Speaking at the Society of Editors conference yesterday, Patten said it would be 'wrong-headed' to impose statutory regulation on the press
Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/PALord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, has backed self regulation of the press ahead of the opening of the Lord Leveson's inquiry into press standards today.
Addressing the Society of Editors conference last night, in a speech entitled "Ethics and journalism after the News of the World", Patten told the audience that the statutory regulation governing the broadcasting industry would not be appropriate for newspapers.
It would be "wrong to try and import a model of regulation from the broadcast media to the press," he said.
"Statutory regulation of the press would in my view be more than wrong-headed. It would pose a real danger to the public discourse that underpins our democracy. So the responsibility to ensure high standards of professionalism rests with journalists, their editors and their proprietors."
Patten acknowledged that he may be called to appear before the Leveson inquiry as a witness.
"If so, I hope I can make a convincing case that the sort of regulation that covers us is appropriate for broadcasters but would not work for newspapers."
Adding to other recent ideas – most notably from the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger – for reforming and enhancing self-regulation by the PCC, Patten suggested a form of Hippocratic Oath for journalists.
"To take a simple analogy, doctors have the Hippocratic Oath and we all understand what it means. The PCC Code is not understood or trusted in the same way. If it is to be replaced, are there some clear and simple principles that we could all look to as a guide for print journalists and editors in their work?
"Can you, as the leaders of the industry, develop some form of watermark to distinguish proper, ethical journalism from the mass of intrusive and unregulated material that is available elsewhere?
Self-regulation of the press will be one of the issues covered by the Leveson inquiry, beginning today at the Royal Court of Justice with a statement from the inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC.
Several national news organisations have been granted core participant status at the inquiry, including News International and Guardian Media Group, along with the Metropolitan police and nearly 50 individuals.
Witnesses are expected to begin giving evidence next week, on Monday 21 November.
Last week Leveson refused a request by the Crown Prosecution Service and Metropolitan police to be allowed to review evidence submitted to the inquiry and make decisions about what can and cannot be shared with participants or made public.
The CPS and Met police voiced concerns that in the course of the inquiry evidence may jeopardise future prosecutions and so would require police scrutiny.
Leveson acknowledged that there may be some "surprising omissions" from the list of witnesses due to their being police suspects in the case, but decided that he would be responsible for keeping up with the police investigation and deciding himself over any risk to future prosecutions.
Following allegations that his inquiry was overlooking the tabloid and regional press on both its panel and list of core participants, Leveson visited the newsrooms of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror last week, as well as regional title the Daily Echo in Southampton.
Patten also told the editors gathered for the conference that the BBC's commitment to impartiality constrained the broadcaster's journalism but was one of the main reasons it was able to win the trust of its audience.
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