only negative statements on Leveson/the Charter, a ratio of more than 12


negative-only articles to one positive-only. As with all titles discussed so far, both

Leveson (78.5% Negative-only) and the Cross-Party Charter (89.5% Negative) were

subject to a majority of negative coverage. Again, the ‘threat’ frame was the most

prominent, appearing in 23 (74.2%) articles, where a view was expressed.

Telegraph Media Group

The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph

Summary of coverage in the Daily Telegraph


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

6.2 : 1 24.3% 75.7%

After the Guardian and the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph published the third-

highest number of articles containing a view on Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter

– 189 – out of a total of 270 articles on press regulation in this period. The Sunday

Telegraph was less prolific, publishing 30 articles in which a view was expressed, out

of a total of 33. Both newspapers contained a majority of negative viewpoints (65.1%

‘negative-only’ in the Daily Telegraph; 73.3% in the Sunday Telegraph; respective

negative to positive ratios of over 6:1 and over 7:1). The ‘threat’ frame was similarly

prevalent, articulated in 75.7% of those Daily and 86.7% of Sunday Telegraph articles

where a view was expressed.

Summary of coverage in the Sunday Telegraph


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

7.3 : 1 16.7% 73.3%

Though the balance was towards negative, the Daily Telegraph did contain a higher

degree of positive framing than noted in the titles discussed so far: 41 articles

contained one or more statement that was supportive of the Leveson Report (21.7%

of the total), and 26 contained one or more statement that was supportive of the

Cross-Party Charter (13.8%). However, these accounted for fewer than half of the

references to a perceived ‘threat to press freedom’ alone.


Trinity Mirror

The Daily Mirror

Summary of coverage in the Daily Mirror


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

8.7 : 1 25.6% 82.1%

The Daily Mirror published a total of 98 articles on press regulation in this period, of

which 78 (79.6%) expressed a view. As with its tabloid rival the Sun, a majority of the

articles in the Daily Mirror that expressed a view were negative-only (66.7% of 78

articles expressing a view). This was a relatively smaller proportion in comparison

to the Sun, and the Mirror’s ‘positive-only to negative-only’ ratio, at slightly under

nine to one, was also less pronounced (although still markedly negative). This is

partly explained by the Mirror’s different approach to Leveson (54.1% negative-

only) and the Cross-Party Charter (76.7% negative-only). Again, however, the ‘threat’

frame dominated, appearing in 82.1% of articles expressing a view.

The Sunday Mirror and Sunday People

Summary of coverage in the Sunday Mirror


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

1.5 : 1 9.1% 54.5%

Summary of coverage in the Sunday People


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

N/A: 3/3 Negative-only 0% 100%

Trinity Mirror’s Sunday titles contained a very small number of articles: 13 overall

for the Sunday Mirror and just five in the People. The numbers for the People are so

small that valid comparison is difficult, but similarities of coverage are apparent:

of the three articles in which a view was expressed, all were negative-only, and all

contained the ‘threat’ frame.

The Sunday Mirror diverges slightly in that the percentage of negative-only articles

is significantly smaller (54.5%, with 50% of articles expressing a view about the


Cross-Party Charter containing only positive opinions). This would appear in part

to be down to the very small number of articles (6 negative-only vs 4 positive-only),

and the effect of a weekly column by Lord Prescott broadly supporting the Cross-

Party Charter on more than one occasion.

Northern and Shell

The Daily Express and Sunday Express

Summary of coverage in the Daily Express


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

3.7 : 1 38.2% 64.7%

The Daily Express published 94 articles on press regulation in this period, of which

72.3% - 68 articles – expressed a view. The Sunday Express published 16 articles on

press regulation in this period of which 93.8%% - 15 articles – expressed a view.

While every newspaper covered so far has followed a similar formula of: a majority

of negative coverage; high ratios of positive-to-negative coverage; and a high

prevalence of the ‘threat’ frame, the Express titles were less systematically negative

in their coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. ‘Negative-only’ articles

accounted for 48.5% of articles containing views in the Daily Express, although these

still outnumbered ‘positive-only’ articles by almost four to one, and the ‘threat’

featured in almost two-thirds of articles expressing a view.

Summary of coverage in the Sunday Express


Articles

% articles where

Both views

represented


frame

0.8 : 1 26.7% 53.3%

The Sunday Express was considerably less negative – it is the only title so far

mentioned where there were more ‘positive-only’ (6) articles than ‘negative-only’

(5). As with the Sunday Mirror this may be in part down to the small sample (16

articles overall, with 15 containing one or more frames), although it is also the case

that there were more articles supporting Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter (10 in

total) than contained the ‘threat’ frame (8), partly due to a small number of articles

(4 in total) that contained quotes or references to victims or members of the Hacked

Off campaign.


The Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday

Summary of coverage in the Daily Star


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

9 : 1 16.7% 83.3%

The Daily Star published 23 articles on press regulation in this period. Of the articles

that expressed a view, 9 (or 75%) were negative-only, compared to just one positive-

only article. As with the Express, the sample size is much smaller than in most of the

other nationals. The threat frame appeared in 10 of 12 articles in which any view

was expressed.

Summary of coverage in the Daily Star Sunday


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

N/A: No views N/A N/A

The Daily Star Sunday featured just one article on press regulation (according to the

sampling technique applied in this project), and this did not feature an evaluative

statement about Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter. This indicates that the title did

not believe its audience would be interested in the issue.

Guardian Media Group

The Guardian

Summary of coverage in the Guardian


Articles

% articles where

Both views

represented


frame

1 : 1 27.3% 35.2%

The Guardian represents a substantial departure from the style of coverage analysed

up to this point. Indeed, the difference in coverage in the remaining titles discussed

here is such that it is possible to explore structural differences in how certain

sections of the national press covered the issue. These structural differences will be

explored further in the last part of this section.


Table 2 shows the contrast in coverage, in comparison with the Sun’s figures in Table

1 (data for all newspapers is set out in Appendix 1). The Guardian covered the issue

extensively – 405 articles in total, of which 236 contained one or more evaluative

statements about Leveson or the Charter. Of these, 36.4% contained only negative

viewpoints, with an almost equal proportion of ‘positive-only’ articles. Significantly,

only 35.2% of articles expressing a view contained the ‘threat’ frame. While many

articles did contain one or more critical/negative frames, there were a greater

number of instances of articles containing positive frames: 101 articles contained

statements supportive of the Leveson recommendations, 60 articles contained

statements supportive of the Cross-Party Charter, for instance.

The Observer

Summary of coverage in the Observer


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

2.6 : 1 21.7% 30.4%

For a Sunday title, the Observer contained a relatively high number of stories on

press regulation – 70 in total, more than one per week of the sample – of which

48 contained a viewpoint. Coverage was more negative than the Guardian, with

26 articles (54.2%) containing only negative viewpoints, more than double the

proportion that contained only positive views or that contained both positive and

negative perspectives. The ‘threat’ frame was, in keeping with the Guardian, far less

prevalent than in other titles, and was overshadowed by a critical focus on specific

aspects of the Leveson recommendations and/or the provisions in the Cross-Party

Charter.

Independent Print Ltd.

The Independent

Summary of coverage in the Independent


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

0.9 : 1 57.7% 30.9%

While the Guardian contained a greater proportion of ‘positive-only’ articles relative

to other newspapers so far, the Independent is notable in the space devoted to

articles containing both positive and negative viewpoints. While the focus on press


regulation was significantly lower than at the Guardian (148 articles, of which 97

expressed a view), less than one in five articles was ‘negative-only’, while 57.7%

contained both critical and supportive viewpoints. A comparably low proportion

of articles contained the ‘threat’ frame, and again it was not the most prevalent

frame; like the Guardian and Observer more articles contained specific criticisms

of recommendations, and more frames were supportive of Leveson and the Cross-

Party Charter.

The Independent on Sunday

Summary of coverage in the Independent on Sunday


Articles

% articles where

both views

represented


frame

0.3 : 1 33.3% 33.3%

The Independent on Sunday contained very few articles on press regulation overall,

so comparisons should be treated with care. However, similar characteristics to

the Independent and the GMG titles can be seen: a low proportion of ‘negative-only’

articles, more articles with positive references, and less common reference to the

‘threat’ frame, which appeared in just four out of 12 articles in which any view was

expressed.

Pearson

The Financial Times

Summary of coverage in the Financial Times


Articles

% articles where

Both views

represented


frame

2.3 : 1 47.8% 37.2%

Finally, the FT published 97 articles overall, of which 69 expressed a view. Of these,

like the Independent, the greatest proportion contained both positive and negative

viewpoints (33 articles, or 47.8%). Negative-only articles outnumbered positive-only

articles by over two to one, but the threat frame was not as prominent, being present

in 37.7% of articles, fewer than those articles mentioning specific reservations about

the recommendations for reform of regulation in the Leveson Report or the Cross-

Party Charter.

Overall, as this analysis has shown, three things have characterised the coverage of

Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter in the UK national press (see Table 2):


• In most newspapers the overwhelming majority of evaluative coverage was

negative. This fluctuated across different titles; in 15 out of 19 newspapers

the proportion of articles containing only negative viewpoints outweighed

the proportion containing only positive viewpoints. The Daily Mail had over

33 negative-only articles for every one positive-only article; the Sun had 29

negative-only articles for every positive-only article. Several broadsheets

also contained this imbalance, though in a less pronounced manner.

• The proportion of evaluative articles where both critical and supportive

viewpoints were included was generally low – in only two titles (the

Independent and the Financial Times) did a large proportion of such articles

contain both sides of the argument.

• The ‘threat’ frame was overwhelmingly dominant. In many titles it appeared

in over three-quarters of evaluative articles.

Table 2: Comparing newspaper coverage - key indicators

TitleNegative-only :

Positive-only

Percentage where Both

views represented


frame in articles

expressing a view

Daily Mail 33.8 : 1 13.0% 73.5%

Sun 29 : 1 14.9% 79.4%

Mail on Sunday 12.5 : 1 12.9% 74.2%

Daily Star 9 : 1 16.7% 83.3%

Daily Mirror 8.7 : 1 25.6% 82.1%

Sunday Telegraph 7.3 : 1 16.7% 73.3%

Daily Telegraph 6.2 : 1 24.3% 75.7%

Sunday Times 6 : 1 22.2% 77.8%

Times 5.3 : 1 27.0% 61.3%

Daily Express 3.7 : 1 38.2% 64.7%

Observer 2.6 : 1 21.7% 30.4%

Financial Times 2.3 : 1 47.8% 37.2%

Sunday Mirror 1.5 : 1 9.1% 54.5%

Guardian 1 : 1 27.3% 35.7%

Independent 0.9 : 1 57.7% 30.9%

Sunday Express 0.8 : 1 26.7% 53.3%

Independent on Sunday 0.3 : 1 33.3% 33.3%

People N/A: 3/3 Negative-only 0% 100%

Daily Star Sunday N/A: No views N/A N/A


Chart 1: Number of negative articles for every positive article, by newspaper (N=1,421)1

There is, however, evidence of a structural difference in how certain publishers

covered the issue. In general, the Guardian and Independent titles, along with the

FT, tended to have a closer ratio of negative-only to positive-only articles (ranging

from 2.6 : 1 in the Observer to 0.3 : 1 in the Independent on Sunday), and a greater

percentage of evaluative articles containing both critical and supportive views of

Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter, and proportionally fewer references to the

threat to press freedom. 2

2 Daily Star Sunday not included, as no articles contained any views; People not included, because 3/3 articles were negative

Ratio: Number of Negative articles to every Positive article, by newspaper (N = 1,421)Independent on Sunday (N = 21)0.3Sunday Express (N = 16)0.8Independent (N = 148)0.9Guardian (N = 403) 1Sunday Mirror (N = 13)1.5Financial Times (N = 97)2.3Observer (N = 72) 2.6Daily Express (N = 94)3.7Times (N = 217) 5.3Sunday Times (N = 53)6Daily Telegraph (N = 270)6.2Sunday Telegraph (N = 33)7.3Daily Mirror (N = 98)8.7Daily Star (N = 23) 9Mail on Sunday (N = 53)12.5Sun (N = 179) 29Daily Mail (N = 251)33.8

NB - Daily Star Sunday not included, as no articles contained any views, People not included, because 3/3 articles were negative

0.3

0.8

0.9

1

1.5

2.3

2.6

3.7

5.3

6

6.2

7.3

8.7

9

12.5

29

33.8




Guardian (N = 403)



Observer (N = 72)


Times (N = 217)





Daily Star (N = 23)


Sun (N = 179)



How other relevant events were covered

The results for each of the national newspapers show that coverage of Leveson and

the Cross-Party Charter was, in the majority of papers, overwhelmingly negative.

Table 3 compiles the balance of coverage in each newspaper for both the Leveson

Report and recommendations, and the Cross-Party Charter as separate issues.

The percentages in Table 3 denote the largest proportion of articles for each title,

by tone category: those that are wholly negative, wholly positive, or contain both

negative and positive viewpoints. For instance, of the Sun articles that contained a

viewpoint on the Cross-Party Charter, 76.7% contained only negative views, while,

of Independent articles about Leveson, 40.4% contained both positive and negative

opinions (more than the proportion of negative-only or positive-only articles).

Table 3: Balance of Coverage of Leveson and Cross-Party Charter (N = 1,421)

Title No. of articles Balance: LevesonBalance: Cross-Party

Charter

Sun 141 86.7% Negative 76.7% Negative

Daily Mirror 78 54.1% Negative 76.7% Negative

Sunday Mirror 11 66.7% Negative 50.0% Positive

People 3 100% Negative 100% Negative

Daily Star 12 83.3% Negative 66.7% Negative

Daily Star Sunday 0 N/A N/A

Daily Express 68 = Negative & Both 74.1% Negative

Sunday Express 15 50.0% Positive 66.7% Negative

Daily Mail 200 86.2% Negative 85.0% Negative

Mail on Sunday 31 76.5% Negative 89.5% Negative

Times 137 47.4% Negative 71.4% Negative

Sunday Times 45 64.3% Negative 71.4% Negative

Daily Telegraph 189 61.2% Negative 70.5% Negative

Sunday Telegraph 30 46.2% Negative 94.4% Negative

Guardian 238 45.0% Positive 46.8% Negative

Observer 46 57.7% Negative 53.8% Negative

Independent 97 40.4% Both 66.7% Both

Independent on Sunday 12 = Positive & Both 80.0% Positive

Financial Times 69 51.2% Both 42.9% Negative


This is in itself a significant conclusion. However, the issue of press regulation

became more complex in the year following Leveson, as the timeline in Section 2

(above) illustrates. While this project was primarily based around analysing the

coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter, a secondary analysis was also

undertaken to see how other related issues were covered during the time period of

the study.

The additional six events chosen for analysis (also outlined in full in Section 3 above)

were:

• The February 12th Draft Royal Charter, drafted by the Conservatives in

consultation with the newspaper industry

• David Cameron’s decision to suspend cross-party talks on a new Charter

on March 14th

• The Industry Royal Charter presented as a rival to the Cross-Party Charter

in April 2013

• IPSO – the Independent Press Standards Organisation: the newspaper

industry’s new regulator, launched in July 2013

• The Privy Council’s decision to reject the Industry Charter in early October

2013

• The Privy Council’s sealing of the Cross-Party Charter in late October 2013

The reasons for choosing this list are set out in the timeline in Section 2: briefly, these

were the most significant events relating to the implementation of a new system of

press regulation, and each received a high number of articles (although some events

attracted more articles than others).

Because of the scope of the project and the scale of the frame analysis of articles

about Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter, it was decided that a similar analysis of

a further six events would be unrealistic. Instead, these six events were measured

in terms of whether coverage was ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ (or both); the ‘tone’

frames were not applicable in this case. The full dataset for this project contains an

explanation for decisions in all these cases, and is accessible on the Media Standards

Trust website.3

In total, 388 articles contained an evaluative statement (‘positive’, ‘negative’, or

‘both’) on these issues. As the first column of Table 4 shows, some articles contained

evaluative references to more than one of these events. In all, there were 440

instances across the 388 articles of evaluative references to the different separate

events.

Table 4 also shows the spread of articles containing views on the events. The volume

of coverage for the single events (Cameron’s decision to end talks, the decisions

to reject or seal the rival Charters) was, as may be expected, lower than for the

published documents or ongoing events, such as the Industry Charter.

3 http://mediastandardstrust.org/mst-news/media-standards-trust-content-analysis-how-the-uk-press-covered-leveson-and-the-royal-charter-dataset-published/


The Industry Charter, created and submitted to the Privy Council by the newspaper

industry funding body, Pressbof, received the most coverage, with 130 articles where

a view was expressed. The majority (75) of those articles contained only supportive

views – 57.7%, as compared with 35 (26.9%) that contained only critical views. Only

20 (15.4%) articles contained both.

119 articles contained a positive and/or negative reference to the February

12th Charter, with the press somewhat more split, and a plurality (50 articles, or

42.0%) containing both supportive and critical viewpoints. This perhaps reflects

the fact that there was a great deal of uncertainty around the issue of the use of a

Royal Charter in place of statute to underpin press regulation, and a high degree

of speculation on what the content of the Charter would be in the weeks before

the details were announced . Overall, there were more than double the articles

containing only positive views on the draft Charter than there were negative-only

articles. Uncertainty was also evident in the coverage of Cameron’s decision to end

the cross-party negotiations over the final form of what would eventually become

the Cross-Party Charter.

Event

(in chronological order)

No. of articles

where event is

referenced

Positive-only

(with %)

Negative-only

(with %)

Both

(with %)

Feb 12th Royal Charter 119 47 (39.5%) 22 (18.5%) 50 (42.0%)

Cameron’s Decision 30 11 (36.7%) 11 (36.7%) 8 (26.7%)

Industry Charter 130 75 (57.7%) 35 (26.9%) 20 (15.4%)

IPSO 81 53 (65.4%) 13 (16.0%) 15 (18.5%)

Industry Charter Rejected 55 4 (7.3%) 48 (87.3%) 3 (5.5%)

Cross-Party Charter Sealed 25 2 (8.0%) 15 (60.0%) 8 (32.0%)

The third most-covered of these events was the Independent Press Standards

Organisation, launched in April 2013 (and later finalised in October). The majority

of the 81 articles where a view was expressed – 53, or 65.4% - contained only positive

views on IPSO. In contrast, the decision by the Privy Council to reject the Industry

Charter on October 8th was subject to an overwhelming majority of negative

coverage: 87.3% or articles on that topic contained only negative views. The sealing

of the Cross-Party Charter around three weeks later attracted fewer articles, but also

received a majority of negative-only articles.

This suggests that most newspapers tended to be considerably less critical of industry-

backed initiatives than of events beyond the control of aspects of the industry. Table

6 explores this further, compiling the tone of coverage of each of the events by title.4

4 All of the information in Table 5 is derived from the data tables in Appendix 1

Table 4: Articles containing evaluative statements on events in press regulation


Table 5: ‘Predominant tone’ of coverage of events, by title (N = 1,421)

TitleFeb 12th

RCCameron

Industry

CharterIPSO Rejected Sealed

Sun 70.0% Pos = Pos & Neg 100% Pos 100% Pos 75.0% Neg= Neg &

Both

Daily Mirror 55.7% Pos =Pos & Neg 75.0% Neg 100% Pos 100% Neg 66.7% Neg

Sunday Mirror 100% Neg 100% Pos

People 100% Pos

Daily Star = Pos & Neg 100% Neg

Daily Star Sunday

Daily Express 100% Pos 100% Pos 42.9% Both = Pos & Neg 100% Neg

Sunday Express 66.7% Neg 100% Pos 100% Pos 100% Neg

Daily Mail 66.7% Pos 100% Both 83.3% Pos 88.9% Pos 100% Neg= Neg &

Both

Mail on Sunday 100% Pos = Pos & Neg 100% Pos 100% Pos

Times 55.6% Pos= Neg &

Both53.8% Pos 75.0% Pos 83.3% Neg = Pos & Neg

Sunday Times 50% Pos 100% Pos 85.7% Pos 100% Pos 100% Neg 66.7% Neg

Daily Telegraph 45.0% Pos 66.7% Neg 76.2% Pos 70.0% Pos 85.7% Neg 100% Neg

Sunday Telegraph 100% Pos 100% Pos 100% Neg 100% Neg

Guardian 48.3% Both 66.7% Both 54.5% Neg 52.6% Neg 83.3% Neg 100% Neg

Observer 66.7% Neg 100% Neg 66.7% Pos 100% Pos 100% Neg 100% Neg

Independent 75.0% Both= Neg &

Both55.6% Both 60.0% Both = Pos & Neg 100% Both

Independent on Sunday 100% Pos 100% Neg 100% Pos = Pos & Neg

Financial Times 77.8% Both 66.7% Pos 66.7% Both = Pos & Neg 66.7% Both


The information here shows two overall trends:

First, there is, for the most part, a significant degree of uniformity of tone on the

various issues. For example, 12 out of 19 newspapers contained a majority (always

over 75%) of negative-only articles on the rejection of the Industry Charter by the

Privy Council. Likewise, IPSO received a majority of positive-only coverage across

most newspapers, as did the Industry Royal Charter. Opinion was more balanced

on Cameron’s decision to end cross-party negotiations, and while significantly more

newspapers had a majority or plurality of positive-only coverage of the February

12th Charter, the level of support tended to be slightly lower.

Second, there is an apparent difference in the structure of coverage in the

Independent titles and the Financial Times, in comparison with the rest. These three

newspapers were more likely to contain articles that provided a balance of both

critical and supportive viewpoints on the various issues. This reinforces trends

observed elsewhere in this section that there are substantial differences in how

different sections of the newspaper industry have covered press regulation.


Two styles of coverage

The combined evidence of coverage of Leveson and the Royal Charter broken down

by the different titles, and the way that the various titles dealt with other issues related

to press regulation indicate that, although there has been a degree of conformity

in how press regulation has been covered, there appear to be divergences in how

different sections of the press have covered the issue. A substantial portion of the

press contained a significant majority of negative coverage of both Leveson and the

Cross-Party Charter, a high level of polarisation in coverage (i.e. low levels of articles

that contain ‘both’ critical and supportive viewpoints), and a very high prevalence of

articles containing claims that the Leveson recommendations represented a threat

to press freedom.

Another grouping of newspapers followed a less polarised approach – or in the

case of the Guardian a polarised approach in which negative and positive articles

featured in similar proportions – and all of these contained a significantly higher

proportion of articles containing a balance of viewpoints

The analysis below shows that a substantial difference in tone and focus of coverage

can be found between two groups of newspapers: those newspapers that are

published by News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group and

Northern & Shell – which have been strongly negative towards Leveson and the

Royal Charter; and those published by Guardian Media Group, Independent Print

Ltd and Pearson.5 This was tested by measuring the results of three indicators across

both groups, as shown in Table 6.

News UK, DMG Media, Trinity

Mirror, Telegraph Media

Group, Northern & Shell

Guardian Media Group,

Independent Print Ltd, Pearson

Percentage of articles

‘Negative-only’70.5% 34.2%

Percentage of articles ‘Positive-

only’8.4% 29.2%


containing ‘Both’ viewpoints21.1% 36.6%

‘Negative-only’ to ‘Positive-

only’ Ratio8.3 : 1 1.2 : 1

Prevalence of ‘Threat’ frame in

evaluative articles73.3% 34.4%

5 It could be argued that the Northern & Shell titles represent a slight anomaly (the Daily Star and its Sunday partner contained very low levels of coverage relative to comparable, while the Express titles diverged in their levels of negativity). They have been included in the first group due to their strongly negative approach to the Cross-Party Charter, and the high prevalence of the ‘Threat’ frame in the Daily Express and Daily Star.

Table 6: How different sections of the press covered Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter (N = 1,421)


As the results of Table 6 show, both groups score very differently on all measures.

Among the first group, 70.5% of articles (677 of 960) where a view was expressed

on Leveson and/or the Cross-Party Charter contained only negative or critical

viewpoints. For the second group, this proportion was less than half – 34.2% (158 of

462 relevant articles. Translating this into the total sample of 2,047 articles (including

those that contained no evaluative opinions on Leveson), while approximately one

fifth (21.3%) of articles published in the second group contained only negative

viewpoints, over half (51.8%) of the first group did.

Likewise, the ratio of ‘positive-only’ to ‘negative-only’ articles was far higher in

the first group: for every positive-only article, there were more than eight articles

containing only critical viewpoints. In comparison, the second group (Guardian/

Observer/Independent/Independent on Sunday/FT) had similar proportions of

negative and positive articles, a ratio of 1.2 : 1.

In addition, the first group was far more likely to publish articles containing the

argument that Leveson and/or the Cross-Party Charter represented a threat to press

freedom. Over three-quarters of articles where a view was expressed contained this

frame. In the second group this figure was again less than half: 34.4%.

Assuming these measures represent a substantially different approach to covering

the issue of press regulation (or at least the most significant aspects of press

regulation during the study period – Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter), two

issues are of particular significance here:

1. The newspapers in the first group, presenting coverage that is strongly

anti-Leveson and far more likely to include the threat frame, accounts for

over 90% of weekly circulation of national newspapers, and approximately

three-quarters of the different titles in the national newspaper market.

2. The publishers in the first group – with the partial exception of Northern

& Shell – publicly rejected Leveson’s recommendations, rejected the Cross-

Party Charter, and have been active in setting up IPSO.


Summary

• The majority of national newspapers contained a high proportion of

negative-only coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. Certain

newspapers featured a significant majority of negative-only coverage: for

every article in the Daily Mail that contained only positive viewpoints, there

were more than 33 that contained only critical views. In the Sun, this ratio

was 1 : 29. Of 18 newspapers that published articles with viewpoints on

Leveson or the Charter,6 14 contained more negative-only than positive-

only articles; in nine titles the imbalance was by a ratio of over five to one.

• Only a minority of coverage – news and opinion – sought to be balanced.

Articles, including news articles, tended to express one single view without

reference to opposing views: in 15 of 18 newspapers containing articles

where views were expressed, the proportion where both positive and

negative viewpoints were included was below 30%; in seven titles it was

below 20%.

• Coverage of Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter was mostly negative ,

as contrasted with coverage of the newspaper industry’s Royal Charter

and the newspaper industry plans for a new regulator (IPSO) which

was mostly positive. While on average only 15.3% of articles containing

a view on Leveson or the Charter were wholly positive, 57.7% of articles

with a view on the newspaper Industry’s Charter were positive, as were

65.4% of articles containing a view on IPSO. The results suggest that the

majority of newspapers gave strong support to the newspaper industry’s

own initiatives, and were highly critical of those initiatives that were not

led by the newspaper industry.

• There was a structural difference in how sections of the national press

covered Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. After observing differences

in coverage across groups of publishers, a separate analysis of those titles

published by News UK, DMG Media, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror,

and Northern & Shell found that those titles contained highly negative

coverage (70.5% of articles containing a view were ‘negative-only’), a lower

proportion of positive coverage (on average, around one positive article for

every eight negative articles published), with the ‘threat to press freedom’

frame appearing in 74.5% of articles containing a view. Significantly, this

group accounts for over 90% of weekly national newspaper circulation, and

three-quarters of the national newspaper market. In contrast, those titles

published by Guardian Media Group, Independent Print Ltd, and Pearson

contained half as many negative articles proportionally (34.2% of articles),

less than half as many instances of the ‘threat to press freedom’ frame

(34.4% of articles), a roughly equal ratio of positive to negative articles (1 :

1.2), and were almost twice as likely to publish articles that contained both

supportive and critical viewpoints.

6 Of the 19 national newspapers featured in the study, one – the Daily Star Sunday – did not feature any articles in which critical or supportive views of aspects of press regulation were included.


This section analyses the coverage of press regulation in Leader and Opinion articles.

As Section 5 showed, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of coverage

devoted to commentary following the Leveson report – leader and opinion articles

make up around one-third of all national press coverage of press regulation during

the year following publication.

Leader and comment articles are of particular interest in this analysis. They contain

definite, attributable opinions, as opposed to a record of a source’s viewpoint

(although the latter is also significant). They also, in the case of leader articles in

particular, contain an authoritative, persuasive voice with a demagogic purpose

beyond merely recording a view.

This analysis is not trying to evaluate whether the arguments being made are in

any sense ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – instead, the purpose is to record how opinions were

expressed by national newspapers and their columnists on Leveson and the Royal

Charter. Section 8 (below) will look separately at how press regulation was covered

in factual reporting.

Table 1: Breakdown of commentary articles, all newspapers (N = 2,047)

Type of Article Overall Total

Contains evaluative

opinion of Leveson or

Cross-Party Charter

Percentage

containing

evaluative opinion

Leader 217 197 90.8%

Opinion 510 369 72.4%

- Guest opinion 101 79 78.2%

Table 1 shows the breakdown of leader and opinion articles that were published

in the UK national press between 29th November 2012 and 29th November 2013.

Unsurprisingly, leader and opinion articles dealing with press regulation were highly

likely to contain an evaluative viewpoint on Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter.

Over 90% of leader articles, and almost three-quarters of opinion pieces contained

one or more of the evaluative frames used to measure the tone of coverage.

As with the rest of the analysis, this means those articles that contain one or more

of the evaluative frames about Leveson or the Royal Charter. While in factual news

articles one central topic is the main subject, many newspapers publish leader

articles that deal with two or three separate issues. In practice, many of the leaders

analysed here were primarily focused on press regulation. A full list of all leaders

6. COVERAGE OF PRESS REGULATION IN LEADER AND OPINION ARTICLES


(and the reasons for their categorisation on the basis of tone) is included in Appendix

2.

This section considers how Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter were represented

in leader and opinion articles, respectively.

Leader Articles

As Table 2 shows, the number of leader articles published was not evenly distributed

across titles; the Daily Mail and the Sun published the most (39 and 47 respectively),

although there was consistency in the high proportion of leaders containing

evaluative frames regarding Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter.

Of 197 leader articles in which a view was expressed on Leveson or the Cross-Party

Charter, 156 were negative-only – 79.2%. While the People, Daily Star and Daily

Star Sunday contained no leaders, of the remaining 16 titles over half published

a significant majority of negative-only leader articles. At the Sun and the Daily

Mail, which together accounted for over two-fifths of leaders containing a view on

Leveson or the Charter, the balance was over 90% negative.

The balance was similar in six other titles. In every one of the Daily Mirror’s leaders

which contained a view, that view was negative-only; similarly with the Mail on

Sunday. 85% of Times leaders were negative-only, as were 89.5% of Daily Telegraph

leaders and 80% of those in the Sunday Times. Negative-only majorities in the Sunday

Telegraph and Financial Times were slightly lower, at 60% and 62.5% respectively,

while at each of the Express titles only one out of a total of two articles was negative-

only.

Proportions were much lower at the Guardian (25%) and Independent (15.4%) as

well as at their respective Sunday sister titles (although these numbers were tiny –

1/4 in the Observer and 0/1 in the Independent on Sunday).


Table 2: Number of leader articles, by title

Title

Total Number

of Leader

articles

Leaders

containing

evaluative

frame(s)

‘Negative-

only’ Leader

articles

Percentage

‘Negative-

only’

Sun 39 36 35 92.2%

Daily Mirror 11 10 10 100%

Sunday Mirror 2 2 2 100%

People 0 0 0 0

Daily Star 0 0 0 0

Daily Star Sunday 0 0 0 0

Daily Express 2 2 1 50.0%

Sunday Express 2 2 1 50.0%

Daily Mail 47 46 44 95.7%

Mail on Sunday 8 7 7 100%

Times 21 20 17 85.0%

Sunday Times 10 10 8 80.0%

Daily Telegraph 24 19 17 89.5%

Sunday Telegraph 5 5 3 60.0%

Guardian 15 12 3 25.0%

Observer 5 4 1 25.0%

Independent 16 13 2 15.4%

Independent on Sunday 1 1 0 0%

Financial Times 9 8 5 62.5%

Total 217 197 156 -

Table 3 shows the overall breakdown of tone across all 197 leaders. While just 34

leaders (17.3%) contained both positive and negative views, this may be explained

by the fact that it is usually the purpose of leader articles to assert an unambiguous

position on a topical policy issue. More significant is very low number of positive-

only leaders (7 in total, or 3.6% of those where a view is expressed), and the balance

of ‘negative-only’ to ‘positive-only’ articles (over 22 negative leaders for every

positive).

Table 3: Tone of leader articles where a view is expressed (N = 197)

Tone Number Percentage

Positive-only 7 3.6%

Negative-only 156 79.2%

Both 34 17.3%

Total 197 100%


Figure 1 shows the relative imbalance:

Figure 1: Breakdown of leader articles by tone, all newspapers (N = 197)

Positive-only:

Negative-only:

Both:

7

156

34

As with Section 6, an analysis of the data in Table 2 indicates that there is a difference

between how different sections of the press covered the issue. Apart from the Financial

Times, in which five out of eight leaders were negative, the split between sections seems to

have been maintained. Table 4 shows the balance of leaders in the titles published by News

UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group and Northern & Shell. 145 of 159

leaders were negative (91.2%), and just one (representing 0.6% of the total) was positive.

Table 4: Tone of leader articles where a view is expressed, News UK/DMG Media/

Trinity Mirror/TMG/Northern & Shell

Tone Number Percentage



Both 13 8.2%

Total 159 100%


However, the sole ‘positive-only’ leader was published in the Daily Mail online on

28th November 2012, and in the print edition on the 29th1. It was therefore gathered in

the sample (which began on 29th November 2012), but was actually published before

the Leveson Report was published. It is included here for consistency, although it

would be accurate to claim that none of the newspapers of these news organisations

published a single positive leader on Leveson or the Cross-Party Royal Charter in the

year following the publication of the Leveson Report.

Figure 2: Breakdown of leader articles by tone, News UK/DMG Media/Trinity

Mirror/TMG/Northern & Shell (N = 159)

Continuing the analysis of this subset of titles, it is clear that – as was shown in

Section 6 above – there was a very high degree of consistency in the tone of how

these newspapers covered the issue of press regulation. As Table 5 shows, there was

unanimity in the opinions expressed on certain events related to press regulation

in the leader articles of these titles. All mentions of the Industry Royal Charter,

which featured in 19 leaders, were favourable, as were all eight mentions of IPSO.

Conversely, every mention of either the rejection of the Industry Charter, or the

sealing of the Cross-Party Charter, was critical.

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2240069/PPI-mis-selling-Silencing-cold-claim-sharks.html

Positive-only:

Negative-only:

Both:

1

145

13


Table 5: Leaders on press regulation events: News UK/DMG Media/Trinity

Mirror/TMG/Northern & Shell

EventNo. of leaders

mentioning eventTone

Industry Royal Charter 19 19/19 Positive

IPSO 8 8/8 Positive

Rejection of Industry Charter 8 8/8 Negative

Sealing of Cross-Party Charter 7 7/7 Negative

The threat frame was also much more prevalent in this subgroup of titles. As Table

6 demonstrates, the proportion of leader articles in those titles that included the

threat frame was 85.5% (136 out of 159 leaders). In the leaders published by titles

from Guardian Media Group, Independent Print Ltd and Pearson that expressed a

view, just 34.2% contained the ‘threat’ frame.

Table 6: Threat frame prevalence in leaders in which a view on Leveson or the

Cross-Party Charter was expressed, by subgroup

Number

of leaders

Percentage

of leaders

Threat prevalence (all leaders), N = 197 149 75.6%

Threat prevalence (Subgroup 1 – News UK,

etc), N = 159136 85.5%

Threat prevalence (Subgroup 2 – GMG, etc), N

= 3813 34.2%

While a deeper analysis of the repetition of the claim that Leveson and the Royal

Charter represented a threat to press freedom is explored in Section 9 below, the

headlines of some leaders give an indication of the language deployed to frame

press regulation. The full list of leaders and their headlines is included in Appendix

2, but some examples are illustrative:

• ‘Crackdown that could stifle your right to know’, Daily Mail, 30th November

2012

• ‘Lords a-leaping to gag the press’, Sunday Times, 10th February 2013

• ‘A tawdry alliance and a threat to a free press’, Daily Mail, 15th March 2013

• ‘A muzzled media will make victims of us all’, Daily Telegraph, 18th March

2013

• ‘Press freedom: no longer made in Britain, Sunday Times, 24th March 2013

• ‘An ominous threat to shackle our free press’, Daily Telegraph, 5th October

2013

• ‘A dire day for freedom’, Daily Mirror, 9th October 2013

• ‘Shadowy figures who would like to muzzle the press’, Sunday Telegraph, 3rd

November 2013


Opinion Articles

In total, 510 opinion articles were published during the sample, of which 369

contained one or more of the evaluative frames regarding Leveson or the Cross-Party

Charter. Again, articles that are designed to represent an opinion were less likely to

contain both supportive and critical viewpoints, as Table 7 shows: just 42 articles

– 11.4% of the total – contain both supportive and critical viewpoints. Positive-

only opinion pieces account for just 14.9% of the total, while those containing only

negative views accounted for 73.7% of the total.

Table 7: Opinion articles containing a view on Leveson or the Cross-Party

Charter (N = 369)

ToneOpinion articles containing

one or more framesPercentage



Both 42 11.4%

As Table 8 shows, of the 17 newspapers that published opinion articles expressing

a view on Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter, nine – more than half – published

none that were positive. At the Daily Mirror, Daily Express, and Daily Mail every

opinion piece published was negative. At the Sun (40 of 41 negative-only), the

Daily Telegraph (53 of 55 negative-only), and the Sunday Telegraph (13 of 14), the

proportion of negativity was also extremely high. A relatively high number of

negative opinion articles was also present in the Observer, attributable in large part

to former Guardian editor, Peter Preston, who accounted for 17 of the Observer’s 24

critical opinion articles over the course of the year.


Table 8: Tone of opinion articles in which a view on Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter was

expressed, by title

Title Total Positive-only Negative-only Both

Sun 41 0 40 1

Daily Mirror 16 0 16 0

Sunday Mirror 7 4 3 0

People 3 0 3 0

Daily Star 0 0 0 0

Daily Star Sunday 0 0 0 0

Daily Express 12 0 12 0

Sunday Express 1 0 1 0

Daily Mail 32 0 32 0

Mail on Sunday 10 2 4 4

Times 21 2 16 3

Sunday Times 10 0 8 2

Daily Telegraph 55 0 53 2

Sunday Telegraph 14 0 13 1

Guardian 75 29 31 15

Observer 29 4 24 1

Independent 31 10 10 11

Independent on Sunday 3 3 0 0

Financial Times 8 1 5 2

Total 369 55 272 42

This again demonstrates the difference between the subgroups that have been

analysed up to this point. Of the 223 opinion articles featured in the group of titles

published by News UK et al, 202 were critical of Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter

(90.6%), and only 8 (3.6%) were positive (Table 9):

Table 9: Tone of opinion articles, by News UK/DMG Media/TMG/Trinity Mirror/

Northern & Shell

ToneOpinion articles containing

one or more framesPercentage



Both 13 5.8%

Total 223 100%

Finally, Table 10 shows how the subgroup of articles published by News UK, DMG


Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group, and Northern & Shell portrayed

Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter in leader and opinion articles. Combined, these

titles published 382 articles that contained opinions by journalists (named, or leader-

writers) about Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter. 223 of these were opinion pieces,

159 were leaders. Though not all of these articles was solely about press regulation,

nonetheless they each contained one or more of the ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ frames

that denoted a critical or supportive viewpoint of Leveson or the Charter. Only 9

(2.4%) were positive-only. Over 38 times as many were negative-only (347, or 90.8%),

and a tiny amount included both (6.8%). In 324 of these articles it was alleged that

Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter represented a threat to press freedom – 84.8% of

the total (Table 10).

The scale of negativity is significant in itself, but it is matched in its consistency. Over

90% of opinion and leader articles concerning Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter, in

over 90% of the UK national press (by weekly circulation) were negative.

Table 10: Tone and ‘Threat’ frame in leader and opinion articles combined:

News UK/DMG Media/TMG/Trinity Mirror/Northern & Shell titles

Leader Opinion Combined

Number of articles 159 223 382

Number, ‘negative-only’ 145 202 347

Percentage ‘negative-only’ 91.2% 90.6% 90.8%

Ratio, ‘negative-only’ : ‘positive-only’ 145 : 1 25.3 : 1 38.6 : 1

Number containing ‘Threat’ frame 136 188 324

Percentage containing ‘Threat’ frame 85.5% 84.3% 84.8%


Summary

• Leader articles and opinion articles were, by a very large margin,

hostile to Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter. Out of 197 leader articles

in which a view was expressed on Leveson or the Charter, 156 (79.2%) were

negative-only and just 7 (3.6%) were positive-only. In addition, 272 of 369

opinion articles (73.7%) were negative-only, with 55 (14.9%) positive-only.

• Newspapers belonging to News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror,

Telegraph Media Group and Northern & Shell were far more likely to

be negative than those published elsewhere. The relevant opinion and

leader articles published by this group of titles were extremely hostile to

Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter:

- 90.8% of all such articles were negative-only (347 of 382);

- For every positive-only opinion or leader article published by these

newspapers, more than 30 negative-only articles were published;

- 84.8% of leader or opinion articles by these titles contained the

argument that Leveson or the Charter represented a threat to press

freedom.


While Section 7 demonstrated that the ‘commentary’ devoted to press regulation

tended to be overwhelmingly hostile to the Leveson Report and the Cross-Party

Royal Charter, this section looks at the nature of ‘factual’ coverage in the national

press.

‘Factual coverage’ in this analysis denotes articles intended to provide new

information to the reader – News articles (reports providing new or recently-

acquired information), and Feature articles (providing detail and context on a topic

“in a manner not necessarily subject to the constraints of timeliness demanded

of a news item”).1 ‘Feature’ articles tended to consist of interviews, timelines, or

summaries of how proposed regulatory systems might work, or of the range of

opinions by sources on a given aspect of press regulation.

Table 1 shows that 1,208 ‘News’ and 112 ‘Feature’ articles containing some reference

to press regulation were published in all UK newspapers in the year following the

publication of the Leveson Report. Of these articles, 806 ‘News’ articles (66.7%)

contained one or more of the frames denoting ‘tone’, as did 49 ‘Feature’ articles

(43.8%).

Table 1: Breakdown of factual articles, all newspapers (N = 2,047)

Type of Article TotalContains evaluative opinion of Leveson or

Cross-Party Charter, with percentage

News 1,208 806 (66.7%)

Feature 112 49 (43.8%)

In other words, two-thirds of news reports contained evaluative viewpoints, either

by sources or as part of the editorial content of the article. This was a considerably

higher rate than that recorded during the Leveson Inquiry itself. The previous

Media Standards Trust analysis of national press coverage of Leveson from 11th July

2011 until 28th November 2012 found that just 14.7% of news articles (and 16.7% of

features articles) on press regulation contained views for or against Leveson (Table

2).

1 See ‘Informative discourse types’, in Higgins, M. (2006) ‘Substantiating a political public sphere in the Scottish press: A comparative analysis’, Journalism, 7(1), pp25-44

7. COVERAGE OF PRESS REGULATION IN FACTUAL ARTICLES


Table 2: Comparison of evaluative opinion in factual articles, pre- and post-

Leveson Report

Type of

Article

Factual articles containing

evaluative viewpoints, 11th

July 2011 – 28th Nov 2012 (N

1,459)

Factual articles containing

evaluative viewpoints, 29

Nov 2012 – 29 Nov 2013 (N =

1,320)

News 206/1,399 (14.7%) 806/1,208 (66.7%)

Feature 10/60 (16.7%) 49/112 (43.8%)

All Factual 216/1,459 (14.8%) 855/1,320 (64.7%)

Chart 1: Percentage of Factual articles containing negative or positive

viewpoints, before and after Leveson

14.8%

64.7%

85.2%

35.3%

Before Leveson Report (1,459Factual articles, June 2011 - Nov

2012)

After Leveson Report (1,320 articles,Nov 2012 - Nov 2013)

Neutral (contains noevaluative viewpoints)

Contains one or moreevaluative statements

Neutral (contains no

evaluative viewpoints)

Contains one or more

evaluative viewpoints


Analysis – News articles

This section focuses on ‘News’ articles –conventional news reports of press regulation

gathered in the sample. Specifically, it looks at a breakdown of those News articles

published in the national press in which a view on Leveson or the Royal Charter was

expressed. Table 3 shows the balance of tone in those News articles.

Table 3: Tone of News articles where a view is expressed (N = 806)

Number of Articles Percentage



Both 281 34.9%

This shows that, in 377 News articles (46.8% of those where a view was expressed),

only views critical of Leveson or the Royal Charter were included. This was more

than double the amount of articles containing only positive views (148, or 18.4%),

and significantly more than those articles where both positive and negative opinions

were included.

Table 4 shows the breakdown of News articles containing a view, by newspaper title.

As with the Leader and Opinion articles discussed in the previous section, certain

publishers published a far greater proportion of articles that were ‘negative-only’.

The Daily Mail published 112 News articles containing viewpoints on Leveson or

the Cross-Party Charter. 74.1% of those News articles (83 in total) contained only

negative views. This compared with just four articles containing only positive

opinions. Every article in the Mail on Sunday containing a view was negative-only

(13 in total).

More than half of all News articles containing an opinion published in The Sun, the

Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star contained only negative views, as did

more than 40% in the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.

Such articles published in the Express and Sunday Express tended to be less likely to

contain exclusively negative views, and the Sunday Express published considerably

more positive-only than negative-only articles, although the very low number of

articles published by that title means that the result is more susceptible to being

skewed.


Table 4: Tone in News articles containing a view, by title (N = 806)

Title

News articles

containing

evaluative

frame(s)

‘Positive-

only’

‘Negative-

only’‘Both’

Percentage

‘Negative-

only’

Sun 61 4 38 19 62.3%

Daily Mirror 51 5 26 20 51.0%

Sunday Mirror 2 0 1 1 50.0%

People 0 0 0 0 N/A

Daily Star 11 1 8 2 72.7%

Daily Star Sunday 0 0 0 0 N/A

Daily Express 54 9 20 25 37.0%

Sunday Express 11 6 2 3 18.2%

Daily Mail 112 4 83 25 74.1%

Mail on Sunday 13 0 13 0 100%

Times 93 14 49 30 52.7%

Sunday Times 18 4 8 6 44.4%

Daily Telegraph 109 20 51 38 46.8%

Sunday Telegraph 9 3 4 2 44.4%

Guardian 145 53 50 42 34.5%

Observer 11 5 1 5 9.1%

Independent 51 9 7 35 13.7%

Independent on Sunday 7 2 2 3 28.6%

Financial Times 48 9 14 25 29.2%

Total 806 148 377 281 -

Levels of ‘negative-only’ articles published by the Guardian, Observer, Independent,

Independent on Sunday and Financial Times were also comparatively low (although

for the Sunday titles the effect of low numbers is again significant).

Table 5 builds on the evidence in Table 4 and demonstrates, as noted in previous

sections, that there was a substantial difference between how different publishers

covered press regulation in News articles.


In titles published by News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group

and Northern & Shell – accounting around 90% of newspaper circulation and three-

quarters of national titles – factual news coverage was:

• Twice as likely than that of the other publishers to contain only negative

viewpoints

• Less than half as likely to contain only positive viewpoints

• Significantly less likely to contain both positive and negative viewpoints

• Almost twice as likely to contain the claim that Leveson or the Royal Charter

represented a threat to press freedom

Table 5: How different sections of the press covered Leveson and the Cross-

Party Charter - News articles (N = 806)

News UK, DMG Media,

Trinity Mirror,

Telegraph Media

Group, Northern &

Shell

Guardian Media Group,

Independent Print Ltd,

Pearson


‘Negative-only’55.7% 28.2%


‘Positive-only’12.9% 29.8%


containing ‘Both’

viewpoints

31.4% 42.0%

‘Negative-only’ to

‘Positive-only’ Ratio4.3 : 1 0.9 : 1

Prevalence of ‘Threat’

frame in evaluative

articles

65.8% 38.2%


Summary

• A majority of factual news coverage (i.e. news reports and features)

contained statements for or against Leveson or the Royal Charter. 806

News articles (66.7% of the total) and 49 Feature articles (43.8%) contained

evaluative viewpoints on Leveson or the Charter. For News articles, this

was a fourfold increase on the same measure of coverage in the 18 months

prior to the Leveson Report (14.7%). Of these 806 News articles, almost

half (46.8%) contained negative-only viewpoints.

• As with opinion-based coverage, most of the press focused considerably

more on critical views of Leveson and the Charter. Titles published

by News UK, DMG Media, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group and

Northern & Shell were again far more likely to publish articles containing

views hostile to Leveson than titles published elsewhere:

- 55.7% of all News articles by these five publishers contained only

negative viewpoints, compared with 28.2% in titles published by

Guardian Media Group, Independent Print Ltd and Pearson;

- There were considerably fewer articles containing only

supportive viewpoints (12.9% versus 29.8%)

- The ‘threat to press freedom’ frame was more prevalent in the

newspapers of these five publishers, being present in 65.8% of

articles in which any viewpoint was expressed. This compared

with 38.2% of such articles by other publishers


In the analysis of the ‘tone’ of articles that underpins this project, one frame stands

out as having been consistently deployed – by sources or by journalists – in articles

about press regulation: that Leveson (and latterly the Cross-Party Charter) represents

a threat to press freedom, or to freedom of expression.

In total, 862 articles included this frame (Table 1). Therefore the ‘threat to press

freedom’ frame appeared in over 60% of the 1,421 articles in which any view on

Leveson or the Royal Charter was expressed, and in over 40% of all articles in which

any mention of press regulation was included anywhere in the article (2,047 in total).

It was by some margin the most common way the national press represented the

reforms outlined in the Leveson Report and the subsequent Royal Charter. As Table

1 indicates, it was frequently included in leader articles: of 217 leaders published

between 29th November 2012 and 29th November 2013, the ‘threat’ frame occurred

in 149, or 69%.

Table 1: Types of article containing ‘Threat’ frame (N = 862)

Frequency Percentage (of 862 articles

containing ‘threat’ frame)

News 458 53.1%

Feature 29 3.4%

Leader 149 17.3%

Opinion 226 26.2%

Total 862 100%

The issues that the Leveson Inquiry and its subsequent report dealt with are

complex, and there are many different interpretations of what the implications of

its recommendations mean for the press and public life. These have been dealt with

extensively elsewhere, but it is clear that there is no consensus on whether or not

Leveson represents a threat to press freedom or to the right of freedom of expression

(although the following section of this report outlines how public opinion tended not

to support this belief). Some organisations and individuals have published eloquent

and evidence-based arguments on how they view the proposals in Leveson/the Royal

Charter as incompatible with the role of journalism in society. However, often – as

this section shows – the articles published in the national press provided no basis

or rationale to support their claim that Leveson or the Royal Charter represents a

threat to press freedom.

This section also shows that, in most cases, the assertion that Leveson and the

Royal Charter represents a threat to press freedom was presented as fact without

supporting evidence, and often accompanied by emotive language to re-emphasise

the unsubstantiated threat.

8. HOW THE ‘THREAT TO PRESS FREEDOM’ WAS PORTRAYED


The purpose of this section is to explore and illustrate how the ‘threat to press

freedom’ frame was deployed, and to analyse how different publishers approached

the issue.

The ubiquity of the ‘Threat’ frame – uses and evidence

Table 2 indicates how often different titles used the ‘Threat’ frame, and how

prevalent it was in all the articles published in which any view was expressed. As

the results show, certain publications were far more likely to include it, not just in

terms of absolute numbers, but in most articles in which any view was expressed.

Table 2: Prevalence of ‘Threat’ frame, by title

Title

No. of all articles

containing any

frames, published

by title (N = 1,421)

No. of articles with

‘Threat’ frame

(N = 862)

Percentage of all articles

expressing a view (N = 1,421),

in which the ‘Threat’ frame

was recorded

Sun 141 112 79.4%

Daily Mirror 78 64 82.1%

Sunday Mirror 11 6 54.5%

People 3 3 100%

Daily Star 12 10 83.3%

Daily Star Sunday 0 N/A: No frames N/A

Daily Express 67 44 64.7%

Sunday Express 15 8 53.3%

Daily Mail 200 147 75.4%

Mail on Sunday 31 23 74.2%

Times 136 84 61.3%

Sunday Times 45 35 77.8%

Daily Telegraph 189 143 75.7%

Sunday Telegraph 30 26 86.7%

Guardian 236 85 36.1%

Observer 48 14 30.4%

Independent 97 30 30.9%

Independent on Sunday 12 4 33.3%

Financial Times 70 26 37.7%


In fact, four newspapers – the Daily Mail, the Sun, The Times and the Daily Telegraph

– together account for over half of all articles containing the ‘Threat’ frame (486

articles, or 56.4% of the total). Once their Sunday counterparts are added (The Mail

on Sunday, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph), this proportion rises to 66%

(570 articles).

Although this represents a large number of articles in the absolute sense, the

proportion of coverage by these titles that include the ‘Threat’ frame is also very high.

The Sun’s 112 articles containing the frame accounted for 79.4% of all Sun articles

in which any view was expressed. This figure was 75.4% in the Daily Mail, 75.7% in

the Daily Telegraph, and 61.3% in The Times. In comparison, in the Guardian, which

also published a large number of articles containing the frame (85), this accounted

for just 36.1% of all articles in which a view was expressed.

If the split between sections of the press noted in all previous sections is considered,

the results in Table 2 demonstrate that those newspapers published by News UK,

Trinity Mirror, DMG Media, Telegraph Media Group and Northern & Shell were far

more likely to focus on the threat frame.

Of 1,421 total articles in which a view on Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter was

expressed, 958 were by titles owned by this group of publishers. Of these, 703 articles

(73.4%) included the threat frame. By contrast, titles published by Guardian Media

Group, Independent Print Ltd and Pearson accounted for 159 articles in which the

‘Threat’ frame was included. This was 34.3% of the 463 articles expressing any view.

Table 3 shows how the ‘Threat to press freedom’ frame was presented to the public

by the national press: usually with no evidence to support the claim; rarely including

the counter-argument made in Parliament and by civil society groups and others –

Proportion of articles containing tone (N = 1,421), in which the 'Threat' frame is included

Observer (N = 48)30.4%Independent (N = 97)30.9%Independent on Sunday (N = 12)33.3%Guardian (N = 236)36.1%Financial Times (N = 70)37.7%Sunday Express (N = 15)53.3%Sunday Mirror (N = 11)54.5%Times (N = 136)61.3%Daily Express (N = 67)64.7%Mail on Sunday (N = 31)74.2%Daily Mail (N = 200)75.4%Daily Telegraph (N = 189)75.7%Sunday Times (N = 45)77.8%Sun (N = 141) 79.4%Daily Mirror (N = 78)82.1%Daily Star (N = 12)83.3%Sunday Telegraph (N = 30)86.7%People (N = 3) 100.0%

How newspapers presented the 'threat to press freedom'Yes No

Threat' claim supported by evidence29.9% 70%Article contains counter-argument to threat claim15% 85%Threat' claim ascribed to identified, quoted source(s)41% 59%

30.4%

30.9%

33.3%

36.1%

37.7%

53.3%

54.5%

61.3%

64.7%

74.2%

75.4%

75.7%

77.8%

79.4%

82.1%

83.3%

86.7%

100.0%

Observer (N = 48)



Guardian (N = 236)




Times (N = 136)






Sun (N = 141)


Daily Star (N = 12)


People (N = 3)

29.9%

15%

41%

70%

85%

59%

Threat' claim supported byevidence

Article contains counter-argument to threat claim

Threat' claim ascribed toidentified, quoted source(s)

Yes

No

Chart 1: Proportion of articles expressing a view (N = 1,421), in which the ‘Threat’ frame is included


that Leveson or the Royal Charter safeguarded, or did not threaten, press freedom;

and not usually based on a claim by a source.

It is perhaps most significant that in 604 articles (70.1% of those in which the ‘Threat’

frame appeared), no evidence was put forward to support the claim that Leveson or

the Charter threatened press freedom; instead, it was usually presented as part of an

article with no explanation or context. Examples of this are included below.

Similarly, despite the lack of consensus on the implications of the Leveson

recommendations for press freedom, the counter-balancing arguments (either that

Leveson or the Charter safeguarded press freedom, or that they posed no threat to

press freedom) were rarely included. These viewpoints were included in only 14.8%

of articles containing the ‘Threat’ frame.

Finally, more often than not, the claim that Leveson or the Charter posed a threat

to press freedom was made without a quote by an identified source. In 506 articles

(58.7% of the total), the frame occurred without any supporting quote.

Table 3: Presenting the ‘Threat’ frame (N = 862)

Yes No

‘Threat’ claim supported by evidence 258 (29.9%) 604 (70.1%)

Article contains counter-argument 128 (14.8%) 734 (85.2%)

‘Threat’ frame statement ascribed to

identified, quoted source(s)356 (41.3%) 506 (58.7%)

Proportion of articles containing tone (N = 1,421), in which the 'Threat' frame is included

Observer (N = 48)30.4%Independent (N = 97)30.9%Independent on Sunday (N = 12)33.3%Guardian (N = 236)36.1%Financial Times (N = 70)37.7%Sunday Express (N = 15)53.3%Sunday Mirror (N = 11)54.5%Times (N = 136)61.3%Daily Express (N = 67)64.7%Mail on Sunday (N = 31)74.2%Daily Mail (N = 200)75.4%Daily Telegraph (N = 189)75.7%Sunday Times (N = 45)77.8%Sun (N = 141) 79.4%Daily Mirror (N = 78)82.1%Daily Star (N = 12)83.3%Sunday Telegraph (N = 30)86.7%People (N = 3) 100.0%

How newspapers presented the 'threat to press freedom'Yes No

Threat' claim supported by evidence29.9% 70%Article contains counter-argument to threat claim15% 85%Threat' claim ascribed to identified, quoted source(s)41% 59%

30.4%

30.9%

33.3%

36.1%

37.7%

53.3%

54.5%

61.3%

64.7%

74.2%

75.4%

75.7%

77.8%

79.4%

82.1%

83.3%

86.7%

100.0%

Observer (N = 48)



Guardian (N = 236)




Times (N = 136)






Sun (N = 141)


Daily Star (N = 12)


People (N = 3)

29.9%

15%

41%

70%

85%

59%

Threat' claim supported byevidence

Article contains counter-argument to threat claim

Threat' claim ascribed toidentified, quoted source(s)

Yes

No

‘Threat’ claim supported

by evidence

Article contains counter-

argument to threat claim

‘Threat’ claim ascribed to

indentified, quoted source(s)

Yes

No

Chart 2: How newspapers presented the ‘threat to press freedom’


In total, 375 articles were published in which the ‘Threat’ frame was included, but

without supporting evidence to justify the claim and where the claim was not based

on a quote from an identified source.

Table 4 contains a breakdown of these 375 articles, by publishing group. 337 were

published by titles owned by News UK, DMG Media, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity

Mirror and Northern & Shell – this accounted for 47.9% of all articles published by

those titles in which the ‘Threat’ frame was featured. By contrast, 23.9% of articles

containing the ‘Threat’ frame published by titles owned by Guardian Media Group,

Independent Print Ltd and Pearson contained no supporting evidence or quote.

Table 4: ‘Threat’ articles with no evidence or source quote, by publisher

‘Threat’ articles

without evidence

or source quote

Combined articles without

evidence or source quote

(with percentage)

News UK 114

337 of 703 (47.9%)

DMG Media 91

Telegraph Media Group 70

Trinity Mirror 43

Northern & Shell 19

Guardian Media Group 19

38 of 159 (23.9%)Independent Print Ltd 10

Pearson 9


How the perceived threat was described

The evidence shows, therefore, that where the claim was made that Leveson or

the Royal Charter represents a threat to press freedom it was rarely supported by

evidence or rationale. Nor were opposing views included.

Instead, in many cases, the claim was accompanied by emotive language and further

assertions about the dangers associated with Leveson and the Charter.

A survey of the 2,047 articles indicates that the language used was highly emotive.

A survey of repeated phrases used in the full sample of articles (over one million

words) finds the following used frequently:

Table 5: Recurring phrases in newspaper coverage of press regulation (2,047 articles)

Phrase Number of mentions

‘Press freedom’ 732

‘Free press’ 652

[MPs’] ‘expenses’ 349

‘Chill’/‘Chilled’/‘Chilling’ 237

- ‘Chilling effect’ 75

‘300 years’ [refers to last press licensing laws] 167

- ‘300 years of press freedom’ 49

‘Curb’/‘Curbs’/‘Curbed’ 152

‘License’/‘Licensed’/‘Licensing 126

‘Draconian’ 119

‘Shackle’/‘Shackles’/‘Shackled’/‘Shackling’ 110

‘Political interference’ 89

‘Muzzle’/‘Muzzled’/‘Muzzling’ 82

‘State Control’ 80

‘Free Speech’ 70

‘Stitch-up’/‘Stitched-up’ 44

‘Political control’ 37

‘1695’ [year Government licensing of the Press ended] 34

‘Centuries of press freedom’ 26

‘Threat to press freedom’ 26

‘Government control’ 15

‘Totalitarian’ 14

‘Zealots’ 12

- ‘Press-hating zealots’ 7

While this doesn’t necessarily provide a scientific analysis of the way the ‘threat’


frame was articulated (nor does it count the mentions of possible threats to press

freedom couched in more temperate words), it does show that the framing was

generally judgmental and dramatic. Although it is possible that these phrases may

have been repeated in single articles, it is not likely that this was widespread, and so

it can be estimated that the 581 mentions of ‘curbs’, ‘muzzles’, ‘shackles’ or ‘chilling’

(or a derivative of those words) were spread across hundreds of articles.

Several examples illustrate both the emotive language used, and the tendency of

claims to be presented as statements of fact in the body of news articles:

Parties agree state controls on the press (Daily Telegraph, 12th Oct 2013)

THE newspaper industry has criticised politicians’ plans for the state to “impose” rules on the press for the first time in more than 300 years.[…]

Regulation will be imposed on press (Daily Telegraph, 9th Oct 2013)

THE first rules on state regulation of the press for more than 300 years will be set out this week after politicians rejected the newspaper industry’s plans for self–regulation.[…]

Media check (Sunday Times, 3rd Nov 2013)

The Queen approved a royal charter that paves the way for state oversight of the press, in a move it is feared will end centuries of press freedom. Publishers failed in a last-ditch attempt at the High Court and Court of Appeal to halt the government’s plans, saying there had not been proper consultation.[…]

Ex-cop’s rap for Leveson(Daily Mirror, 21st Feb 2013)

LORD Leveson’s plans to curb press freedom could mean corruption goes unexposed, a police chief warned yesterday.[…]


Papering over the cracks: Leveson proposals will come back to bite British democracy, warns Watergate legend (Daily Mirror, 30th Nov 2012)

Lord Leveson sparked fears for the future of investigative journalism yesterday by proposing draconian curbs on reporters. […]

Warning that press regulation will send ‘wrong signal’ to Commonwealth (Times, 12th April 2013)

Government plans to shackle the press with flawed and hasty legislation violate “a basic principle of democracy” and risk giving the world’s dictators ammunition to silence their own people “by drawing ugly examples from Britain”.

The stark warning from the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association (CJA) comes amid growing concerns from rights campaigners that Britain is squandering its position as a bastion of free speech by introducing statutory regulation of the press for the first time in more than 300 years.[…]

Each of these excerpts from articles contains a reference to the threat to press

freedom as a part of the body of the article (rather than directly quoted from a

source), and presented as a statement of fact. In addition, they show typical examples

of the language used to describe Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter: “plans to curb

press freedom”; “Government plans to shackle the press”, and so on.

The highly emotive language that was used in leader columns and opinion pieces

after the Leveson Report was published then infiltrated news reports and features.

By the time the Royal Charter was approved by the three Parties in March the emotive

language was being used in commentaries and news reports almost interchangeably.

The example below also shows that the language used about the threat to press

freedom was even replicated across different opinion pieces, by different authors.

The example below shows that, on 15th March 2013 (immediately before the

agreement of the Cross-Party Charter), an opinion piece by the Sun’s Associate Editor

Trevor Kavanagh shared sections of text with another column by Andrew Nicoll,

Political Editor of the Scottish Sun.


The Sun, 15th March 2013

If MPs seize the presses. it is

YOU who will lose out; FIGHT

OVER NEWSPAPER

CONTROL TREVOR Kavanagh

ANYONE who fears for a free Press if it ever fell under political control needs

only to look at yesterday's all-party fiasco on newspaper legislation.

The spat between David Cameron and an alliance of Labour, Lib Dems and

Tory rebels was pure, bloody-minded politics in action.

What began as an attempt to bring newspapers to heel has turned into a bitter

partisan struggle between the Prime Minister and his political enemies.

Ed Miliband knew David Cameron would never accept a Press law — and he

pushed him to the limit in order to place him in the wrong.

But the real casualty threatens to be the irreversible loss of a truly free Press

that protects the interests of all parties.

The newspaper industry has long abandoned hope that Britain might follow

America, the Land Of The Free, and adopt true freedom of speech as the

bulwark of a free people.

You can be outspoken and even offensive, as long as you don't endanger life,

like crying "FIRE" in a crowded theatre. We acknowledge that extreme cases

of Press intrusion are unforgivable.

But sweeping and often contradictory Leveson proposals risk an irreparable

blow to foundations of true democracy.

On the one hand, Labour and the Lib Dems want legal underpinning which

would expose investigative journalism to political meddling.

On the other, Mr Cameron seeks a royal charter, separate from politicians, but

open to pressure for change from ministers in any future government.

For the Press, this is a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

For the public, it would mean surrendering the safeguard of a traditionally

robust newspaper industry which for 300 years — and for all its faults — has

been the defender of the ordinary citizen against the rich and powerful.

Newspapers believe there is a third way — a powerful, responsive and

accountable body to regulate the industry free from political influence. Rivals

— who would traditionally fight each other to the last ditch — are working

hard to win the elusive prize of agreement across all titles.

The object is to deliver everything Leveson requires.

But without the destructive elements which could cripple an industry already

threatened with eclipse by the internet, which risks no such regulation.

Without a free Press, we will suffer ever more suffocating bureaucracy and

more undiscovered corruption in our public life.

Think of the Hillsborough cover-up, the conspiracy of silence over the Mid

Staffs hospital deaths and the increasingly draconian action of our secretive

police.

Look across the Channel, where it is an offence for officials to criticise the EU

and where scandalous French presidential candidates are protected by privacy

laws from exposure.

That is how politicians like it. They don't want the media probing into their

expenses or tax-free perks.

Others who become rich at our expense hide behind super-injunctions, gagging

orders and the oppressive laws of libel to stop us learning of their misdeeds

and hypocrisy.

It's the ordinary man and woman — including millions of Sun readers — who

will lose out if politicians seize control of the presses.

The Scottish Sun, 15th March 2013

If MSPs seize the presses. it is

YOU who will lose out; FIGHT

OVER NEWSPAPER

CONTROL Andrew Nicoll

ANYONE who fears for a free press in Scotland has good reason to be worried

today.

This afternoon the committee set up by Alex Salmond in the wake of the

Leveson report into the Press will issue its findings.

The committee, led by judge Lord McCluskey and made up of a mix of people

of whom you've never heard, didn't take evidence from one single Scottish

newspaper editor or publisher.

Despite that, it's likely they will go far beyond anything Westminster is

planning and recommend some form of statutory underpinning to control the

Scottish Press.

This will strike at the very heart of our democracy and at a hugely important

time in Scotland's political history. And you, as a newspaper reader, should be

worried.

It means surrendering the safeguard of a traditionally robust newspaper

industry which for 300 years — and for all its faults — has been the defender

of the ordinary citizen against the rich and powerful.

No one would disagree that extreme cases of press intrusions are unforgivable.

No one would disagree that some journalists have dragged the industry's

reputation into the gutter. But is there any evidence that the Scottish Press

behaved in the same cavalier fashion as some of Fleet Street's worst? The

fiasco over a new press law south of the border has provided Salmond with the

perfect opportunity to force through new legislation in Scotland.

No doubt he'll point to the splits in the Coalition, the break-up of talks and the

lack of any political consensus to say that if Westminster can't get its house in

order, then Holyrood can.

Liberty And none of the dissenting voices, none of the objections, will matter.

Salmond has a majority in parliament and can force through any law he sees

fit.

David Cameron is risking a split with his LibDem Coalition partners — a split

Labour is eager to exploit — by stopping short of unworkable legal restraints

on the Press.

In a world where extremists and criminals can play the Human Rights card

because they have a pet cat, the Prime Minister knows that throwing padlocks

around the Press will never survive scrutiny in the courts. When he is speaking

out for liberty in Libya and Syria, Zimbabwe and Russia, he knows that legal

restraints on the Press will make Britain a laughing stock.

But Alex Salmond wants something even tougher.

This could put newspapers, not just this one with a huge circulation and

readership, but small, local papers selling just a few thousand copies, in

jeopardy by exposing them to a simple choice — risk massive fines by

refusing to join the government licensed scheme or keep quiet and toe the line.

But, for some reason, when newspaper circulations are under increasing

pressure from the internet the regulations won't apply to the web.

The editors of almost every single newspaper in Scotland are opposed to

statutory control of the Press.

What a pity that Salmond's committee didn't seek their views — and perhaps,

more importantly, they didn't seek yours either.

Remember: Politicians don't want your newspapers probing into their expenses

or dodgy flat deals. Others who become rich at your expense hide behind

superinjunctions, gagging orders and libel laws to stop us learning of their

misdeeds and hypocrisy.

It's the ordinary men and women, including hundreds of thousands of Scottish

Sun readers, who will lose out if the MSPs seize control of the presses.

Summary


Summary

• The argument that Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter posed a threat

to press freedom was very frequently referenced in the national press.

862 articles published on the topic contained the argument – 42.1% of all

articles mentioning any aspect of press regulation, and 60.7% of those in

which a view of Leveson or the Cross-Party Charter was expressed.

• The claim that press freedom was being threatened was often presented

with no supporting evidence, no counter-argument, and without a

quote by an identified source. Less than 30% of articles in which the

‘Threat’ argument was made included specific evidence to justify the claim.

Only 14.8% of these articles included the counter-argument that Leveson

or the Charter did not threaten press freedom or political interference, and

less than half based the ‘Threat’ claim on a quote from an identified source.

• The language used to describe Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter

was emotive, repetitive, and focused on freedom and government

interference. There were hundreds of references to ‘press freedom’

in newspaper coverage of press regulation, and to ‘shackles’, ‘muzzles’,

and ‘curbs’ on the press. Certain phrases were repeated across news and

opinion articles, and several newspapers, indicating a lack of plurality

in the presentation of press regulation. Opinion came increasingly to be

presented as fact, crossing the divide from ‘leader’ and ‘opinion’ articles, to

factual news articles, and there was evidence of arguments being replicated

word-for-word across comment pieces.


The first opinion poll dealing with issues related to press regulation following the

commencement of the Leveson Inquiry was published in May 2012. Between then

and June 2014 there have been 24 separate opinion polls published that contained

questions concerning some aspect of press regulation.

Table 1: All opinion polls featuring questions

on press regulation, from May 2012

Poll Dates of Fieldwork

IPPR/YouGov 20-21 May 2012

Hacked Off/YouGov 3-6 Oct 2012

Carnegie UK & Demos/Populus Published Oct 2012

Sun/YouGov 4-5 Nov 2012

Free Speech Network/Survation 12-13 Nov 2012

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 21-23 Nov 2012

ITV News/ComRes 23-25 Nov 2012

BBC Radio 5 Live/ComRes 23-25 Nov 2012

Sunday Times/YouGov 30 Nov – 1 Dec 2012

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 31st Jan – 1st Feb 2013

YouGov 10-11 Mar 2013

Sunday Times/YouGov 14-15 Mar 2013

YouGov 19 Mar 2013

Sunday Times/YouGov 24 Mar 2013

Free Speech Network/Survation 1 May 2013

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 1-2 May 2013

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 17-18 Jul 2013

ITV News/ComRes 4-6 Oct 2013

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 9-10 Oct 2013

Guardian/ICM 11-13 Oct 2013

Sun/YouGov 14-15 Oct 2013

Free Speech Network/Survation 18-21 Oct 2013

Media Standards Trust/YouGov 2-4 Jun 2013

Sunday Times/YouGov 26-27 Jun 2013

As a result, there is an unusually large amount of public opinion data on this issue

– conducted by a range of different polling companies and commissioned by a

variety of different organisations – between these dates. While the analysis of public

9. HOW COVERAGE OF PRESS REGULATION FAILED TO REFLECT PUBLIC OPINION


opinion data is often an inexact science, the high volume of comparable information

generated on the topic of press regulation means that it is possible to draw some

conclusions with confidence.

Table 1 shows the full list of opinion polls that relate to press regulation since the

Leveson Inquiry was announced.1 The shaded area denotes the polls that were

published between 29th November 2012 and 29th November 2013. The polls that were

actually reported by the press (14 out of 24) during this period2 are in bold.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the emotive focus in much newspaper coverage of press

regulation, the volume of articles that referenced any aspect of public opinion on the

matter was minimal. Out of 2,047 total articles, just 33 (1.6%) contained any mention

of polling data. Two of those articles mentioned two polls simultaneously, meaning

there were 35 separate references to actual public opinion data. As Table 2 shows,

nine newspapers contained no reference to public opinion data, and the Guardian

accounted for over one-third of all references to polls, with 13 references.

Table 2: References to polls on press regulation in national newspapers

TitleNo. of

ReferencesPolls referenced

Sun 3 Free Speech Network (FSN) Nov ’12; FSN May ’13; Sun Oct ‘13

Daily Mirror 2 ITV/ComRes Nov ’12; FSN Oct ‘13

Sunday Express 2 Media Standards Trust (MST) Nov ’12; MST Jan ‘13

Daily Mail 4 MST Nov ’12 + Sun ‘Nov ’12; FSN Nov ’12; FSN Oct ‘13

Times 3 MST Jan ’13; Sunday Times Mar 24th ’13; FSN May ‘13

Sunday Times 3 Sunday Times Nov/Dec ’13 (x3)

Daily Telegraph 2 FSN May ’13; FSN Oct ‘13

Guardian 13

BBC/ComRes Nov ’12 (x2); MST Nov ’12 (x2); Sunday Times Nov/Dec

’12; MST Jan/Feb ’13; YouGov Mar 19th ’13 (x2); MST May ’13; FSN May

’13; MST July ’13; Sun Oct 13 + MST Oct 13

Observer 1 MST Jan/Feb ‘13

Independent 2 MST Jan/Feb ’13; MST July ‘13

1 Links to the full data of all polls listed in Table 1 can be found here: http://mediastandardstrust.org/blog/a-list-of-all-polls-on-press-regulation-published-since-may-2012/

2 Other polls were covered by the press (including the Hacked Off/YouGov poll of 3rd-6th Oct 2012, and the Free Speech Network/Survation poll of 12th-13th Nov 2012), but this coverage was published before the sampling for this project began on 29th November 2012.


Did newspaper coverage of press regulation reflect

public opinion?

Polling before publication of the Leveson Report

The four polls covered by the press that were conducted immediately prior to

the publication of the Leveson Report found that the public wanted tough press

regulation, that people were comfortable with legal backing for such a system, but

that they were also wary of any political involvement. Within these findings there

were considerable differences and some contradictions.

A Media Standards Trust/YouGov poll, conducted on 21st-23rd November 2012

(approximately one week before the publication of the Leveson Report), asked about

how the press should be regulated:

Which of the following statements comes closer to your view on how you think

newspapers in Britain should be regulated?

There should be an independent body, established by law, which deals with complaints

and decides what sanctions there should be if journalists break agreed codes of conduct:

79%

Newspapers should establish their own body which deals with complaints and decides

what sanctions there should be if journalists break agreed codes of conduct: 9%

Neither: 4%

Don’t know: 8%CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%

"Which of the following statements comes closer to your view on how you think newspapers in Britain should be

regulated?"

There should be an independent body,established by law, which deals withcomplaints and decides whatsanctions there should be if journalistsbreak agreed codes of conduct"

Newspapers should establish theirown body which deals withcomplaints and decides whatsanctions there should be if journalistsbreak agreed codes of conduct

Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%

"Do you think national newspapers should be allowed to opt out of any new regulatory system, or should all national newspapers

be obliged to join by law?"

Newspapers should be allowed to optout

Newspapers should be obliged to joinby law

Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Should implement therecommendations

Should not implement therecommendations

Don't know

"Generally speaking, do you think the government should or should not implement Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations?"

50%

13%

13%

24%

"Which Royal Charter do you think the Privy Council should approve?"

The one approved by Parliament

The one proposed by major newspaperpublishers

Neither

Don't know

There should be an independent

body, established by law, which

deals with complaints and decides

what sanctions there should be if

journalists break agreed codes of

conduct

Newspapers should establish

their own body which deals with

complaints and decides what

sanctions there should be if

journalists break agreed codes of

conduct

Neither

Don’t know

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Poll, 21st-23rd November 2012


Do you think national newspapers should be allowed to opt out of any new regulatory

system, or should all national newspapers be obliged to join by law?

Newspapers should be allowed to opt out: 8%

Newspapers should be obliged to join by law: 82%

Don’t know: 10%

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Poll, 21st-23rd November 2012

Polls conducted at the same time as the MST poll by ComRes for BBC Radio 5 Live

and ITV News both supported the claim that the public was in favour of a system of

regulation underpinned by law:

(For ITV News): In light of the Leveson Inquiry the Government should introduce

statutory regulation of the media:

Agree: 51%

Disagree: 20%

Don’t know: 30%

(For BBC Radio 5 Live): Who would you most like to see regulate newspapers in

Britain?

A regulatory body with rules agreed and enforced by newspaper owners: 12%

A regulatory body with rules agreed and enforced by the courts: 47%

Something else: 33%

Don’t know: 8%

The balance of these three results prior to the publication of Leveson’s report

suggested that the public tended to support a solution that contained legal

underpinning of a new system, while being wary of direct political involvement. A

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know

Newspapers should be

allowed to opt out

Newspapers should be

obliged to join by law

Don’t know


subsequent Sunday Times/YouGov poll conducted immediately after the publication

of the Leveson Report (fieldwork was conducted on the 30th of November and 1st of

December) further supported this interpretation:

Do you believe there should or should not be new laws, passed by MPs, to encourage

newspapers to join this new system of regulation?

New laws should be passed by MPs to encourage newspapers to join this new system of

regulation: 58%

New laws should NOT be passed by MPs to encourage newspapers to join this new system

of regulation: 26%

Don’t know: 15%

Do you think MPs should or should not have a say in the design of the system of

independent regulation?

Yes, MPs should; it’s important for MPs to give the regulation a legal underpinning: 31%

No, MPs should not; the involvement of MPs in this way threatens the principles of a free

press: 52%

Don’t know: 16%

Again, the public tended to support legal underpinning, but preferred MPs to be

removed from the process of setting up a new regulator.

One poll, however, found results that appeared to conflict with the other four

commissioned at this time. A Sun/YouGov poll conducted on 4th-5th November 2012

found that the public were highly sceptical about the involvement of politicians

in the establishment of a press regulator. When asked who they would like to see

regulate the press, the response favoured the newspaper industry over MPs:

A regulatory body set up through law by Parliament, with rules agreed by MPs: 24%

A regulatory body set up through legally-binding contracts by the media industry, with

rules agreed by newspaper owners: 42%

Neither: 18%

Don’t know: 17%

At the same time, the Sun poll found the public were similarly sceptical of the role of

newspapers and journalists in a new system of press regulation: 63% claimed that

they would not trust ‘newspapers and journalists to set up a new system of press

regulation’. The Sun’s reporting of its poll omitted this result.

The differences between the Sun poll and the other polls, particularly that of the

MST, highlighted the effect of framing questions with certain phrases and language.

As YouGov Director Peter Kellner put it, in a blog comparing the results, ‘In short,

it is a matter of framing. We don’t like the idea of politicians curbing the freedom

of speech; but neither do we want editors and publishers remaining in charge of


regulation”.3 The Sun’s insertion of ‘Politicians’ and ‘MPs’ into questions, and the

MST’s use of ‘independent’ may have had an effect on how respondents answered.

However, beyond the public scepticism with newspapers and politicians, it is clear

that people wanted tough press regulation, did not see legal underpinning as a

problem, and were generally supportive of a Leveson-type solution.

Polling in early 2013

After a short break in polling, another MST/YouGov poll (31 Jan – 1 Feb) revisited the

question of legal underpinning, with a reworded question:

Thinking about the need to ensure independent and effective regulation of the

press, and the need to protect press freedom, which of the following best reflects

your view?

For press regulation to be effective and independent it needs to be backed up by a law:

52%

Any regulation of the press backed up by a law would risk the freedom of the press and

political interference: 23%

Neither: 8%

Don’t know: 16%

The poll also asked whether the public thought the Leveson recommendations

should be implemented. 74% thought they should be, while 9% thought they should

not. An early question about the use of Royal Charter, which was emerging at that

stage as a potential method of implementing Leveson, received lukewarm support:

35% said they would have confidence in such a scheme, while 48% said they would

not.

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Poll, 31st January – 1st February 2013

3 http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/11/28/leveson-what-public-really-want/

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know


On 11th March, YouGov re-ran some of the questions from the Sunday Times poll from

November/December, and found that the public still supported legal underpinning

(by 55% to 26%), and still thought MPs should not be involved in setting up a

regulator (53% against; 28% for).

Another Sunday Times/YouGov poll conducted three days later produced conflicting

results, although the wording of the statements used limits the validity of these

results. The poll offered respondents two statements that were not mutually

exclusive, the second of which contained two separate statements rather than one:

Which of these views comes closer to yours?

New laws should be passed by MPs to encourage newspapers to join this new system of

regulation: 38%

It is wrong in principle for politicians to pass laws that curb newspapers: MPs should not

get involved in any new system of regulation: 41%

Don’t know: 21%

The poll separately found relatively low support for setting up a new system via

Royal Charter, with 30% supporting the scheme, and opposition at 39% (13% because

it would limit press freedom; 26% because it would not be strict enough). The high

proportion (32%) of ‘don’t knows’ indicated low levels of public knowledge about

how a Royal Charter scheme would work.

Therefore whether the polling was by newspapers themselves or civil society

organisations, the results remained much the same. The public continued to

support the Leveson recommendations and would have much preferred them being

instituted via legislation rather than by Royal Charter.


Polling after the Cross-Party Charter

Immediately after the agreement of the Cross-Party Charter on March 18th 2013,

YouGov conducted its own poll to test opinion on the decision. 43% supported the

decision while 27% opposed it, although 30% were not sure. On whether there was

support for specific provisions of the Charter, the results were more definitive:

When newspapers print inaccurate statements, being told not just to publish a

correction but where to print them (e.g. so that a major front-page error has to be

corrected on a future front page)

Support: 81%

Oppose: 6%

Don’t know: 13%

Giving courts the power to impose much larger fines on newspapers found guilty of

libel, if they have chosen to stay out of the new system of regulation

Support: 70%

Oppose: 12%

Don’t know: 18%

Respondents also tended to disapprove of publishers choosing to remain outside the

system (43% against 25% who felt newspapers remaining outside would be standing

up for the principle of free speech). 32% were not sure.

This poll was followed two days later by another Sunday Times/YouGov survey that

asked more specific questions on the Cross-Party Charter. The results suggested that

the public supported the plan and, since the questions dealt with issues of political

interference and press freedom, they are worth reproducing at length:

Do you support or oppose the proposed new press regulation system?

Support: 52%

Oppose: 23%

Don’t know: 25%

Do you think the proposed new regulation system is or is not a threat to press

freedom?

Is a threat to press freedom: 27%

Is not a threat to press freedom: 53%

Don’t know: 20%

Do you think it is right or wrong that newspapers who choose not to join the new

regulator should face larger damages if they are taken to court over libel privacy or

other civil matters?


Right that newspapers who do not join the regulator face larger damaged: 55%

Wrong that newspapers who do not join the regulator face larger damages: 23%

Don’t know: 22%

Do you think the new system will or will not give politicians too much influence in

what news the papers report?

Will give politicians too much influence in what news the papers report: 31%

Will not give politicians too much influence in what news the papers report: 41%

Don’t know: 29%

The poll shows that, in the immediate aftermath of the passing of the Cross-Party

Charter at least, there was substantial support for the new system, and little feeling

among the public that press freedom was at risk. The specific provision on the

incentive of exemplary damages was, as noted in the 19th March YouGov poll,

generally supported. The Sunday Times did not publish the results of this poll.

Shortly after the Industry’s rival charter was launched in late April 2013, two opinion

polls were conducted simultaneously. The first to be published, by the Free Speech

Network/Survation, included a question that aimed to compare attitudes to the two

Charters:

Which of the following statements is closest to your opinion?

The new press regulation system should be set up in a way that gives politicians the final

say if and when changes need to be made: 15.8%

The new press regulation system should be set up in a way that does NOT give politicians

the final say if and when changes need to be made: 66.5%

Don’t know: 17.7%

This question raised concerns because it repeated the shortcomings of polls conducted

in November 2012 – the prominent inclusion of ‘politicians’ in the questions, and

the omission of any corresponding question on the role of newspaper publishers

in a hypothetical alternative system. In addition, it did not make clear how and

when politicians would have ‘the final say’. This poll result received comparatively

prominent coverage in several newspapers, but also attracted adverse commentary

for the nature of the question.4

A survey by the MST/YouGov conducted on the same day focused on public support

for the Industry Charter, and found low levels of confidence in the Industry Charter

(56% ‘Total No Confidence’ against 20% ‘Total Confidence’), and a perceived risk of

a repeat of unethical or illegal practices if the Industry Charter went ahead in place

of the Cross-Party Charter (73% ‘Total risk’; 9% ‘Total no risk’).

Some weeks later, In July 2013, another MST/YouGov poll asked respondents to

4 ‘Worthless opinion poll is beside the point – talk rather than scream’ Greenslade Blog (Guardian): http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/may/01/press-regulation-polls


distinguish between both Charters.

Which Royal Charter do you think the Privy Council should approve?

The one approved by Parliament: 50%

The one proposed by major newspaper publishers: 13%

Neither: 13%

Don’t know: 24%

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Poll, 17th-18th July 2013

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know

The one approved by

Parliament

The one proposed by major

newspaper publishers

Don’t know

Neither


Which of these two statements comes closest to your own view?

Newspaper publishers should accept the system of press regulation agreed by all three

main parties and Parliament, even if they object to it: 61%

Newspaper publishers should be allowed to set up their own system of press regulation if

they object to the system proposed by the parties and Parliament: 15%

Neither: 12%

Don’t know: 12%

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Poll, 17th-18th July 2013

Though the questions included references to publishers and to Parliament – issues

that have had an effect on respondents in past surveys, the addition of a ‘neither’

option allowed a route to register disapproval of both groups. Both results indicated

that the public was broadly in favour of the Cross-Party Charter.

Therefore the polling after the cross-party charter was approved showed the public,

while sceptical of the use of a Royal Charter, supported it in favour or an industry

alternative, and did not believe it represented an unacceptable threat to press

freedom.

Polling in late 2013

An ITV/ComRes poll in early October 2013 (published in the wake of the Daily

Mail’s article criticising the legacy of Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s father) invited

respondents to agree or disagree with the following statement concerning statutory

regulation:

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know

61% 15%

12%

12%

"Which of these two statements comes closest to your own view?"

Newspaper publishers should acceptthe system of press regulation agreedby all three main parties andParliament, even if they object to it

Newspaper publishers should beallowed to set up their own system ofpress regulation if they object to thesystem proposed by the parties andParliament

Neither

Don't know

86% 82%

73%

82% 79%

5% 6% 9% 8% 7%

0%

100%

21-23 Nov2012

31 Jan - 1 Feb2013

1-2 May 2013 17-18 July2013

9-10 Oct 2013

Polling Dates

"What risk, if any, do you think there is that there would be a repeat of unethical

and illegal practices (such as phone-hacking and intrusions into people's

private lives) that were revealed during the Leveson Inquiry?"

Total 'Risk'

Total 'No Risk'

73%

68%

56%

73%

15%

21%

20%

12%

0% 100%

A system of press regulation established by the major newspaper publishers, if that systemwas not reviewed independently (9-10 Oct 2013)

A system of press regulation established by the major newspaper publishers (17 - 18 July2013)

The alternative system proposed by newspaper publishers (1-2 May 2013)

A press regulator set up voluntarily by the newspapers, without any legal backing (31 Jan - 1Feb 2013)

"How much confidence would you have in…"

Total 'Confidence' Total 'No Confidence'

Newspaper publishers

should accept the system of

press regulation agreed by

all three main parties and

Parliament, even if they

object to it

Newspaper publishers

should be allowed to set up

their own system of press

regulation if they object to

the system proposed by the

parties and Parliament

Don’t know

Neither


The newspaper industry does not seem to have learned the lessons from the hacking

scandal and should face statutory regulation

Agree: 63%

Disagree: 16%

Don’t know: 21%

Another MST/YouGov poll in October 2013 asked whether the public agreed with

the decision of certain newspapers not to participate in the Cross-Party Charter’s

external recognition scheme for a new regulator:

How important, if at all, do you think it is that a new system of press self-regulation

is periodically reviewed by an independent commission?

Total important: 71%

Total not important: 14%

Don’t know: 15%

A similar question was subsequently asked in a Guardian/ICM poll two days later:

The Leveson Inquiry was set up to look into media ethics and journalism practices

following the News of the World phone hacking scandal. You may have seen or

heard about arguments about how to take its recommendations forward, with some

saying only self-regulation can protect free speech and others saying the industry

needs stronger regulation by outsiders. Which of the following do you agree with

more?

The press should get on with setting up its own regulator, without waiting for the state

to recognise it: 27%

The press need to be subjected to independent external regulation, underpinned by an

outside body – recognised by the state – to certify its work: 64%

Don’t know: 9%

Two days later, the Sun re-commissioned the questions it had set in November

2012, before the publication of the Leveson Report almost a year earlier. Again they

found that neither politicians (61% not trusted) nor newspapers (66% not trusted)

commanded public confidence. The Sun asked a variation of their previous question

on regulators:

Thinking about how the press are regulated in the future, who would you most like

to see regulate newspapers and the press?

A regulatory body set up through a Royal Charter, enforced by Parliament, with rules

agreed by MPs: 25%

A regulatory body set up through legally binding contracts by the media industry, with

rules agreed by newspaper owners: 40%

Neither: 19%

Don’t know: 16%


It is important to note that responses to this question may have been distorted by

two factual errors. The Royal Charter does not set up a regulatory body as stated in

the first option. Nor is it ‘enforced by Parliament’.

The Free Speech Network commissioned another Survation poll in late October,

which asked a variation of the same question, again including in the options the

determinative term ‘politician’, and excluding ‘newspapers’ and ‘press’:

Thinking about how the press should be regulated in the future, what kind of

regulatory body would you prefer to see regulate newspapers and the press?

A regulator overseen through a Royal Charter, with rules agreed by politicians: 20.2%

A regulator overseen through legal contracts, binding on the media industry, with rules

agreed by their publishers: 37.8%

Neither: 18.6%

Don’t know: 23.4%

Therefore polling in late 2013 tends to repeat the themes noted earlier in the year

– significant public support for the system of press regulation agreed in Parliament

in March 2013 (Guardian/ICM; MST/YouGov; ITV/ComRes), and wariness about the

role of ‘politicians’ (Free Speech Network/Survation; Sun/YouGov) when that specific

term is introduced into questions.

Tracking public opinion over the course of the analysis

As well as the questions listed above, the Media Standards Trust commissioned

two tracking questions several times between November 2012 and October 2013, to

measure change in public opinion on press regulation over time.

The first of these questions asked, after a context-specific preamble asking

respondents to consider a scenario in which the system of regulation proposed by

the newspaper industry went ahead in place of the one agreed in Parliament:5

5 E.g. In the MST/YouGov 1-2 May 2013 poll, the preamble stated “Imagine that the new system of press regulation agreed by Parliament did NOT go ahead, and instead the alternative system of press regulation proposed by the newspapers went ahead”.


“What risk, if any, do you think there is that there would be a repeat of

unethical and illegal practices (such as phone-hacking and intrusions into

people’s private lives”

Poll ‘Total Risk’ ‘Total No Risk’

MST/YouGov, 21-23 Nov 2012 86% 5%

MST/YouGov 31 Jan – 1 Feb 2013 82% 6%

MST/YouGov 1-2 May 2013 73% 9%

MST/YouGov 17-18 July 2013 82% 8%

MST/YouGov 9-10 Oct 2013 79% 7%

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Polls (multiple dates)

As the results indicate, there was little change over an 11-month period.

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know

61% 15%

12%

12%




Neither

Don't know

86% 82%

73%

82% 79%

5% 6% 9% 8% 7%

0%

100%

21-23 Nov2012

31 Jan - 1 Feb2013

1-2 May 2013 17-18 July2013

9-10 Oct 2013

Polling Dates




Total 'Risk'

Total 'No Risk'

73%

68%

56%

73%

15%

21%

20%

12%

0% 100%








The second, related, tracking question asked about public confidence in a system of

press self-regulation proposed by the newspaper industry:

“How much confidence would you have in...”‘Total

Confidence’

‘Total No

Confidence’

‘A press regulator set up voluntarily by the newspapers,

without any legal backing’ (31 Jan – 1 Feb 2013)12% 73%

‘The alternative system proposed by newspaper

publishers’ (1-2 May 2013)20% 56%

‘A system of press regulation established by the major

newspaper publishers’ (17-18 July 2013)21% 68%

‘A system of press regulation established by the major

newspaper publishers, if that system was not reviewed

independently’ (9-10 Oct 2013)

15% 73%

Source: Media Standards Trust/YouGov Polls (multiple dates)

These results indicate that, despite the increasingly hostile coverage of Leveson and

the Cross-Party Charter in the majority of newspapers, there was considerably less

support for the alternative systems proposed by the newspaper industry over the

course of the year. The lack of confidence in the press alternative increased after the

industry plans for IPSO were published in July.

The public also believed that the systems proposed by the industry carried a

substantial risk that there would be a return to the unethical and illegal practices

that made a public inquiry necessary in the first place.

It is always difficult to draw decisive conclusions from a range of different public

opinion polls, not least in a changing context and when the questions are subtly

different and surveys are conducted by different polling companies using different

CHART 1 CHART 2

CHART 3 CHART 4

79%

9%

4%

8%


regulated?"



Neither

Don't know

8%

82%

10%





Don't know

74%

9%

17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%



Don't know


50%

13%

13%

24%




Neither

Don't know

61% 15%

12%

12%




Neither

Don't know

86% 82%

73%

82% 79%

5% 6% 9% 8% 7%

0%

100%

21-23 Nov2012

31 Jan - 1 Feb2013

1-2 May 2013 17-18 July2013

9-10 Oct 2013

Polling Dates




Total 'Risk'

Total 'No Risk'

73%

68%

56%

73%

15%

21%

20%

12%

0% 100%







‘A press regulator set up voluntarily by the

newspapers, without any legal backing’ (31

Jan – 1 Feb 2013)

‘The alternative system proposed by

newspaper publishers’ (1-2 May 2013)

‘A system of press regulation established

by the major newspaper publishers’ (17-18

July 2013)

A system of press regulation established

by the major newspaper publishers, if that

system was not reviewed independently’

(9-10 Oct 2013)


methods.

At the very least, it can be concluded from this list of questions that, overall, public

opinion was supportive of Leveson’s recommendations and willing to see them

put into practice by Cross-Party Royal Charter (though would have preferred

legislation). At most, it can be said that the public strongly supported Leveson’s

recommendations, were in favour of legal underpinning of a new system, and –

though initially sceptical – were then broadly supportive of its implementation via

a Cross-Party Royal Charter.

The early polls prior to the publication of the Leveson Report tended to show a

substantial degree of public support for statutory underpinning, albeit with a

distrust of any system in which MPs would be directly involved.

Polls conducted immediately after the publication of Leveson and in early 2013

showed fairly steady support for statutory underpinning, at around twice the

level of opposition to the idea. After the agreement of the Cross-Party Charter the

principle of the scheme was generally supported, and the specific provisions of the

Charter received a high degree of support thereafter. In choices between the Cross-

Party Charter and the Industry Charter, a larger portion of the public supported the

former.

In October 2013 the principle of external, legally-underpinned recognition received

high levels of support in two polls, despite a high degree of negativity towards the

Cross-Party Charter in the majority of newspapers at that time. The remaining polls

in October 2013 revisited the public’s suspicion of direct political influence in a new

system of regulation, though factual errors raise questions about the legitimacy of

those results.

Given the previous analysis of press coverage of the Leveson Report and the Royal

Charter it is therefore clear that public opinion was not reflected in the national

press’ coverage of the Leveson report and its implementation.

It is relevant, too, that where pro-Leveson or pro-Cross-Party Charter results were

recorded in polls commissioned by newspapers, that this information was rarely

published.


Did newspapers’ coverage of press regulation reflect

the opinion of their own readers?

In addition to the general polling, four MST/YouGov polls surveyed a larger sample

that was then broken down by newspaper readership, allowing for comparisons

to be drawn between aggregate public opinion and the opinion of the various

newspaper readerships. In addition, some questions were directly targeted at those

respondents who self-identified as reading a particular daily newspaper in order to

measure their opinions directly.

MST/YouGov, November 2012

The poll in November 2012 asked whether respondents would prefer ‘an independent

body established by law’, against a body established by newspapers.6 Of five

newspapers, of which four (not including the Guardian) took a strong editorial stance

against statutory underpinning,7 the level of support among their readerships was

generally similar to the aggregate support. In other words, their editorial stance was

in direct opposition to the views of their readers.

‘There should be an independent body, established by

law, which deals with complaints and decides what

sanctions there should be in journalists break agreed

codes of conduct’

Aggregate 79%

Sun 74%

Daily Mail 81%

Times 77%

Daily Telegraph 76%

Guardian 90%

This conflict between editorial stance and the views of each newspaper’s readership

was also reflected in other questions in the same poll. For instance, when asked

whether newspapers should be allowed to opt out of a new regulatory system, or

whether they should be obliged to join by law, the aggregate support for obligatory

regulation was 82%. At the Sun (76%), Daily Mail (83%), Times (81%), Telegraph (82%)

and Guardian (92%), support among readers was similar:

6 In this section, all references to individual newspaper readerships are drawn from samples of over 100. Missing newspapers tended to have smaller samples for which the margin of error would make any results highly unreliable

7 As established in Part 1 of this analysis (pp19-23): http://mediastandardstrust.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/MST-Leveson-Analysis-090513-v2.pdf


‘Do you think national newspapers should be allowed to opt out of any

new regulatory system, or should all national newspapers be obliged to

join by law?’

‘Newspapers should

be allowed to opt

out’

‘Newspapers should

be obliged to join by

law’

Aggregate 8% 82%

Sun 10% 76%

Daily Mail 9% 83%

Times 14% 81%

Daily Telegraph 14% 82%

Guardian 3% 92%

MST/YouGov, May 2013

In May, shortly after sections of the newspaper industry announced that they did

not want to join the regulatory system set up by the Cross-Party Charter, the MST/

YouGov asked the following question to those respondents who identified as reading

a newspaper:

Imagine the new system of press regulation agreed by Parliament DID go ahead, but

some newspaper groups continued to oppose it and did not join the new regulator.

Thinking about the newspaper you tend to read the most, which of these statements

comes closest to your view?

I want the newspaper I read to join the new system of regulation and will be disappointed

if they don’t: 52%

I do not want the newspaper I read to join the new system of regulation and will be

disappointed if they do: 10%

I do not really mind either way: 28%

Don’t know: 11%

The results indicate that the proportion of newspaper readers who wanted their

favoured newspaper to join the Cross-Party Charter was considerably higher than

the proportion that did not. Results for specific newspapers showed a similar

outcome. Of Daily Mail readers, 50% wanted the Mail to join, against 12% who did

not. At the Daily Mirror, the figures were 49% to 12%, while at the Times (68% to 7%),

Daily Telegraph (58% to 14%) and the Guardian (67% to 10%) readers of those papers

were even more likely to support their paper joining the Cross-Party Charter system.

Only the Sun (33% to 12%) was substantially different, due to a considerably higher

proportion of readers who did not mind either way (40%):


“Imagine the new system of press regulation agreed by Parliament DID go ahead, but some

newspaper groups continued to oppose it and did not join the new regulator. Thinking about the

newspaper you tend to read the most, which of these statements comes closest to your view?”

Readership

‘I want the newspaper I read to

join the new system and will be

disappointed if they don’t’

‘I do not want the newspaper

I read to join the new system

of regulation and will be

disappointed if they do’

Aggregate 52% 10%

Daily Mail 50% 12%

Daily Mirror 49% 12%

Times 68% 7%


Guardian 67% 10%

Sun 33% 12%

MST/YouGov, July 2013

The question was repeated around eight weeks later, yielding the following response

overall:

I want the newspaper I read to join the new system of regulation and will be disappointed

if they don’t: 59%

I do not want the newspaper I read to join the new system of regulation and will be

disappointed if they do: 11%


Don’t know: 7%

Again, the balance is heavily in favour of publications joining, in direct contrast to

the critical coverage prevalent across most of the press at that stage. Broken down

by specific newspaper readership, the results show similar characteristics to those

in the May poll:


“Imagine the new system of press regulation agreed by Parliament DID go ahead, but some

newspaper groups continued to oppose it and did not join the new regulator. Thinking about the

newspaper you tend to read the most, which of these statements comes closest to your view?”

Readership








Aggregate 59% 11%

Daily Mail 56% 10%


Times 69% 5%


Guardian 79% 3%

Sun 45% 15%

The results are consistent: there is a considerably greater degree of support

among newspaper readers for their chosen paper to join the regulatory system

set up by Parliament. In most cases, the readers of newspapers which had spent

the intervening months publishing many articles containing strong and frequent

criticism of the Cross-Party Charter and strong and frequent praise for the Pressbof

Charter were more supportive of their chosen newspaper joining the former. Again,

there was in most cases no substantial deviation from the opinion of the public as

a whole.

Elsewhere in the poll, when respondents had been asked which of the two Charters

they thought should have been approved by the Privy Council, the results by

newspaper readership were as follows:

‘Which Royal Charter do you think the Privy Council should approve’

‘The one approved by

Parliament’

‘The one proposed by some

major newspaper publishers’

Aggregate (all respondents) 50% 13%

Daily Mail 48% 17%

Sun 38% 17%


Guardian 64% 4%

Times 55% 19%


Again, for all sets of newspaper readers support for joining the Cross-Party Charter

system significantly outweighed opposition to the move.


MST/YouGov, October 2013

The question on whether newspaper readers wanted their chosen paper to join the

Cross-Party Charter system was included again in a poll in the immediate aftermath

of the decision by the Privy Council to reject the Industry Charter. The results were

similar:

I want the newspaper I read to participate in this new system of regulation and will be

disappointed if they don’t: 56%

I do not want the newspaper I read to participate in this new system of regulation and

will be disappointed if they do: 7%


Don’t know: 8%

By newspaper readership, the results continued the pattern established in previous

polls:8

“Imagine the new system of press regulation based on the Cross-Party Royal Charter DID go

ahead, but some newspaper groups choose not to participate. Thinking about the newspaper you

tend to read the most, which of these statements comes closest to your view?”

Readership








Aggregate 56% 7%

Daily Mail 54% 6%

Daily Mirror 56% 5%


Guardian 66% 6%

Sun 40% 9%

When asked how important they thought it was that a new regulator was periodically

reviewed by an independent commission set up by a Royal Charter ‘agreed by the

main political parties and supported in Parliament’, the results were as follows:

8 The sample of Times readers was below 100, so results were not included here due to the increased margin of error


“The Royal Charter will set up a body to recognise and periodically review a new press self-

regulator, in order to check that it is working effectively on behalf of the public. Newspaper

publishers have indicated that they will not participate in the cross-party Charter and will set

up their own self-regulation scheme.

How important, if at all, do you think it is that a new system of press self-regulation is

periodically reviewed by an independent commission?”

Readership Total ‘Important’ Total ‘Not Important’

Aggregate 71% 14%

Daily Mail 71% 18%



Guardian 88% 5%

Sun 57% 24%

These views did not reflect those of their chosen newspapers at the time. Following

the rejection of the newspaper industry-proposed Charter just before this question

was posed to the public, the majority of newspapers strongly criticised the Cross-

Party Charter, which was consistently represented as a threat to press freedom.

The polls that separated out the answers by newspaper readers showed one trend

very consistently: the views of readers were, in most cases, very different from those

set out by their chosen newspaper. Newspapers themselves, when commissioning

polls, did not split their results by readership. Overall, there was a substantial

difference between the editorial lines of the UK national press towards Leveson and

the Cross-Party Charter system, and that of their readers.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this. First, newspapers did not fairly represent

the views of the general public towards the Leveson recommendations and the

Cross-Party Charter. Second, most newspapers did not fairly represent the views

of their own readers towards the Leveson recommendations and the Cross-Party

Charter.


Summary

• Overall public opinion tended to be at odds with the negative line a

majority of newspapers took on Leveson and the Cross-Party Charter.

The majority of the public, in most polls (even excluding those commissioned

by groups supportive of reform of press regulation) tended to be supportive

of legal underpinning, supportive of the Leveson recommendations, and

supportive of the Cross-Party Charter agreement reached in March, and of

its specific provisions. This was in contrast to the strongly negative coverage

of each of these issues in the national daily and Sunday press across the

whole period of study.

• Individual newspapers did not reflect the viewpoints of their

readership on matters of press regulation. Newspaper readerships

displayed considerable consistency in terms of their support for the

Leveson recommendations and Cross-Party Charter system. While there

was some variation between titles (e.g. Sun readers being less supportive

than other titles), each set of readers tended to be, by a ratio of at least

two-to-one, in favour of their paper joining the Cross-Party Charter system.

When surveyed on other aspects of regulatory reform, they supported legal

underpinning, supported the Cross-Party Charter over the Industry Charter,

and supported the Cross-Party Charter’s system of independent external

review of a new regulatory system.


The SunArticles: With frame(s): 141 Overall: 179

Tone:

Positive-only: 4

Negative-only: 116

Both: 21



Frames

Negative Positive






How Issues Were Framed TotalPos-only

Neg-only

Both Predominant Tone

Leveson Report 83 3 72 8 86.7% Negative

Cross-Party Charter 60 2 46 12 76.7% Negative

February 12th Draft Charter 10 7 1 2 70.0% Positive

Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 4 2 2 0 = Positive & Negative

Industry Charter 7 7 0 0 100% Positive

IPSO 3 3 0 0 100% Positive

Industry Charter Rejected 4 0 3 1 75.0% Negative

Cross-Party Charter sealed 2 0 1 1 = Negative & Both

Daily MirrorArticles: With frame(s): 78 Overall: 98

Tone:

Positive-only: 6

Negative-only: 52

Both: 20


Negative-to-positive ratio: 8.7 : 1

Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only






Industry Charter 8 6 2 0 75.0% Negative


Industry Charter Rejected 7 0 7 0 100% Negative

Cross-Party Charter sealed 3 0 2 1 66.7% Negative

APPENDIX 1: NEWSPAPER COVERAGE BREAKDOWN


Sunday MirrorArticles: With frame(s): 11 Overall: 13

Tone:

Positive-only: 4

Negative-only: 6

Both: 1



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only



Cross-Party Charter 6 3 2 1 50.0% Positive

February 12th Draft Charter 0 0 0 0 N/A

Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 0 0 0 0 N/A

Industry Charter 4 0 4 0 100% Negative

IPSO 0 0 0 0 N/A

Industry Charter Rejected 0 0 0 0 N/A

Cross-Party Charter sealed 1 1 0 0 100% Positive

PeopleArticles: With frame(s): 3 Overall: 5

Tone:

Positive-only: 0

Negative-only: 3

Both: 0

Percentage of articles ‘negative-only’: 100%

Negative-to-positive ratio: N/A

Frames

Negative Positive

Threat (with % prevalence): 3 (100%) Supports Leveson: 0






Neg-only


Leveson Report 2 0 2 0 100% Negative

Cross-Party Charter 2 0 2 0 100% Negative


Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 1 1 0 0 100% Positive

Industry Charter 0 0 0 0 N/A

IPSO 0 0 0 0 N/A


Cross-Party Charter sealed 0 0 0 0 N/A


Daily StarArticles: With frame(s): 12 Overall: 23

Tone:

Positive-only: 1

Negative-only: 9

Both: 2



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only






Industry Charter 2 1 1 0 = Positive & Negative

IPSO 0 0 0 0 N/A



Daily Star SundayArticles: With frame(s): 0 Overall: 1

Tone:

Positive-only: 0

Negative-only: 0

Both: 0

Percentage of articles ‘negative-only’: N/A

Negative-to-positive ratio: N/A

Frames

Negative Positive

Threat (with % prevalence): 0 Supports Leveson: 0






Neg-only


Leveson Report 0 0 0 0 N/A

Cross-Party Charter 0 0 0 0 N/A




IPSO 0 0 0 0 N/A




Daily ExpressArticles: With frame(s): 68 Overall: 94

Tone:

Positive-only: 9

Negative-only: 33

Both: 26



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 46 10 18 18 = Negative & Both


February 12th Draft Charter 1 1 0 0 100% Positive


Industry Charter 7 2 2 3 42.9% Both

IPSO 2 1 1 0 = Positive & Negative



Sunday ExpressArticles: With frame(s): 15 Overall: 16

Tone:

Positive-only: 6

Negative-only: 5

Both: 4



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 12 6 3 3 50% Positive


February 12th Draft Charter 3 1 2 0 66.7% Negative







Daily MailArticles: With frame(s): 200 Overall: 251

Tone:

Positive-only: 5

Negative-only: 169

Both: 26



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only





Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 2 0 0 2 100% Both

Industry Charter 12 10 0 2 83.3% Positive

IPSO 9 8 0 1 88.9% Positive


Cross-Party Charter sealed 4 0 2 2 = Negative & Both

Mail on SundayArticles: With frame(s): 31 Overall: 53

Tone:

Positive-only: 2

Negative-only: 25

Both: 4



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only











The TimesArticles: With frame(s): 137 Overall: 217

Tone:

Positive-only: 16

Negative-only: 83

Both: 37



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only





Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 2 0 1 1 = Negative & Both




Cross-Party Charter sealed 2 1 1 0 = Positive & Negative

Sunday TimesArticles: With frame(s): 45 Overall: 53

Tone:

Positive-only: 5

Negative-only: 30

Both: 10



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only









Cross-Party Charter sealed 3 0 2 1 66.7% Negative


Daily TelegraphArticles: With frame(s): 189 Overall: 270

Tone:

Positive-only: 20

Negative-only: 123

Both: 46



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only





Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 3 0 2 1 66.7% Negative




Cross-Party Charter sealed 2 0 2 0 100% Negative

Sunday TelegraphArticles: With frame(s): 30 Overall: 33

Tone:

Positive-only: 3

Negative-only: 22

Both: 5



Frames

Negative Positive



Questions Legitimacy of Leveson: 2 Supports Charter: 1




Neg-only











GuardianArticles: With frame(s): 236 Overall: 403

Tone:

Positive-only: 86

Negative-only: 86

Both: 64



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 131 59 40 32 45.0% Positive


February 12th Draft Charter 29 4 11 14 48.3% Both

Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 3 0 1 2 66.7% Both

Industry Charter 22 5 12 5 54.5% Negative

IPSO 19 6 10 3 52.6% Negative



ObserverArticles: With frame(s): 48 Overall: 72

Tone:

Positive-only: 10

Negative-only: 26

Both: 12



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only




February 12th Draft Charter 3 1 2 0 66.7% Negative

Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 1 0 1 0 100% Negative






IndependentArticles: With frame(s): 97 Overall: 148

Tone:

Positive-only: 22

Negative-only: 19

Both: 56



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 52 18 13 21 40.4% Both

Cross-Party Charter 45 9 6 30 66.7% Both


Cameron ends Cross-Party talks 4 0 2 2 = Negative & Both

Industry Charter 9 1 3 5 55.6% Both

IPSO 5 2 0 3 60.0% Both

Industry Charter Rejected 2 1 1 0 = Positive & Negative

Cross-Party Charter sealed 1 0 0 1 100% Both

Independent on SundayArticles: With frame(s): 12 Overall: 21

N/A

Positive-only: 6

Negative-only: 2

Both: 4



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 8 3 2 3 = Positive & Both

Cross-Party Charter 5 4 1 0 80.0% Positive



Industry Charter 1 0 1 0 100% Negative


Industry Charter Rejected 2 1 1 0 = Positive & Negative



Financial TimesArticles: With frame(s): 69 Overall: 97

Tone:

Positive-only: 11

Negative-only: 25

Both: 33



Frames

Negative Positive







Neg-only


Leveson Report 41 6 14 21 51.2% Both





IPSO 3 0 1 2 66.7% Both

Industry Charter Rejected 2 1 1 0 =Positive & Negative

Cross-Party Charter sealed 3 0 1 2 66.7% Both


Date Publication Headline Tone Reason

29.11.12 Daily MailSilencing the cold call claim sharks

Pro-LevesonCompares Leveson Inquiry favourably against internal BBC investigation

29.11.12 Sun Freedom fight Anti-LevesonAnticipates Leveson recommendations on statute as a threat to free speech

30.11.12 GuardianLord Justice Leveson throws the ball back

BothGeneral support for Leveson Report recommendations; critical of certain specific recommendations, including Ofcom

30.11.12 Daily ExpressFreedom of the press must be used for good

BothSupport for the inception of the Leveson Inquiry; describes potential threats to free speech through political interference

30.11.12 Daily Mail Daily Mail Comments BothCritical of Ofcom recommendation, and questions legitimacy of conclusions. Threat to free speech cited. Some recommendations supported

30.11.12 Daily MailCrackdown that could stifle your right to know

Anti-Leveson“Draconian crackdown on the public’s right to know” – criticism of recommendations on ‘off-the-record briefings’ and press-police relations

30.11.12 Daily TelegraphLet us implement Leveson, without a press law

BothCriticises recommendation on statutory underpinning: “slippery slope to state meddling”; supportive of some recommendations

30.11.12 Times The Leveson Report BothSupports recommendations generally; critical of Ofcom recommendation, and potential threats to press freedom

30.11.12 Daily MirrorNo turning back if we cross the line

Anti-LevesonFocuses on perceived threat to press freedom throughout: “shackling the free press”, etc

30.11.12 Sun No to censors BothSupport of some Leveson recommendations; critical of statutory underpinning: “could bring in state control of newspapers”

30.11.12 Financial TimesLeveson’s lessons for Fleet Street

BothSupports some Leveson recommendations; criticises statutory underpinning (“licencing”) and of Ofcom recommendation

01.12.12 Daily MailPolitical class out of tune with the public

NoneMentions Leveson report in conjunction with criticism of BBC

01.12.12 Daily TelegraphImproving on the Leveson Report

BothSupports recommendations on arbitration, critical of others. Mentions potential threats to press freedom (“would hand ultimate control of the press to MPs”)

01.12.12 TimesWhen public trumps private

Anti-LevesonCritical of Data Protection recommendations; “press freedom at risk”; “chilling effect on investigative journalism”

01.12.12 IndependentThe press must show that statute is superfluous

Pro-Leveson Supports Leveson recommendations

02.12.12 Mail on SundayWe cheapen justice at a massive cost

Anti-LevesonHighly critical of Leveson Report (“backlash against a free press”; “unrealistic plans”; “illogical”, etc)

02.12.12Independent on Sunday

Only a free press is democratic

BothQualified general support for the conduct of the Leveson Inquiry, raises threat (“Rubicon”)

02.12.12 Observer

Newspapers must respond in a reasoned manner to Leveson’s proposals

BothGeneral support for Leveson recommendations; outlines potential threats to press freedom

02.12.12 Sunday ExpressLeveson shows how press can regain public respect

BothSupportive of Leveson (“a seminal moment for democracy”); critical of omissions and conclusions of report

02.12.12 Sunday TimesThe press has to fight for its freedom

BothClaims “there is much to commend in the Leveson Report”; multiple descriptions of perceived threats to press freedom

02.12.12Sunday Telegraph

The scandal that state control would have buried

BothVoices support for some Leveson recommendations; repeats threats to press freedom throughout

APPENDIX 2: ALL LEADER ARTICLES WITH CLASSIFICATIONS



03.12.12 GuardianTaking Leveson to heart

Pro-LevesonSupports Leveson recommendations; describes fact of industry opposition

04.12.12 Sun Sara’s right Anti-LevesonOutlines and supports campaigner’s opposition to the Leveson recommendations

05.12.12 Sun No Leveson law Anti-LevesonCritical of statutory underpinning (Scottish context); politicians “would relish the opportunity to decide what you can or can’t read in your newspapers”

07.12.12 Daily Telegraph Salmond’s press law Anti-Leveson(Scottish context): links Leveson to loss of press freedom (“the state would still monitor and invigilate the new regulator”)

08.12.12 Daily Mirror Net a chance NoneDescribes LJ Leveson’s subsequent public comments about the internet and regulation

11.12.12 Daily MailGrotesque legacy of censors who failed us

Anti-Leveson (Draft Bill)

Critical of perceived threats posed by Leveson report via Labour’s draft Bill (“would unravel liberties that have been Britons’ birthright for 300 years”)

11.12.12 Times The unnecessary BillAnti-Leveson (Draft Bill)

Claims statutory underpinning would be a restriction on press freedom

11.12.12 Daily Mirror Press pause Anti-Leveson Critical of statutory underpinning via Leveson/Draft Bill

13.12.12 Daily TelegraphA timely example of state interference

Anti-LevesonDraws explicit link between statutory underpinning and political interference in publication

13.12.12 Daily Mirror Our right to probe Anti-LevesonLinks Maria Miller expenses story to potential state interference in publication following Leveson recommendations

13.12.12 Sun Blood stains Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson recommendation on statutory underpinning as likely to “shackle a free press”

14.12.12 Sun Hands off Anti-LevesonLinks Maria Miller expenses story to justified rejection of Leveson recommendation on statutory underpinning

14.12.12 IndependentA silly warning that conveys a serious message

Anti-LevesonLinks Maria Miller expenses story to potential political interference after “state regulation of the press”

15.12.12 Sun Ludicrous, m’lud Anti-Leveson(Scottish context) Describes perceived threat to press freedom following the Leveson Report: “The real danger is a press muzzled by self-serving politicians”

16.12.12 Sunday TimesDirty Dick, saviour of ye printed word

Anti-Leveson Describes a “repressive, post-Leveson climate”

18.12.12 Daily MailShadow of fear over public’s right to know

Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson Inquiry as directly responsible for police restrictions on information

18.12.12 Sun Over the top Anti-LevesonLinks Leveson to potential criminalisation of whistleblowing

19.12.12 Daily TelegraphA sinister new twist in the Mitchell saga

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendation on off-the-record briefings, claims it will limit the flow of information

21.12.12 Times Three wise men BothSupport for some Leveson recommendations and for speculative Royal Charter Draft; describes statutory underpinning as a threat to press freedom

06.01.13 Sunday MirrorVictories for the press… and the people too

Anti-LevesonDismisses the Leveson Inquiry as a means for critics of the press to attack the industry

09.01.13 Sun Gag’s no joke Anti-LevesonExplicitly links the Leveson Inquiry to “attempts to stifle free speech” by a local council

23.01.13 Financial TimesBrussels’ oversight of regulators would be a retrograde step

NoneDescribes Leveson Inquiry in context of proposed EU regulatory changes



05.02.13 Sun Press for truth Anti-LevesonDescribes potential underpinning as “a Leveson law to muzzle the press”

07.02.13 Daily TelegraphLeveson and the Lords

None About Lords amendments to legislation related to Leveson

08.02.13 Daily MailThe Tories hang the police and Press out to dry…

Anti-LevesonDescribes Inquiry conclusions as pre-ordained, describes Leveson as a threat to press freedom and end to “400 years” of a free press

10.02.13 Sunday TimesLords a-leaping to gag the press

Anti-LevesonMultiple descriptions of threats to press freedom: “gag the press”; “death knell for press freedom”, etc.

13.02.13 GuardianFrom Beaverbrook to Blackadder

NoneContains arguments for and against Feb 12th Charter draft; no focus on Leveson or Cross-Party Charter

13.02.13 Times The fine printAnti-Leveson (Pro Feb 12th Charter)

Critical of Leveson’s “flawed” report; supportive of Feb 12th Charter draft; describes Leveson as a “vehicle for politicians… to impose regulation and obligations on the press”

13.02.13 IndependentThe least worst option for the British press

NoneGeneral support for Feb 12th Charter, with criticism of certain provisions. No focus on Leveson or Cross-Party Charter

13.02.13 Financial TimesPerils of press laws and Royal Charters

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendations, which would have led to “statutory control”

14.02.13 Daily MailLeveson and a gag on whistleblowers

Anti-Leveson“It is impossible to overstate the Leveson report’s chilling effect on the public’s right to know”

15.02.13 Daily Telegraph A new press regulator Anti-LevesonClaims Leveson would be the “first statutory controls on the press for more than 300 years”; supports Feb 12th Royal Charter draft

18.02.13 Daily MailA Lib-Lab pact based on the politics of envy

Anti-LevesonMisrepresentation of Leveson recommendation on whistleblowers; links to future restrictions on information

21.02.13 Daily MailAnd still the man with no shame won’t go

Anti-Leveson“[T]he truly chilling effect of the Leveson Inquiry on the public’s 21right to know”

21.02.13 Daily TelegraphPutting self-interest ahead of press freedom

Anti-LevesonCritical of certain Leveson recommendations; describes “a chilling effect on investigative journalism”

22.02.13 Daily MailCulture of secrecy is killing trust in NHS

Anti-LevesonCritical of (misrepresented) Leveson recommendation on whistleblowing

22.02.13 TimesStatutes against liberty

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendation regarding the Police and Criminal Evidence Act

23.02.13 GuardianLeveson and libel: another fine mess

BothGeneral support for Leveson recommendations; critical of Leveson recommendations on exemplary damages; criticism of Feb 12th Charter Draft

23.02.13 Daily Mail Daily Mail Comment Anti-Leveson“No true liberal would support the Leveson proposals to shackle free speech”; claims that Leveson will be used by politicians to stifle criticism

24.02.13 Sunday TimesLibel law of diminishing returns

Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson recommendations (through draft Bill amendments) as “state regulation of the press”

02.03.13 Times The price of cynicism NoneMentions Leveson in relation to Lords Amendments to Defamation Bill

07.03.13 IndependentLord Puttnam’s libel folly

Both Outlines arguments for and against statutory underpinning

12.03.13 GuardianA public inquiry demands a public debate

BothContains arguments for and against clauses of various iterations of Royal Charters

12.03.13 IndependentTime for the media to find a compromise

BothIn favour of statutory underpinning for a new regulator, but critical of Leveson recommendations on Ofcom and potential “chilling effect on free speech”



12.03.13 Financial TimesTime for sensible press compromise

BothQualified support for statutory underpinning through modification of Feb 12th Royal Charter

14.03.13 Daily MailNow disinfect all the other public services

Anti-Leveson

Critical of Leveson recommendations, and raises threat to press freedom: “The fact is that since the Leveson Inquiry… transparency has been under chilling threat in Britain”

15.03.13 GuardianLeveson vote: some way from resolution

BothClaims Leveson report “plainly not insane”; indicates paper’s stance against certain Leveson recommendations

15.03.13 Daily ExpressFreedom of the press is a benchmark of our liberty

Anti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes draft Cross-Party Charter as Labour “pushing for draconian controls on the press”; supports Feb 12th Charter

15.03.13 Daily MailA tawdry alliance and a threat to a free press


Support for Feb 12th Charter; criticism of draft Labour/Lib Dem Charter as a threat to press freedom

15.03.13 Daily TelegraphParliament must support a free press

Anti-LevesonClaims “press will be less free than it is now” under Leveson proposals; “despots around the world will be delighted”; supports Feb 12th Charter

15.03.13 TimesUnwise and unnecessary


Against draft Labour/Lib Dem Charter due to Leveson recommendation on statutory underpinning that will “interfere with freedom of speech”; supports Feb 12th Charter

15.03.13 Sun Day of destinyAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes Leveson statutory underpinning recommendation as a choice to “end centuries of free speech and open the door to State supervision of newspapers”

15.03.13 IndependentAn end to Leveson within sight at last

BothSupport for statutory underpinning, describes positive and negative interpretations of Cameron’s decision to suspend cross-party talks

16.03.13 Daily MailDefy the zealots and defend liberty


Multiple descriptions of perceived threats to press freedom, which is described as “in grave and imminent danger”; supports Feb 12th Charter

16.03.13 Sun Read & Rights Anti-Leveson(Scottish context): describes Scottish interpretation of Leveson report as “a death warrant for a free Press in Scotland”; supports Feb 12th Charter

16.03.13 Sun Wish GrantedAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Claims that “Press freedom – that ancient, crucial ingredient of our democracy [is] now in grave, imminent peril” due to Cross-Party draft Charter; supports Feb 12th Charter

17.03.13 Mail on SundayThe Mail on Sunday Comment


Repeated raising of perceived threats to press freedom as a result of the draft Cross-Party Charter

17.03.13 ObserverAfter Leveson, let’s put hysteria and mistrust behind us

BothSupportive of certain aspects of draft Cross-Party Charter, but notes potential downsides of statutory underpinning

17.03.13 Sunday TimesDon’t give up on press freedom now

Anti-Cross-Party Charter (pro-Feb 12th Charter)

Repeated description of perceived threats to press freedom (“slippery slope towards political control of the press”); supports Feb 12th Charter


Regulating the press by statute is the first step to censorship

Both

Supportive of implementation of certain Leveson recommendations via Cross-Party Draft Charter; describes perceived threats to press freedom as a result of statutory underpinning

18.03.13 GuardianLeveson vote: no cause for hyperventilating

BothCovers arguments for and against Cross-Party and Feb 12th Charters, as well as the Leveson recommendations

18.03.13 Daily MailDon’t sacrifice our hard-won freedoms


Describes Cross-Party draft Charter as representing a potential loss of freedom of expression; supports Feb 12th Charter

18.03.13 Daily TelegraphA muzzled media will make victims of us all


Describes draft Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom

18.03.13 Times Paper chaseAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Cross-Party Charter described as representing a loss of press freedom; support for Feb 12th Charter

18.03.13 SunFree speech and revenge


Claims that the passing of the Cross-Party Charter in Parliament would result in “shackling free speech”, and represents “scrapped Press freedom”



18.03.13 IndependentA Royal Charter alone will not restore trust

Both Supportive of Charter backed by statute; lists arguments against state interference by other voices

18.03.13 Financial TimesRoyal Charter must guide, not dictate


Critical of Charter process and links forthcoming Charter to a potential threat to press freedom

19.03.13 Guardian A good deal on paperPro-Cross-Party Charter

Qualified support for Cross-Party Charter

19.03.13 Daily Mail Daily Mail CommentAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Multiple representation of perceived threats to press freedom (“political interference in British newspapers”, etc.)

19.03.13 Daily TelegraphMPs cross the Rubicon on press regulation


Equates Cross-Party Charter with a “Rubicon” and “inimical to a free press”

19.03.13 Times Across the RubiconAnti-Leveson; Anti-Cross-Party Charter

Critical of specific provisions of Cross-Party Charter, as well as perceived threat of Parliamentary interference; critical of Leveson Report

19.03.13 Sun Wait and freeAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Critical of the nature of the Cross-Party Charter process; incorrectly claims “Orwellian” Charter creates a regulator

19.03.13 IndependentA Leveson deal worth backing

Pro-Cross-Party Charter

Supportive of Cross-Party Charter

19.03.13 Financial Times Turning the pagePro-Cross-Party Charter

Qualified support for Cross-Party Charter

20.03.13 Daily MailAnother betrayal of stay-at-home mothers


Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom, being based on “late-night talks on crushing Press freedom”

21.03.13 Sun Don’t fudge itAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Described Cross-Party Charter as a “sinister new press law”, designed “to nobble newspapers”

21.03.13 IndependentStill work to be done on Leveson

BothCritical of certain provisions of Cross-Party Charter (exemplary damages and arbitration free of charge); supportive in general of Charter

23.03.13 Times The right to offendAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Claims International disapproval of Cross-Party Charter; criticism of process of agreement of Charter

23.03.13 Daily Mirror Gag falls flatAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “illiberal”, representing “shackles”

23.03.13 Sun Wrong againAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “Parliament’s destruction of 300 years of Press freedom”

23.03.13 Financial TimesA muddle may be as bad as a muzzle


Criticises “flawed” Charter

24.03.13 ObserverInstead of sensible reform, we now have a sloppy mess

BothCritical of the process of agreement over Cross-Party Charter; supportive of component on statutory underpinning

24.03.13 Sunday MirrorPress freedom in the balance


“British people risk losing the freedom of the press…”; “sleep-walking into the loss of a critical freedom”

24.03.13 Sunday TimesPress freedom: no longer made in Britain


Describes Cross-Party Charter as representing the loss of press freedom

26.03.13 IndependentLet’s get on and put press regulation into practice

BothSupportive of Cross-Party Charter generally; criticism of specific provisions (exemplary damages and cost of arbitration)

27.03.13 Times Back of the scrumAnti-Leveson; Anti-Cross-Party Charter

Claims the Leveson Inquiry was unnecessary; criticises Cross-Party Charter as a loss of free speech

06.04.13 Daily MailEnd this culture of welfarism and greed


Describes Cross-Party Charter as “a frighteningly illiberal system of statutory regulation which has been condemned across the free world”



08.04.13 Daily MailA chilling new threat to the right to know

Anti-LevesonCritical of (misrepresented) Leveson recommendation on whistleblowing; links Leveson to restrictions on information

11.04.13 Daily MailChilling spectre of a secret police force

Anti-Leveson“Lord Justice Leveson’s insidiously wrong-headed proposals to rein in the freedom of the Press”

11.04.13 Sun Secret society Anti-LevesonLinks Leveson recommendation on identification of arrests to “a nail in the coffin of freedom”

12.04.13 Times Shush moneyAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Links Cross-Party Charter to threatened press freedom

12.04.13 Sun Ed on the block Anti-LevesonDirectly links Leveson recommendation on arrest identification with the prevention of victims of sex attacks coming forward

13.04.13 Sun Press gag folly Anti-LevesonCritical of “short-sighted” Leveson recommendation on arrest identifications; describes “the campaign by Lord Justice Leveson… to silence the free Press”

15.04.13 Daily MailPress freedom is at risk from all sides

Anti-LevesonLeveson Inquiry linked to threatened Press freedom: “Leveson’s Inquiry has cast such a shadow over free expression”

15.04.13 Daily TelegraphSecret arrests would be an affront to justice

NoneDescribes Leveson’s recommendation on arrest identification, without comment

19.04.13 Daily MailHow can exposing the truth be a crime?

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendations on press-police relations

20.04.13 Daily MailLeveson and a very disturbing affair

Anti-LevesonQuestions legitimacy of Leveson’s “deeply flawed Inquiry”; describes report as a “sloppy piece of work”

21.04.13 Mail on SundayThis cult of secrecy will harm us all

Anti-Leveson“Since the Leveson Report dealt a severe blow to press freedom…”

21.04.13 Sun Brief encounterAnti-Leveson; Anti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as the end of “300 years of Press freedom”; questions legitimacy of Inquiry

22.04.13 Daily MailThe public interest in this ‘private’ affair

Anti-Leveson Links Leveson with “stifling free speech”

23.04.13 Times Your right to knowAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Cross-Party Charter described as encouraging “infringements of freedoms”; describes Leveson report as linked to threats to newspapers

25.04.13 Guardian More work ahead Pro-LevesonSupport for Leveson Inquiry and recommendations, in context of IPCC report on police and media relations

26.04.13 Times Turning the pageAnti-Cross-Party Charter; Pro-Industry Charter

Multiple criticisms of Cross-Party Charter

26.04.13 IndependentTwo Royal Charters, one big impasse

BothOutlines both potential support for Cross-Party Charter and for Industry Charter

26.04.13 Guardian Time for a ceasefire BothContains arguments for and against both Cross-Party and newspaper Industry Charters

26.04.13 Daily MailA truly independent regulator of the Press

Anti-Cross-Party; Pro-Industry Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “state-directed regulation of the Press”; fully supportive of Industry Charter

26.04.13 Daily MirrorThe key to a fair and free press

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-Industry Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “Instead of a free pres… we would have state regulation”; describes Industry Charter as “the answer to the question of newspaper regulation”

26.04.13 Daily TelegraphSelf-regulation that is tough but independent


Describes Cross-Party Charter as ending “300 years of Press freedom”; supportive of Industry Charter

26.04.13 Daily TelegraphA step forward for a responsible press


Cross-Party Charter “used to muzzle the media to the benefit of the powerful”; supports Industry Charter



27.04.13 Sun A new CharterAnti-Cross-Party Charter; Pro-Industry Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “an unworkable sambles that would destroy three centuries of Press freedom in Britain”

28.04.13 Sunday TimesA better way to regulate the Press

BothCritical of Cross-Party Charter and supportive of Industry Charter; offers qualified support for original Leveson recommendations


A step forward for a responsible press

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; Pro-Industry CHarter

Raises potential of regulation to “muzzle the press”; critical of Cross-Party Charter, supports Industry Charter

03.05.13 Daily MailCharging headlong towards a secret state

Anti-LevesonLeveson Inquiry described as “at the root of this insidious attack on openness and transparency

03.05.13 Daily Telegraph The right to know None Mentions Leveson in relation to Stuart Hall arrest

03.05.13 SunStand up for free speech

Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson as “the battering ram in a co-ordinated assault on free speech”

08.05.13 GuardianYou couldn’t make it up


Suggests that Cross-Party Royal Charter would be subject to political interference

12.05.13 Mail on Sunday‘Improvements’ shouldn’t cost lives, Minister


Critical of Cross-Party Charter and process of agreement; cites press support for Industry Charter

15.05.13 Daily MailPolice, secrecy and the legacy of Leveson


Describes Cross-Party Charter as a potential threat to public access to information

22.05.13 Daily TelegraphThe police should not be shielded from scrutiny

NoneMentions Leveson recommendations in relation to identification of arrests

22.05.13 Sun Secret Justice Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendations on arrest identification; describes Report as “flawed”; links Leveson with restricted public information

22.05.13 IndependentThe price we pay for open justice

NoneMentions Leveson in relation to press-police relations following the Inquiry

02.06.13 Sunday TimesHigh time to clean up the House of Lords

Anti-LevesonClaims that after Leveson it is risky to investigate the powerful

03.06.13 Daily MailIs this why politicians want to gag the press?


Links Leveson to attempts “to muzzle Britain’s free Press”

04.06.13 Daily MailGay marriage, peers and a vote of principle

Anti-LevesonClaims “post-Leveson, politicians increasingly think they have the right to tell the Press what it can print”

05.06.13 Sun Seize him now Anti-LevesonQuestions cost of Leveson Inquiry and the legitimacy of its conclusions, and describes it as an attempt “to muzzle the Press”

07.06.13 Sun Secrecy fails Anti-LevesonCriticises Leveson recommendations on press-police relations; describes “the chilling effect of Leveson’s report”

19.06.13 GuardianIn praise of… Michael Grade

NoneMentions Michael Grade as playing a possible role in resolving the Royal Charter dispute

21.06.13 Daily MailThe perils of lurching towards a secret State

Anti-LevesonLinks the Leveson Report with restrictions on public information

23.06.13 Sun Illegal eagle Anti-LevesonDescribes the Leveson Inquiry outcome as threatening “to destroy Britain’s free Press”

24.06.13 Daily MailLawyers, hacking and a conspiracy of silence

Anti-LevesonCriticises legitimacy of Leveson conclusions on corporate hacking: “Leveson knew what was going on, and decided to ignore it”

25.06.13 Sun Call Leveson Anti-LevesonClaims Leveson Inquiry “recommended new controls shackling newspapers”



25.06.13 IndependentOther hackers need scrutiny too

Anti-LevesonClaims narrowness of remit reduces the legitimacy of the Leveson Inquiry

26.06.13 TimesPublish and be damned

Anti-LevesonClaims that the Leveson Inquiry was the direct result of “politically and commercially-motivated campaigning and reporting”

26.06.13 Sun Secret police Anti-Leveson Describes Leveson Inquiry as “destroying” transparency

30.06.13 Mail on Sunday

Royal Charter set up by the Press is the ideal answer as Leveson fades away


Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “Wrongdoings of a minority of journalists have been used by politicians and celebrities as pretext for shackling a free press”; supports Industry Charter

05.07.13 GuardianHacking Scandal: Back in the Sun

NoneMentions Leveson Inquiry in relation to leaked Rupert Murdoch reporting

08.07.13 Daily Telegraph Right on Rt Hon NoneMentions Royal Charters in relation to Lord Prescott’s resignation from the Privy Council

09.07.13 Daily MailMiliband must show us who runs Labour

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-IPSO

Cross-Party Charter described as “plans to curb Press freedom”; supports new Industry regulator

10.07.13 Daily Telegraph A free pressAnti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-IPSO

Links Cross-Party Charter with state interference; supportive of IPSO

11.07.13 Times A big step forwardAnti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-IPSO

Supports IPSO, with reference to “protecting freedom of speech” against Cross-Party Charter

12.07.13 Daily MailMP’s pay and the peril of legislating in haste


Critical of Cross-Party Charter, described as “statutory Press regulation”

18.07.13 Financial TimesThe right answer to press regulation


Critical of March 18h Charter on arbitration and standards-setting; supports Industry Charter

20.07.13 Daily MailHacking, Hypocrisy and a flawed Inquiry

Anti-Leveson Questions legitimacy of “flawed” Inquiry

20.07.13 Daily MailCameron must stand by his pledge on porn

Anti-Leveson

Questions legitimacy of the Inquiry “led by appalling double standards” to “protect law firms, insurers and celebrities, while ruthlessly pursuing newspapers and journalists”

20.07.13 Sun Hack hypocrisy Anti-LevesonCritical of conduct of Leveson Inquiry (“contempt” for most witnesses) and decision to “choose to ignore” evidence of hacking

28.07.13 Sun Hugh there? NoneMentions Hacked Off and phone-hacking; no evaluation of press regulation

31.07.13 Sun This is our Britain Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson Report as “discredited”, and a leading to “life without press freedoms”

01.08.13 Daily MailHacking: why the silence of the Left

Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson Report as having “chilling implications for Press freedom”; criticises Leveson decision on SOCA report

01.08.13 Daily TelegraphThe hacking scandal goes beyond the press

Anti-Leveson Critical of “unsatisfactory” remit of the Leveson Inquiry

01.08.13 SunRiddle of who got screwed

NoneMentions Hacked Off and phone-hacking in relation to corporate hacking

06.08.13 Daily MailBritain must remain a rock to Gibraltar

Anti-LevesonCriticises remit of Leveson Inquiry, and decision on SOCA report

11.08.13 Mail on SundayThe hacking scandal that’s still growing

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson Inquiry remit: “focused far too narrowly”

25.08.13 Mail on SundayWhy won’t police reveal SOCA files?

NoneMentions Leveson in relation to corporate hacking revealed in SOCA report



04.09.13 Daily MailAfter 60 years, bring back Britain’s rights

Anti-LevesonDescribes Leveson’s report as a “draconian crackdown on the press”

08.09.13 Mail on SundayWeak leader in a trap of his own making

Anti-Leveson Describes “the flawed Leveson inquisition”

09.09.13 Daily MailA weak leader beaten by the union bullies

Anti-LevesonClaims the Leveson Inquiry “suppressed” the corporate hacking revealed in the SOCA report

10.09.13 Sun

This vomit-inducing article proves why journalists have to scrutinise politicians

None References Hacked Off in relation to Chris Huhne article

16.09.13 Daily TelegraphThe cost of libel reform

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendations on costs protection, describes as a threat to free press

17.09.13 Independent Fettering of the press None Mentions Leveson Inquiry in relation to libel reform

26.09.13 Daily MailThe sensible solution to overpriced energy

Anti-Leveson

Links Leveson Report to political interference in the press: “after the Leveson Inquiry, MPs are manoeuvring to impose political control on the Press after 400 years of freedom”

01.10.13 Daily MailAn evil legacy and why we won’t apologise


Claims Cross-Party Charter will be “a politically controlled body to oversee what papers are allowed to publish”

05.10.13 Daily TelegraphAn ominous threat to shackle our free press


Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom (“statutory control”); supportive of Industry Charter

06.10.13 ObserverMiliband, the Mail and the return of Leveson

None Mentions Leveson, contains no opinion or evaluation

06.10.13 Sunday TimesFreedom of speech: warts and all


Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “Slippery slope”; “end of 300 years of press freedom”; supports Industry Charter


Emotion has no place in press regulation


Support for Industry Charter; Critical of Cross-Party Charter – could be “used to muzzle the press”

09.10.13 Daily Telegraph A threat to freedom

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-Industry Charter; against rejection of Industry Charter by Privy Council

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “statutory press controls for the first time in 300 years”

09.10.13 Times Paper jam


Critical of Cross-Party Charter and recommendations; critical of the Privy Council rejection of the Industry Charter

09.10.13 Daily MirrorA dire day for freedom


Critical of Cross-Party Charter, described as a threat to press freedom; supportive of Industry Charter

09.10.13 Sun Hate campaignAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as a “historic subversion of democracy”, and “the first dangerous step towards state of Britain’s free Press”

09.10.13 Sun Freedom fightAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Cross-Party Charter as a means of bringing newspapers “to heel”; freedom of the Press “about to be binned”

11.10.13 Independent Stalemate BothSupportive of Cross-Party Charter in general; critical of process of agreement of Cross-Party Charter



12.10.13 Daily Mirror Charter of chainsAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Described dispute over Cross-Party Charter as “essentially about the principle of politicians interfering in newspapers”

13.10.13 Sunday ExpressFlawed Royal Charter will put our democracy at risk

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-IPSO; against rejection of Industry Charter

Critical of multiple aspects of Cross-Party Charter, including the potential for restrictions of press freedom (“an assault on free speech”); supports new Industry regulator

13.10.13 SunDon’t allow sleazy MPs to kill freedom


Describes Cross-Party Charter as representing the end of press freedom; supportive of Industry Charter

17.10.13 Daily MailRallying to fight for the cause of freedom


Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom: “deeply chilling implications of… efforts to impose statutory controls on the Press”

17.10.13 Times Pressing truthsAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Supports Minister’s opposition to Cross-Party Charter

17.10.13 Daily Mirror Royal doubts


Claims Cross-Party Charter equals “state control” of the press; critical of rejection of Industry Charter

17.10.13 Sun Throne it outAgainst Cross-Party Charter

Describes the Cross-Party Charter as “a politically-driven assault on the Press and on our democracy itself”; “ending three centuries of press freedom at the stroke of a pen”

18.10.13 Guardian Balancing actsAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter

19.10.13 Financial TimesA flawed blueprint for press regulation


Critical of Cross-Party Charter provisions on arbitration and control of standards code

25.10.13 Daily MailPrivy Council must not be above the law


Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “could bring an end to three centuries of Press freedom in this country”; support for new Industry regulator

25.10.13 Times Hacked Off BothSupportive of certain Leveson recommendations; critical of Cross-Party Charter; supports IPSO

29.10.13 GuardianA royal seal, with no deal


Critical of Cross-Party Charter, including potential for political interference

29.10.13 Independent Open judgement BothContains arguments for and against IPSO and the Cross-Party Charter

31.10.13 Daily MailA judicial farce and a dark day for freedom

Anti-Cross-Party Charter, against sealing of Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “dark day for freedom”; “far from independent”

31.10.13 Daily TelegraphThe fight goes on for press freedom

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; pro-Industry Charter; against rejection of Industry Charter by Privy Council; against sealing of Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom; critical of Privy Council decisions to seal Cross-Party Charter and to reject Industry Charter.

31.10.13 Times Pressing concernsAnti-Cross-Party Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter on multiple counts

31.10.13 Daily MirrorA dark day for freedom

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; against sealing of Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as a “death warrant for press freedom”

31.10.13 Sun No hidingAnti-Cross-Party Charter; against sealing of Charter

(Scottish context) Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom



01.11.13 Daily TelegraphWhy is Mrs Miller’s case dragging on and on?


Describes Cross-Party Charter as a threat to press freedom: “chilling effect that statutory regulation of the press might exert”

03.11.13 ObserverLet’s end this impasse on press regulation


Critical of Cross-PartyCharter, and lists Observer’s intention not to join; gives qualified support to IPSO

03.11.13 Sunday TimesNot a Charter for press freedom

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; against rejection of Industry Charter, against sealing of Cross-Party Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter: “The chilling effect on freedom of speech that comes from the proposal to establish political interference in the press”


Shadowy figures who would like to muzzle the press

Anti-Cross-Party Charter; Pro-IPSO, against sealing of Cross-Party Charter

Describes Cross-Party Charter as “muzzling [the] press”; support for IPSO

04.11.13 Daily Mirror Ditch stitch-up

Anti-Cross-Party Charter, pro-IPSO, against sealing of Cross-Party Charter

Critical of Cross-Party Charter (“state dictating for the first time in hundreds of years how newspapers operate”); supportive of IPSO

13.11.13 Daily MailMigration: Labour’s spectacular mistake


Critical of how Cross-Party Charter could supposedly be used to “silence all critical reporting”

26.11.13 Daily MailHow much lower can greedy City stoop?

Anti-LevesonCritical of Leveson recommendations on police-press relations


General Variables:• Date: Date of publication of article• Publisher: Publishing group

1. Northern & Shell2. DMG Media3. Trinity Mirror4. News UK5. Telegraph Media Group6. Guardian Media Group7. Pearson8. Independent Print Ltd

• Title: National newspaper title1. Sun2. Daily Mirror3. Daily Star4. Sunday Mirror5. Daily Star Sunday6. People7. Daily Express8. Sunday Express9. Daily Mail10. Mail on Sunday11. Times12. Sunday Times13. Daily Telegraph14. Sunday Telegraph15. Guardian16. Observer17. Independent18. Independent on Sunday19. Financial Times

• Sunday: Sunday Paper (0=No; 1=Yes)• Online only: Article only published online (0=No; 1=Yes)• Scottish: Scottish relevance only (0=No; 1=Yes)• Word count: No. of words in article• Category: Type of article

1. News2. Feature3. Leader4. Opinion

• Headline: Full headline of article• Guest: Guest column (0=No; 1=Yes)• Guest name: Name of guest columnist• Source identity (1-10): Name of source quoted in article (max. 10)• No. of sources: Number of sources in article

Tone Variables:• Has tone: Article contains one or more frames (0=No; 1=Yes)

APPENDIX 3: DATASET VARIABLE LIST


• Overall tone: (Based on frames)0. Negative-only1. Positive-only2. Both

• Tone (Leveson Report)(based on frames)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (February 12th Charter)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (Cameron’s Decision)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (Cross-Party Charter) (Based on frames)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (Industry Charter)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (IPSO)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (Rejection of Industry Charter)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

• Tone (Sealing of Cross-Party Charter)1. Negative-only2. Positive-only3. Both

Framing Variables:• Threat: threat to press freedom (0=No; 1=Yes)• Critique: Critique of Leveson recs/Cross-Party Charter provisions (0=No; 1=Yes)• Illegitimate: Questions legitimacy of Leveson Inquiry/Report (0=No; 1=Yes)• Supports Leveson: Support for Leveson Inquiry or Report(0=No; 1=Yes)• Supports Underpinning: Support for statutory underpinning (0=No; 1=Yes)• Supports Cross-Party Charter: Support for Cross-Party Charter (0=No; 1=Yes)• International: UK’s reputation damaged by Leveson/Charter• Critical of Process: Criticism of process of deciding Charter (March 17th) (0=No; 1=Yes)

Extra Variables:• Group attack: Contains attack on pro-Leveson/pro-Charter group(s) (0=No; 1=Yes)• Group support: Contains support for pro-Leveson/pro-Charter group(s) (0=No; 1=Yes)• Mentions Pressbof: Contains any specific mention of Pressbof (0=No; 1=Yes)• Mentions IPSO: Contains a specific mention of IPSO (0=No; 1=Yes)


• Mentions polling: Contains a mention of specific opinion polling data (0=No; 1=Yes)• Poll identity (if mentions polling): Specific poll mentioned

Explanatory variables:• Reason for framing decisions: Short explanation for choosing tone variables, based

on article text.• Reason for group attack decision: Short explanation for flagging article as containing

an attack on pro-Leveson/pro-Charter groups• Groups mentioned: List of any pro-Leveson/pro-Charter groups mentioned in article• Group description: Exact wording of description of pro-Leveson/pro-Charter groups

in article


This is a short coding guide that contains the following:

• A “checklist” outlining how to approach coding articles

• Some examples of the framing variables – what to watch out for

• A summary of dates and the contextual issues

• A summary of the special cases to watch out for

Coding Checklist

This is an example of how to approach the coding, which should help with the first

few cases, after which it should start to become more familiar. Briefly, the checklist

is:

1) Which, if any, of the contextual issues does the article refer to? (NB: this is

just a first scan – don’t mark something just because it’s mentioned)

2) Does the article contain evaluative statements or positions on these

contextual issues?

3) Are the viewpoints for each contextual issue positive or negative; does the

article contain both?

4) Which of the framing variables are present?

NB: In almost all cases, the treatment of a given contextual issue in an article will

be determined by the presence of one or more framing variables, but occasionally

general statements of support or criticism of (e.g.) IPSO may be present.

1) Which of the contextual issues does the article refer to?

This can be any combination of references to the seven contextual issues that the

project focuses on:

1. The Leveson Report and its recommendations

2. The First Royal Charter (the “Feb 12th Charter”)

3. Cameron’s decision to end cross-party talks (March 14th)

4. The cross-party Charter that was eventually sealed (the “Cross-Party

Charter”)

5. The rival Charter (the “Industry Charter”)

6. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO)

7. The decision to reject the Industry Charter

8. The decision to seal the Cross-Party Charter

Often, these are linked to the date the article was published, and sometimes it takes

a bit of analysis to work out which charter or decision is being referred to. Part 3 of

this document sets out a description of which dates each of the contextual issues is

relevant. It is important to read and understand these, as much of the newspaper

coverage assumes at least some familiarity with then-current events.

APPENDIX 4: PRESS REGULATION COVERAGE GUIDE FOR CODERS


Again, this should just be a check-through to orientate yourself to the first 10 or 20

articles; don’t code anything at this stage

2) Does the article contain evaluative statements or positions

on these contextual issues?

Not all articles contain a viewpoint. Many simply refer to a development regarding

press regulation (e.g. “the Privy Council is due to meet today to discuss…”). However,

the majority will contain some evaluation of one or more of the contextual issues.

These can be expressed in three ways, each of which is valid:

• Quotes: (either direct – “quoted” – or indirect) by sources, or – if a comment

piece – by the journalist writing

• Attributed opinions: Also very common are statements within articles

that an individual, group or political party has an opinion or position on

the issue. Commonly, this will be something like “newspaper groups have

rejected the Charter, which they feel threatens investigative journalism”, or

“most Conservatives reject statutory underpinning”

• Statements of fact: There may in some cases be a blurring of the line

between fact and comment. Watch out for statements like “Parliament will

today announce draconian measures that will introduce political controls

over the press for the first time”.

3) Which contextual events are referred to (with evaluation)

in each article, if any?

This is relatively self-explanatory, and is down to the coder’s interpretation. While

it should be linked to the consideration of which framing variables are present

(see below), an initial read-through of the article should give you a good idea of the

viewpoints expressed.

The different contextual issues are not mutually exclusive; an article

can contain references to one, two or more events. For example: an article

containing opposing quotes from sources both for and against the Leveson Report’s

recommendations would be coded like this:

Leveson Feb 12th RC CameronCross-

Party

Industry

RCIPSO Rejected Sealed

X

While an article which contains criticism of the Cross-Party Charter and support for

the Industry Charter and IPSO would look like this:

Leveson Feb 12th RC CameronCross-

Party

Industry

RCIPSO Rejected Sealed

X X X

As mentioned above, the purpose is not to count all the instances of variables

appearing, just to determine whether or not they appear.


Finally, it is important to check through to the end of the article – often a viewpoint

will be given in the very last paragraph, so an article that has contained nothing but

criticism of an issue may contain a supportive quote at the end.

4) Which of the framing variables are present?

Though linked to the contextual issues, the framing variables should be analysed

separately. Though almost all articles will contain one or more framing variables,

not all will. These will usually be:

• Articles in which no evaluative statement or viewpoint is included

• Articles that contain only positive and/or negative viewpoints on IPSO,

the Feb 12th charter, or the Industry Charter, but do not refer to Leveson

or the Cross-Party Charter (or threats to press freedom) – there are a

small number of these.

The framing variables are discussed in full below, but the brief list is:

“Negative” variables:

• Threat to press freedom

• Critique of recommendations (Leveson or Cross-Party Charter only)

• Questions the legitimacy of the Leveson Inquiry

• UK’s international reputation

• Criticism of the process of agreeing the Cross-Party Charter

“Positive” variables:

• Supports Leveson recommendations

• Supports statutory underpinning

• Supports Cross-Party Royal Charter

“Neutral” variable:

• Critical of use of Royal Charter in principle (not specifically about one

version of the Charter)


A guide to the framing variables – what to watch out for

Negative:

“Threat” – Often criticism of the Cross-Party Royal Charter or the Leveson

recommendations are framed as a threat to press freedom. In some cases this can

be nuanced; in others it is very obvious. The following phrases are common, and

each denotes the potential threat to press freedom:

• “shackles/shackle/shackled”

• “muzzled/muzzle”

• “chilling effect” (usually on investigative journalism)

• “political interference/political control”

• “controls on the press”; “statutory controls” – see also “critique” frame,

below

• “end of a free press/press freedom”

• “[end of/threat to] 300 years of press freedom”

• “politicians’ Charter”; “written by politicians”

Often, though, it may be down to your interpretation, but these should serve as a

guide

“Critique of Leveson recommendations or Cross-Party Charter provisions” –

This includes any reference to whether certain recommendations are bad or could

have a damaging effect. These are usually restricted to:

• Statutory underpinning, e.g. references to “new press laws”; “statutory

control”(in conjunction with “threat”); or the use of legislation

• The internet (usually criticism that Leveson didn’t focus enough on it)

• The Data Protection Act (DPA) (Leveson recommended that journalists

should not be able to hold information on private individuals indefinitely)

• Whistleblowing

• “Secret arrests”

• Exemplary damages / court costs for newspapers outside an approved

regulator

• The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) – usually referred to regarding

journalist source protection.

Though this might seem complicated, the text of articles should be quite clear on

whether Leveson/Cross-Party Charter is being criticised or supported.

“Questions the Legitimacy of Leveson” – ONLY related to the Leveson Report/

Inquiry. Occasionally articles refer to flaws in the Inquiry or the report. They are

usually manifested in certain very specific ways:

• Leveson didn’t understand journalism/newspapers/tabloids

• The remit of the Leveson Inquiry was “too narrow”

• The Leveson Inquiry was a political/establishment stitch-up, and its

conclusions were pre-decided


• The Leveson Inquiry should never have happened (usually refers to it being

set up in a panic, or that everything it covered should have been dealt with

by existing laws)

Though there are specific triggers for this frame throughout the year:

• The alleged affair between lawyers involved in the Leveson Inquiry, though

the “legitimacy” frame should only be used if there is a direct link drawn

within the article between the affair and the compromised legitimacy of the

Inquiry

• The revelations of “blue-chip hacking”, and the related report by SOCA.

Occasionally it is stated that Leveson deliberately ignored the report, in

order to focus only on newspaper hacking

“UK’s International Reputation” – Any reference to either of two approximate

arguments:

• Britain will no longer set a good example for press freedom worldwide

• The decision to introduce Leveson/Cross-Party Charter will be copied by

undemocratic governments to crack down on their own journalists.

“Criticism of the process of agreeing the Cross-Party Charter” – any critical

reference specifically to the late-night meeting on March 17th, in which the text

of the Charter agreed the next day was finalised. Often referred to as a “stitch-up”;

“deal over pizzas” etc. Can be used in articles to criticise the Cross-Party Charter’s

legitimacy.

Positive:

“Supports Leveson recommendations” – Any statement in support of (a) the

Report as a whole, or (b) any of its recommendations. These will usually be

expressed as support for the need for legislation (statutory underpinning/new law/

new legislation), in which case the following will also be present:

“Supports statutory underpinning” – to be used in two contexts:

1) Specific support for the Leveson recommendation that a new regulator

should be underpinned by law (in which case “supports Leveson

recommendations” should also be coded)

2) General support for the need for statutory underpinning of any new

regulatory system, where specific reference to the Leveson report or the

Cross-Party Charter is not provided

“Supports Cross-Party Royal Charter” – as with “supports Leveson

recommendations”, but with the Cross-Party Charter. This means that it can also

similarly overlap with “supports statutory underpinning”

Neutral:

“Critical of the use of Royal Charter in principle” – Any reference that using a

Royal Charter in this area is a bad idea (where no specific Charter is referenced in


the statement). NB: Not to be confused with specific criticisms of the Cross-Party

Royal Charter, which is covered in the ‘Negative’ frames above)


Contextual issues – explanations and key dates

The Leveson Report: Published 29/11/2012, relevant throughout the entire

sample. The Leveson Report, and the Inquiry that created it, is the backdrop to

the entire analysis. Initially, almost all references to “Leveson” are to the report.

By March 2013 onwards, more of the analysis is of the Royal Charter(s), though the

coverage often returns to specific Leveson recommendations and opinion pieces

often refer back to Leveson.

The First Royal Charter (published on February 12th 2013), relevant from around

01/01/2013, to shortly after the Cross-Party Charter was decided. The first Royal

Charter was created by the Conservative Party in conjunction with the newspaper

industry. It was first announced in mid-December, and by January some details were

being announced. At that time, the main area of conflict between different parties

was whether there should be a Charter (Conservatives), or a new piece of legislation

(Labour, Lib Dems, supporters of the Leveson recommendations, including Hacked

Off).

Cameron’s decision to end talks (Relevant from 14th March 2013 to around

25th March 2013. NB: doesn’t exist before 14/3/13): On 14/03/2013, cross-party

talks on agreeing a Royal Charter were ended by Cameron (by this time all parties

had agreed on the use of a Charter, but were disagreeing on certain points (most

notably whether statutory underpinning was needed (Labour and Lib Dems) or

not (Conservatives). This led to a likely Commons vote on the following Monday

(March 18th), and a frantic few days as both sides tried to reach agreement behind

the scenes before a potentially embarrassing vote. After a week or so, his decision

was no longer relevant, although it did generate comment for a few days.

The Cross-Party Charter, agreed on March 18th (Relevant from 14th March 2013

Onwards): Besides the Leveson Report, this is by far the most common subject in all

the newspaper coverage. It is referred to from around 14th March (when Cameron’s

decision to end talks meant that the Labour/Lib Dem version of a Royal Charter

might be the chosen template) until the end of the sample period. The key to this

is working out when it is being referred to. It can be referred to as “the Leveson

Charter”, “the Hacked Off Charter”, “the politicians’ Charter”, etc.

The Rival/Industry/Pressbof Charter (25th April 2013 Onwards): This Charter was

written and submitted by the Press Standards Board of Finance (Pressbof) to the

Privy Council on 25th April 2013, and remained valid for the rest of the analysis.

It is almost always referred to as “the newspaper industry’s favoured Charter” or

“newspaper groups have drawn up their own royal charter”, or something similar.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) (8th July 2013 Onwards):

This replacement to the PCC was announced on 8th July 2013, and remained relevant

thereafter. It is almost always referred to be name, and should be straightforward to

code. NB: very occasionally articles can confuse IPSO (the regulator) with the

Industry’s Royal Charter. Where an article refers to something like “a tough

new system with the power to levy £1m fines” etc, make sure that it mentions


IPSO, otherwise it should be taken to be referring to the Industry Charter.

Articles may refer to both.

The decision to reject the Industry Charter (around 5th October 2013 Onwards):

The Privy Council rejected the Industry Charter on 8th October, but speculation of the

likely result began shortly before. This period saw an increase in analysis of both

the Cross-Party Charter and the Industry Charter, so articles that mentioned the

decision usually also referred to the different Charters

The decision to seal the Cross-Party Charter (30th October 2013 Onwards): The

Privy Council officially sealed the Charter agreed on March 18th on 30th October.

Contextual Issues to Avoid

There are two issues that may crop up in articles, and which may be relevant to the

discussions of press regulation, but which there is not the space or scope to measure

or analyse here. These are:

Draft “Leveson Bills”: Before Royal Charters entered the debate, there were four

attempts (between December 2012 and February 2013) to create “Leveson Bills”

intended to turn the report’s recommendation on statutory underpinning into law.

These Bills were:

1) The Conservative/Department for Culture, Media and Sport draft Bill

2) Labour’s draft Bill

3) Hacked Off’s draft Bill

4) Lord Anthony Lester’s draft Bill

In any articles where these Bills are referenced, code only those statements

relating to the Leveson report and its recommendations, most likely to be statutory

underpinning. For example, an argument in favour of legislation would be “support

for statutory underpinning”

The Puttnam and Skidelsky amendments in the House of Lords: In February and

March 2013, Lord Puttnam, and then Lord Skidelsky introduced amendments to the

Defamation Bill and the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill which would have

enshrined some of Leveson in law. This caused a parallel argument to the whole

Leveson/Royal Charter debate that brought a lot of discussion about defamation and

libel laws.

As with the “Draft Bill” articles, if you come across any of these, code only the

references to Leveson or Royal Charter recommendations.


To test the validity of the variables used in the analysis, Inter-Coder Reliability

(ICR) testing was carried out in April and May 2014. Two independent coders from

the LSE MSc Media and Communications Governance programme, with research

experience and knowledge of the subject area were engaged in a two-stage ICR test.1

Methods

Following a preliminary meeting and a practice coding session, each coder was

allocated approximately 100 cases each to code, ensuring that approximately 10%

of the total sample was independently analysed. Each coder was given a different

sample of cases, and comparisons were between the results produced by the relevant

coder, and those produced by the main project researcher.

Samples were chosen from the main database of 2,047 cases using an open-access

random-number generator,2 with duplicates removed and replaced by subsequent

generations.

Coders were then asked to record the presence of the following frames in the subset

of articles they were allocated, in order to replicate the analysis of ‘tone’ used

throughout the project.

‘Positive’ statements:

• Supportive of Leveson Recommendations: Any statement in support of

(a) the Leveson Report in general, or (b) any of its recommendations.

• Supportive of statutory underpinning of press regulation: either (a)

a statement in support specifically of the Leveson recommendation on

statutory underpinning; or (b) a general statement in support of statutory

underpinning for press regulation.

• Supportive of Royal Charter: Any statement in support of the Cross-Party

Charter, or its specific provisions.

‘Negative’ statements:

• Threat to press freedom: Any reference to either Leveson or any proposed

method of press regulation as a potential threat to press freedom, or to

freedom of expression.

• Criticism of Leveson recommendations/cross-party Royal Charter

provisions: Any critical reference to specific recommendations in the

Leveson Report, or to any of the provisions of the Cross-Party Royal Charter.

• Questions the Legitimacy of the Leveson Report: Critical references that

directly imply that the Leveson Inquiry or Report were flawed, corrupt,

or otherwise illegitimate (including conspiracy, narrowness of remit or

1 Special thanks to Anri van der Spuy and Anuradha Santhanam for help with coding

2 http://www.random.org/integers/

APPENDIX 5: INTER-CODER RELIABILITY (ICR) TESTING - METHODS AND RESULTS


expertise of the judge, misconception in setting-up of the Inquiry, waste of

public money).

• Damage to the UK’s international reputation: Any reference to either of

two approximate arguments: that Britain will no longer set a good example

for press freedom worldwide if Leveson or the Royal Charter system were

to be implemented; or, the implementation of Leveson or the Royal Charter

will be copied by undemocratic governments to crack down on journalists.

• Criticism of the process of agreeing the Royal Charter: Critical references

specifically to the process of agreeing the Royal Charter – references to the

“pizza deal”, “stitch-up”, etc.

Following the coding exercise, a follow-up meeting was conducted in order to

discuss any issues with the coding project. Problematic issues were addressed, and

uncertain cases were analysed and recoded, if necessary. Problems of coding arose

primarily in three areas:

• Uncertainty over context, and the various different iterations of Royal

Charters

• Occasional uncertainty about the difference between specific criticism of

the Cross-Party Charter, and general criticism of use of Royal Charters in

general

• The application of the “Leveson Inquiry legitimacy” variable

Where uncertainties of the first type arose, they were almost always resolved via

reference to the date of the article, for example references to the “Pressbof Charter”

could not have been made prior to the publication of that charter on 25th April.

Uncertainties of the second and third type were in most cases resolved by reference

to the coding instructions issued to coders prior to the exercise (See Appendix 4

for the full coding instructions). Where necessary, the coding instructions were

amended to ensure clarity. Resolutions of any cases were made only where factual

evidence was relevant; resolutions were not made on the basis of differences in

opinion between coders.

Results

Once the final results were collated, ICR scores were calculated using an open-source

reliability calculator.3

The list below shows the results for each variable, including the Percentage

Agreement between coders (i.e. how often the guest coder agreed with the main

researcher), and the Cohen’s Kappa score - a statistical measure of inter-coder

agreement, where values of over 0.8 (on a scale of -1 to 1) are generally agreed to

indicate very high level of agreement:

3 http://dfreelon.org/utils/recalfront/recal2/


Frame Percentage Agreement Cohen’s Kappa Score

Threat 91.6% 0.831

Criticism 94.1% 0.837

Legitimacy 98.0% 0.836

International 99.0% 0.936

Process 98.5% 0.895

Supports Leveson 96.1% 0.862

Supports Statutory Underpinning 97.5% 0.844

Supports Charter 98.0% 0.872

An Excel file containing all of the Inter-Coder Reliability data is available to the

public on the Media Standards Trust website.

King’s College London

Virginia Woolf Building

22 Kingsway

London

WC2B 6NR

0207 848 7930

[email protected]

www.mediastandardstrust.org

Media Standards Trust, Company Limited by Guarantee

Registered in England and Wales 05514310

Registered Charity 1113680

Date post:	28-Jul-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	4 times
Download:	0 times

Media Standards Trust - How Newspapers Covered …...MEDIA STANDARDS TRUST 3 CONTENTS 1. Executive...

Documents