WANTED: ESTATE MANAGERS
01WMANcito-r's Privacy Bill has had a pre- dictably hostile reception from the press, which it is tempting to dismiss as prejudiced and unfair. But, as editorial writers have pointed out, Lord Mancroft weakened his case by citing as examples recent allegations of 'intrusion' which were shown on inquiry to be distorted or exaggerated—such as the Munich Air Crash affair. His examples, too, concerned people in the public eye: and though everybody will sympa- thise with members of the Royal Family, particu- larly when they are pursued by as persistent a pack of newshounds as Princess Margaret was in Ireland recently, they are not really the people to whom this Bill is designed to give protection. The distinction between public and personal affairs is in any case impossible to draw accurately; if a law of this kind were passed it would mean a spate of tip-and-run actions, which litigious Jr crafty individuals take in the hope of persuading the newspaper concerned to buy them off. There may be a case for 'legislation to extend the bounds of action for trespass, but the subject needs to be handled with greater delicacy than it is in Lord Mancroft's Bill.
One suggestion which has been aired fairly frequently in the last few years is that if the Press Council were re-formed and provided with disciplinary powers, legislation along the Man- croft lines would become superfluous. In his article on a later page Jo Grimond cots farther. proposing a permanent press. rad o and IN Council 'with a far better secretariat than the present. Press Council and, if not entirely made up of laymen, at least with a lay majority The stock Fleet Street objection to th:s is that other professional bodiei, the lawyers and the doctors, manage to impose strict standards without lay assistance (or interference) in their councils; but the parallel is not exact. The medical and legal professions insist on high entrance qualifications and strict ethical observances, and because they are closed shops they can enforce them. The press is not, cannot be, and ought not to be a closed shop: the best reporters are often 'quacks' without training or qualifications—the idea of restricting entry to the products of Schools of Journalism would be greeted with derision. No council of journalists, therefore, can hope to have authority of the kind wielded by the Bar Council or the GMC; lay representation is essential.
We cannot, however, agree with Mr. Grimond in his suggestion that his all-embracing Com- munications Council, if established.' should also be encouraged to give financial to journals it believes to he deserving. A case can be made for private companies, or charitable trusts, subsidising individual journals, particularly those with a cultural bent—in the same way that Some companies have subsidised productions at the. Royal Court Theatre. But it is better that jour- nals of opinion should stand on their own feet; and in any case, a disciplinary council must have no favourites, let alone pensioners. It must feel free to criticise, all sections of the press,' which for obvious reasons it cannot do effectively if it has an interest in any of them, however deserving some may be.
The precise form which the new Press (or Communications) Council should take is some- thing that will have to be tonsidered in the light of the Shawcross Commission's Report; it is enough for the present to reiterate that some replacement for the present ineffectual body is overdue The Press Council has done some good by assuring publicity to cases which otherwise might never have come before the public eye; certain editors have become a little more cautious about the briefings their reporters are given. But the Council does not deserve the credit which some commentators have given it for clean- ing up the gossip columns; that particular stable was flushed out following Penelope Gilliatt's article in the Queen. What good the Council has done has been negative, in restraining excesses; it .has done nothing to make the brand image of the press any less unpopular.
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