Nothing to fear?

NEWSPAPERS have nothing to fear from the regulatory Royal charter drawn up by the three main parties at Westminster according to shadow culture secretary, Harriet Harman.

So why, then, is there still so much resistance from the Fourth Estate to the proposal almost a year on from the published report following the Leveson Inquiry?

Leading the charge against, Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has claimed that the row last week between his paper and Labour leader Ed Miliband showed exactly why politicians should not be involved in press regulation.

Mr Dacre wrote in his own newspaper and in the Guardian: "Some have argued that last week's brouhaha shows the need for statutory press regulation. I would argue the opposite.

"The febrile heat, hatred, irrationality and prejudice provoked by last week's row reveals why politicians must not be allowed anywhere near press regulation."

Indeed, it could be added, perhaps slightly flippantly, that the consensus between the political parties is the perfect reason why the charter should be rejected.

Moreover, this is hardly a lone crusade by the Mail. Inevitably, the Murdoch-owned pair - the Sun and the Times - are against the plans... but then so is the left-wing daily, the Mirror.

The Telegraph and the Express are also opposed - and so, quite clearly, is the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop following his rant on the latest episode of Have I Got News For You.

The only notable outsiders are the Guardian, which is tentatively in support of the Royal charter, and the Independent, which wrote in an editorial: "To ignore the Royal charter would mock the very democracy the press claims to guard."

And the biggest problem for the press is that this is one of those seemingly rare occasions where the politicians are actually carrying out the will of the majority of the British public.

After all, it must be remembered exactly the context in which the whole debate on the future of the press began.

It began, of course, with the shocking revelations in July 2011 that the now-defunct News of the World had hacked the phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler.

Many other complainants had already come forward. The majority at first, like Hugh Grant and JK Rowling, were already in the public eye.

However, after the Dowler revelations, others then became aware that they had also been victims - and many of them, like the falsely-accused Christopher Jefferies, were categorically not.

Ever since, unsurprisingly, the tide of opinion has been against the newspaper industry. On this matter, it had effectively lost the moral high ground.

Yes, the newspapers can point out that the likes of Mr Grant and Mr Jefferies gained recourse in the courts within the existing legal framework - and, in suggesting statutory regulation, this was something which Sir Brian Leveson seemed to disregard far too easily.

But, whatever Mr Dacre and others claim, the above fact is exactly why the Prime Minister David Cameron insisted on a Royal charter, rather than a whole new set of laws.

In other words, the existing framework is generally accepted to work just fine - but there simply must be more done to make the press more accountable.

After all, none of what has actually been proposed would have prevented the Mail from publishing slurs about Mr Miliband's dead father or, more importantly, stories like the Telegraph uncovering the MPs' expenses scandal.

Happily, the draft proposals also include a vital opt-out for local and regional newspapers which even Sir Brian found to be rarely in the wrong.

And all of it is far superior to the rejected newspaper industry's alternative charter - which was frankly little more than a rehash of the failed and discredited Press Complaints Commission.

Quite predictably, there have already been howls of anguish that the proposed Royal charter is the end of the 'free press' as we know it.

This is a pretty bizarre assessment considering that much of the national media is so 'free' that it rests in the hands of just a few wealthy men...

And, sadly for journalism, the cliché that you should not believe everything you read in the papers is particularly true of the reporting of the Royal charter.

The proposals will be put to the Privy Council for final agreement on 30 October.