Peter Charlton: Regional newspapers don’t hack phones: we serve and fight for our communities

IN more than 40 years’ experience in the regional press, I have not encountered any behaviour that remotely resembles the subterfuge and invasions of privacy revealed by the phone-hacking scandal.

I believe it important to make the point that a very different culture prevails in the regional press to that which has become apparent at certain national titles.

Put simply, we do not hack phones; we do not employ private investigators to dig dirt; we do not corrupt and bribe police officers; we do not engage in criminality to obtain details of private lives.

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These practices have never been a feature of regional journalism at any of the newspapers on which I have worked or edited.

Such unlawful and unethical behaviour is anathema to regional titles; it is not now, nor ever has been, part of our mindset. Nor is the obsession with celebrity gossip that was the driver for so much of the subterfuge at red-top titles part of our mindset.

The journalism of the regional press is honest journalism that is the product of honest endeavour and lawful means of inquiry.

Our stock-in-trade is thoroughness and transparency; the cultivation of contacts who can steer us towards a story that would otherwise have remained hidden, the careful and patient investigation of public records that can reveal financial scandal or wrongdoing, the intelligent use of Freedom of Information legislation to unearth issues, the frank and on-the-record questioning of those who appear in our columns. Allegations are put and responses requested. The subjects of our stories are fully aware of our interest in them; there is nothing covert or underhand in what we do.

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Honesty, fairness and balance are the principles that guide us. We are there to speak up for the communities we serve, and further serve them by exposing wrongdoing, malpractice or corruption in public life.

The Yorkshire Post bills itself as “Yorkshire’s national newspaper” because our agenda embraces both regional and national issues. We do not, however, view politics through the narrow prism of Westminster.

A key part of the newspaper’s agenda is to act as an advocate for the region we serve. We place a premium on campaigning and investigative journalism which, by its nature, involves extensive and detailed inquiries being made about issues that affect not onlyour readers but others, who would wish those issues to remain undisclosed.

Ethics should be central to the operation of a newspaper. My view on what this means in practice is that we should behave lawfully, honestly and with transparency at all times.

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The practices which prompted the formation of Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry do not, and never have, played any part in our journalism, and it would be grossly unfair – as well as a disservice to the communities we serve – if our ability to report fearlessly and with absolute integrity was compromised or hampered as a result.

The involvement of the regional press in the lives of the communities it serves is a key strength and also a safeguard against malpractice. All of us in the regional press live and work in the communities on which we report; we use the hospitals and schools about which we write stories, we pay our council taxes to the local authorities we hold to account, if we need the police we are seeking help from the forces that we periodically have occasion to criticise.

We are part of the community, both trusted servant and guardian, and that is the most effective regulation of all on our behaviour. We share the values of the communities we serve and our methods, material and presentation must at all times be acceptable to those communities.

Our communities reacted with abhorrence to the phone-hacking scandal; our readers told us so in their letters to us.

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We shared that abhorrence, and condemned these practices in our leader columns, not out of any desire to posture or pontificate, but simply because we were shocked at what was being done in the name of journalism.

I feared that when this scandal broke, all journalists would be tarred with the same brush; that the transgressions of a few would taint the reputation of the vastly overwhelming majority who behave with honesty and decency.

That is why I am at pains to stress that the regional press is different; we do not parachute reporters into areas where they will never tread again, cause mayhem and disappear. We are part of the fabric of the areas we serve.

I would like to make a point about self-regulation. There may have been failings in the performance of the Press Complaints Commission in relation to phone-hacking. But in overseeing the regional press, it has worked well. The regional press has embraced the spirit of the PCC’s code of conduct as well as its letter; we respond quickly, sensibly and fairly to complaints, making amends when mistakes occur and apologising where necessary.

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I do not believe that further regulation on the regional press is necessary.

Peter Charlton is Editor of the Yorkshire Post. He gave evidence yesterday to the Leveson Inquiry on the culture, ethics and practices of the press, of which this is an edited extract.