MPs have rejected calls for statutory regulation of the press following the News of the World phone tapping affair but have accused some editors of becoming "complacent" about the excesses of their staff.
The Commons media select committee launched a review of the self-regulatory system that governs the press following the conviction of reporter Clive Goodman for listening in to hundreds of phone messages meant for the royal family's closest aides.
The affair led to calls for the case for statutory regulation to be re-examined. Tony Blair also hinted that statutory regulation may be a necessity as newspapers and broadcasting converged.But the report firmly ruled out fundamental changes to the self-regulatory system overseen by the Press Complaints Commission.
It said: "To dispense with the current form of self-regulation and to rely exclusively on the law would afford less protection rather than more, and any move towards a statutory regulator for the press would represent a very dangerous interference with the freedom of the press."
Nevertheless, it said, the image of the press had been damaged by the recent scandals and the reaction of the press to revelations by the information commissioner of the huge scale of the trade in personal data between private investigators and journalists was "complacent".
The committee's chairman, John Whittingdale, welcomed the introduction of more stringent controls by the News of the World following the departure of editor Andy Coulson, who took ultimate responsibility for Goodman's actions despite claiming to have no knowledge of them. But he added: "In that particular case, it was clear that Clive Goodman was given a pot of money and was left to use it as he saw fit without having to account for it. We found that to be a pretty strange practice."
