:00:09. > :00:12.Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, is the freedom of the press under
:00:12. > :00:14.threat? Public anger at the behaviour of
:00:14. > :00:17.some tabloid newspapers may be justified, but could the backlash
:00:17. > :00:22.put an end to the sort of investigative journalism that calls
:00:22. > :00:25.those in power to account? And if it's good enough for
:00:25. > :00:30.Barcelona and Bayern Munich, could Scottish football clubs be turned
:00:30. > :00:32.over to the communities which support them?
:00:32. > :00:35.Good evening. Falling revenues, competition from blogs and social
:00:35. > :00:39.media, increased resistance to freedom of information - there are
:00:39. > :00:43.many threats to the press as we know it. Evidence of hacking and
:00:43. > :00:45.paying policemen has been pretty unedifying. But is there now a
:00:45. > :00:55.danger that the Leveson Inquiry into the recent tabloid scandals
:00:55. > :01:01.
:01:01. > :01:06.could end up threatening legitimate The ongoing Leveson Inquiry has
:01:06. > :01:09.found some startling evidence of the extent of phone hacking at News
:01:09. > :01:13.International, but just as important are the signs of how the
:01:13. > :01:18.man in charge sees things. Leveson has suggested that more regulation
:01:18. > :01:22.of journalists and journalism will be necessary going forward. But as
:01:22. > :01:27.a same time, in the real world outside his inquiry, social media
:01:27. > :01:32.platforms like Twitter are consistently breaking down
:01:32. > :01:41.traditional barriers between the published world and private gossip.
:01:41. > :01:45.Sometimes, as in the case of Super injunctions, social media released
:01:45. > :01:55.facts which traditional news organs already knew but which they could
:01:55. > :01:57.
:01:57. > :02:00.In Scotland, recently there have been a number of revelations,
:02:00. > :02:06.starting with BBC Scotland and continuing with the Herald
:02:06. > :02:12.newspaper, about the contents of the Scottish criminal cases report
:02:12. > :02:19.into the Lockerbie bomb. The report, allegedly containing six grounds
:02:19. > :02:23.for suggesting a miscarriage of justice, remains unpublished.
:02:23. > :02:29.Scotland's political classes are well the report's contents, as are
:02:29. > :02:39.sections of the media. But the public are not. So I'll be at a
:02:39. > :02:43.
:02:43. > :02:45.tipping point where keeping it I'm joined now from Dundee by the
:02:45. > :02:53.former Information Commissioner for Scotland, Kevin Dunion, and from
:02:53. > :02:57.Edinburgh by the Herald's Iain Macwhirter.
:02:57. > :03:04.We should stress that Lord Leveson has not for me proposed anything.
:03:04. > :03:10.But should he propose some sort of statutory Liberation -- regulation
:03:10. > :03:14.of the press. Do you see any dangers in that?
:03:14. > :03:17.We see dangers of the state controlling a free press. But it is
:03:17. > :03:24.inevitable in the light of the revelations of the inquiry that
:03:24. > :03:29.some form of regulatory body policing standards to be adopted by
:03:29. > :03:34.the press will be necessary. The Press Complaints Commission was
:03:34. > :03:37.simply that, a complaints body. I remember when my counterpart in
:03:37. > :03:44.England drew to the attention of its chairman some of the egregious
:03:44. > :03:48.behaviour of the press. All that happened was the commission sent a
:03:48. > :03:54.note to the editors reminding them of their obligations. That is not
:03:54. > :04:01.good enough. Some form of regulation auditing the practices
:04:01. > :04:04.and conduct of the press and potentially fine in the press --
:04:04. > :04:13.fining the press is almost inevitable.
:04:13. > :04:17.Would you agree that there could be fined but also it could be a
:04:17. > :04:20.voluntary code? The idea is the press would have to
:04:20. > :04:27.sign up voluntarily to it. Of course, but then called into
:04:27. > :04:33.question all the other kinds of information disclosure,
:04:33. > :04:36.particularly blogs, which will not be part of this at all. The
:04:36. > :04:42.commission will then appoint a chair, but it will still be an
:04:42. > :04:49.independent body. It will not be influenced by government or elected.
:04:49. > :04:56.That kind of hybrid is on the cards. As a good hack, you see some
:04:56. > :05:01.dangers here. Absolutely. I pay tribute to Kevin
:05:01. > :05:05.Nunes for the work he has done for Freedom of Information in Scotland,
:05:05. > :05:12.but I think most of that work would be undone if we have this new form
:05:12. > :05:16.of brigadier to watchdog that his proposed by Lord Leveson. That very
:05:16. > :05:21.internal audit, which sounds so innocuous, in fact would kill off
:05:21. > :05:28.internal -- innovative journalism entirely. If the take the Herald
:05:28. > :05:32.this week, the report mentioned, securing a report like that
:05:32. > :05:35.requires a confidential, off the record briefings, all sorts of
:05:35. > :05:42.transactions with individuals who cannot allow themselves to be
:05:42. > :05:46.disclosed. It often involves technical law-breaking of Data
:05:46. > :05:50.Protection Act. The internal audit would have to be put in train as
:05:50. > :05:54.soon as an investigative story like that was begun and would kill it
:05:54. > :05:57.off immediately. We are sleepwalking into a form of
:05:57. > :06:01.regulation which would effectively kill for press freedom in this
:06:01. > :06:08.country. But isn't there a point in that?
:06:08. > :06:13.People are annoyed at some of the intrusive behaviour of the press.
:06:13. > :06:17.But the press has always been intrusive and arguably it is a
:06:17. > :06:23.price you pay for having the bits of the press which are good, which
:06:23. > :06:27.is doing genuine investigations. The point is if you try to close
:06:27. > :06:30.one bad bit of it, you close down the good bit as well.
:06:30. > :06:38.That is precisely the danger. I don't think we should use the
:06:39. > :06:43.excesses of the tabloid press down south in particular to allow the
:06:43. > :06:46.necessary free press and its investigations, particularly of
:06:46. > :06:52.rumblings, to be so fettered that it can't be carried out in a way
:06:52. > :06:56.that we fear. The Criminal Cases Review Commission report is a case
:06:56. > :07:01.in point. When I was the commissioner, I had to rule whether
:07:01. > :07:05.or not the board could be published. I had to find in a law that it
:07:05. > :07:09.simply could not. The law was explicit. Consent had not been
:07:09. > :07:13.given by all of the parties who were named in the report, and
:07:13. > :07:17.therefore there was a prohibition against the closure by the public
:07:17. > :07:20.authority. Everybody wants to see the report in the public domain.
:07:20. > :07:25.The government has got to pass another Act removing the need for
:07:25. > :07:31.consent. Even then, it is concerned that the Data Protection Act may
:07:31. > :07:35.prevent its disclosure. That very body you are proposing
:07:35. > :07:39.would prevent that being bought into the public domain.
:07:39. > :07:44.I don't think it would prevent it being bought into the public domain.
:07:44. > :07:49.But the point you are making, if it were brought into the public domain
:07:49. > :07:55.by the Data Protection Act... is how it happens.
:07:55. > :07:57.That is right. There is a defence of public interest for
:07:57. > :08:01.investigative journalism, which is not available to the public
:08:01. > :08:07.authorities for considering whether or not it will be sensitive
:08:07. > :08:11.personal data. That is one of the dilemmas we have got, is that the
:08:11. > :08:16.protection we afford to personal data is either too strong or too
:08:16. > :08:19.often used as a way of hiding behind the necessary information
:08:19. > :08:23.which should be in the public interest, but that is not an
:08:23. > :08:29.argument which is allowed into the domain under the terms of the Data
:08:29. > :08:33.Protection Act. I wanted touched on something else.
:08:33. > :08:38.The other thing that Lord Leveson has said, and we have to stress
:08:38. > :08:42.again, he is not making any formal disclosures, that social media
:08:42. > :08:47.should not be covered by this. As you were pointing out this morning,
:08:47. > :08:51.if something is out there on Twitter or Facebook, it is in
:08:51. > :08:56.effect in the public domain, and it seems ridiculous that other
:08:56. > :08:59.broadcasters like ourselves or newspapers like the one you work
:08:59. > :09:06.for are then supposed to pretend they don't know what everybody else
:09:06. > :09:10.knows. We are in a ridiculous situation.
:09:10. > :09:15.Earlier this year, there were those Super injunction preventing
:09:15. > :09:19.disclosure in the actual, real press when it was widespread
:09:19. > :09:23.knowledge because it was all over the internet. This is a real
:09:23. > :09:29.problem, and the why I worry about why -- what Lord Leveson is about
:09:29. > :09:35.to introduce. He says that Twitter, social media sides, don't need to
:09:35. > :09:38.be regulated because they are just like people chatting in a pub. That
:09:38. > :09:42.betrays naivety about how journalism works. As soon as those
:09:42. > :09:49.chats become brokers over the internet, they become used! That is
:09:49. > :09:56.what they are. It is another form of journalism. -- day become a news.
:09:56. > :09:59.It is not quality controlled by a paid professional to spend a light
:09:59. > :10:05.identifying truth and falsehood. They are just thrown onto the
:10:05. > :10:15.internet. We are going to have a press which can't do stories and a
:10:15. > :10:19.
:10:19. > :10:24.Even if you are a celebrity who does not want their name revealed,
:10:24. > :10:27.you are under a system of regulation and your name would be
:10:27. > :10:32.revealed under social media and that could not be regulated by your
:10:32. > :10:40.proposal. It is more likely to be revealed there than in traditional
:10:40. > :10:46.newspapers. So what you're suggesting, it does not actually do
:10:46. > :10:50.what it says on the 10th. That has always been the case. I remember
:10:50. > :10:55.back to the Spycatcher case when the UK Government tried to stop
:10:55. > :11:00.Peter Wright's book coming out. It took out a court order from
:11:00. > :11:05.preventing the press reporting on it. They forgot it could be
:11:05. > :11:11.published in Scotland which it was. It was also reported in Scotland.
:11:11. > :11:17.Scottish papers were taken into England. That was back in 1985 and
:11:17. > :11:21.it was a nonsense and it is more of a nonsense now. I am simply saying
:11:21. > :11:25.that regulation is going to be inevitable as a result of the
:11:25. > :11:29.Leveson Inquiry. I think that is going to be a code of conduct which
:11:29. > :11:36.will be regulated, not their heavy- handed Prevention of publication of
:11:36. > :11:40.articles. We are completely out of time, we have to leave it there.
:11:40. > :11:43.Thank you very much. There was a time when Scotland led
:11:43. > :11:46.the world in football innovation but that is a distant memory today.
:11:46. > :11:49.Clubs around the world have avoided financial ruin by embracing the
:11:49. > :11:51.concept of community ownership and fan involvement. Here only a
:11:51. > :11:55.handful have so far ventured into this territory. Tomorrow we find
:11:55. > :11:57.out who is bidding for Rangers - maybe they would be better off with
:11:57. > :12:07.the fans in charge. Derek Bateman, burdened with Hibernian
:12:07. > :12:10.
:12:10. > :12:15.affiliations, joins us from the Newsnight Sports studio. You join
:12:15. > :12:22.us tonight for the match of the millennium. Never before have these
:12:22. > :12:25.two sides come together, what it exclusively here on not --
:12:25. > :12:29.Newsnight Football Extra. Good evening. The big clash is between
:12:29. > :12:34.the clubs and the fans. I do not supposed to be at the same side?
:12:34. > :12:38.You would think so but most British for all clubs are run by businesses
:12:38. > :12:44.and the fans are Mia in accessories. It is not done that we in other
:12:44. > :12:48.countries. I went to find out why not. You only have to look at Ibrox
:12:48. > :12:55.to see the mess and old-fashioned club king get into when it is run
:12:55. > :13:02.by a millionaire. The or at Hearts as well. Here at Fir Park in
:13:02. > :13:07.Motherwell something else is going on. We're getting involved end the
:13:07. > :13:12.lives of people like football clubs have not done in the past. We have
:13:13. > :13:19.great learning opportunities here. People come here to get de-skilled.
:13:19. > :13:23.We have these courses. -- reached skilled. As a responsible football
:13:23. > :13:28.club, we have a social conscience and we need to be doing it.
:13:28. > :13:31.want more involvement of the fans in the running of the club?
:13:32. > :13:36.Absolutely. The biggest thing to happen to the club in recent
:13:37. > :13:42.history is the decision of our chairman to hand the club over to
:13:42. > :13:50.the fans. We look for a model which enable supporters to get more
:13:50. > :13:55.involved. We want to get involved. It is a new model. It is one which
:13:55. > :14:01.has not been tested to any great degree. It is something we're very
:14:01. > :14:07.excited about. Why don't all clubs do this? In Scotland only a handful
:14:07. > :14:17.have ventured into this territory. Some like 20 in England, the best-
:14:17. > :14:17.
:14:17. > :14:23.known is Wimbledon. Look abroad - Barcelona at is a club of the fans.
:14:23. > :14:28.It represents Catalonian culture. Its annual turnover is 400 million
:14:28. > :14:35.euros, it is owned and operated by club members, the supporters. Hard
:14:35. > :14:40.to argue it has not been successful - this is the trophy room. Then
:14:40. > :14:48.there is Germany where every club in the league has to be owned 51 %
:14:48. > :14:52.by the fans. The only exceptions are former work teams. The former
:14:52. > :14:57.will -- Volkswagen team for instance. Every club in Sweden is
:14:57. > :15:04.owned by fans and it is the same in Turkey. I think it is a matter of
:15:04. > :15:08.history. It has taken a long time when France actually got
:15:08. > :15:13.representation. Historically, clubs have been owned by big businesses.
:15:13. > :15:18.Why we give back control up? Especially if they have a stadium
:15:18. > :15:22.which is an asset. In the past we had seen stadiums get sold to Tesco
:15:22. > :15:27.on things like that, while relinquish control? It is a matter
:15:27. > :15:36.of realigning and getting to the position where clubs understand
:15:36. > :15:41.that the fan is a customer. They are loyal customers. We do help
:15:41. > :15:45.clubs to embed themselves in the community for its own sake? Should
:15:45. > :15:52.they make a contribution to the place they are based? I think that
:15:52. > :15:57.is key. All the clubs in Scotland and are embedded in the community.
:15:57. > :16:01.They are from that region and they are involved in community football.
:16:01. > :16:08.They are involved in health and welfare programmes. A lot of the
:16:08. > :16:16.things they do is not recognised. There should be more ways that
:16:16. > :16:24.football which is in decline, to try and make it more important.
:16:24. > :16:29.Supporters on the board and fan- zone shares - does that threat in
:16:29. > :16:34.the passion of the game? There is still passion about the game. We
:16:34. > :16:41.listen at board rival. There is a different approach here. The matter
:16:42. > :16:51.who would you club, the same absurd old tribal loyalties will carry on.
:16:51. > :16:58.Come on, heads! Back to you. A quick look at the newspapers for