Jobs for the voyeurs

Not having a television or even decent radio reception until my new aerial is fitted next week, I get most of my news in snippets from the internet.  It seems that every site you wish to log on to carries snippets of news, except for the OU site - on which I should spend most of my day, and yet I manage to fill my time anywhere but there.

Currently many of these snippets are from the Leveson inquiry, the government's latest inquiry into media ethics.  A stated purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether self-regulation of the press works.  Are we not already in sufficient possession of facts to determine this?  An acne-ridden, mono-syllabic, teenage school-leaver with an IQ in double figures and a command of spelling only sufficient to master sending out the odd text to his fellow illiterates could even come to a decent conclusion to such a question.  Why do we need another public inquiry?

I object to this inquiry for three reasons: it is not the first such inquiry, and nobody truly responsible has yet been held culpable - unless we are to count the foam pie shoved into the face of Murdoch senior; secondly as well as questioning people with a genuine grievance, it gives more spotlight to those who would turn out for fridge openings if they thought there was a chance of their z-list profile being raised; lastly, and most importantly, the cost of these things is prohibitive, particularly when compared to the prospective benefits or lack thereof. 

Lord Bichard, who headed up the Soham inquiry, highlighted in 2010 how he had to bulldoze his recommendations into being taken up (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/15/public-inquiries-ignored-lord-bichard).  The government calls an inquiry.  The government appoints someone to head up the inquiry.  The government allows a considerable sum of our money to be spent on the inquiry (in the case of the Soham inquiry, around ten million pounds).  Why do all this to then ignore the recommendations put forward by the inquiry's report? 

We all watched Murdoch father and son claim to have no knowledge whatsoever of malpractice, bungs and bribery within their organisation, despite testimony to the contrary.  Action taken against them to date - none.  We saw MPs speak of their gratitude that the Murdochs deigned to appear at all.  Doesn't this suggest that such inquiries command absolutely no respect?

Lord Leveson is assisted by six advisers, one from Liberty, the human rights group, three former directors of media organisations, a former chairman of Ofcom and a former chief constable.  Out of those six, I count only one who isn't conflicted in some way.  An inquiry into whether the media should self-regulate by those who made a very comfortable living from a self-regulated media seems somewhat ridiculous. If Ofcom were effective, we wouldn't be having inquiry after inquiry into hacking scandals, and the police have already been implicated in providing media organisations with stories.  Frankly, having read the list, I am amazed that Lord Leveson didn't call on Rebekah Brooks to join him on the panel, or maybe he did and she was busy? 

At a time of severe economic hardship, why is the government wasting money on this inquiry?  The inquiry isn't to establish what happened, we know phones were hacked.  The inquiry isn't to establish who is responsible, Murdoch senior has already decided he will choose and has been selectively throwing former employees to the clawless, toothless lions.  The inquiry is merely to show us that something is being done, because all the media threw their headlines up in the air and cried 'something must be done'. 

If they really wished to do something effective, they would get a very big ruler, draw a very big line under the whole fiasco, and move on.  Nothing will change, however it won't cost us millions of pounds in achieving that nothing.