Leveson Inquiry
22/5/19
The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial-led inquiry set up by the British Government to investigate the cultures, practices and ethics of the press in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that occurred at various media outlets throughout the 2000s. During the inquiry the public learned about the tricks of the journalistic trade, including in some cases literally making stuff up. Journalism of this nature is bad skepticism and is bad for the public.
The practices exposed by ex-EdSkeptics speaker Michael Marshall and journalist Rich Peppiatt show how thin the trust between the public and the press can be at times. It could be argued that we already knew what was going on - but hearing it at a judge-led inquiry seemed worse at the time as more and more information came out.
For a functioning society with an open field for the press to work there has to be a level playing field for everyone. As we saw a few days ago in a previous fact journalism as an industry suffers from many challenges that can affect its ability to perform that function. Good journalism, we feel, should be promoted by all skeptics.