Talk:Leveson Inquiry

List of Victims

How about listing them alphabetically? easier to read then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.243.5.146 (talk) 02:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I'll do that. I took the list from the Leveson Inquiry's document listing the victims, and that was the order they came in, but you're right, alphabetical might be better. Kaleeyed (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Holy shit - that is a lot of names! I can't believe this. Someone should go to jail for that. Any idea how many of those are U.S. citizens or whether or not any of this stuff happened in the U.S.? If so, perhaps a special notation can be placed by the name.

As far as I know all of these people are British citizens, and according to the current evidence most of the illegal activity happened on U.K. soil. The only activity possibly related to the U.S. is that Jude Law's assistant's phone may have been hacked on U.S. soil. James Desborough was arrested. Apart from that I can't think of anything else related to the U.S. People have already been arrested and Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman have gone to jail. I will be very surprised if more don't follow them. Kaleeyed (talk) 00:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, my earlier reply seems to have been lost, but never mind. You can read it if you view the history. A point that must be stressed is that the inquiry is not into phone hacking but press conduct, and the list of 'victims' contains people who have complained about press intrusion. Some appear to have had their phones hacked (though in many cases this is denied and evidence may be circumstantial) but the majority of the witnesses so far have complained of much more than that, and often phone interception was incidental to the published story, by disclosing where a person might be so the photographers could stake them out, or giving leads journalists might follow. Whether the information came out by phone interception or in some other way is not something the inquiry is seeking to determine in every case though the variety of methods used, eg blagging (lying or impersonating someone in order to obtain information), bribery, surveillance etc is important. There are also allegations of many other things such as deliberate fabrication of stories. The most important evidence from the victims will probably be on the impact on them, their family and acquaintances, and why the interests of the commercial media, and the desire of the public to read these stories, should not be the only consideration. If US citizens think that the only relevance to them is whether unlawful behaviour affected US citizens or took place on US soil they are mistaken. --AJHingston (talk) 10:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The inquiry is into culture, practice and ethics of the British press, but in terms of the scandal itself there is very probably direct relevance for the US. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14162545 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#2011_scandal Meerta (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Rulings section

A rulings section would be useful I think. There have already been rulings, these are detailed on the Leveson Inquiry website. If anyone would like to step in and do this feel free, or I will contribute something at a later date. Kaleeyed (talk) 03:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

References bookmarks

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/diary/diary-guido-fawkes-evidence-may-backfire-on-leveson-inquiry-6270153.html

Witnesses

The list of witnesses is duplicated, in the lede and a section of its own. I suggest that we drop it from the introduction - in due course the most notable evidence may be referred to there but the list will grow considerably and many of them are not notable and their evidence may be brief (we should not red-link them either unless they are clearly notable). --AJHingston (talk) 00:45, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, that seems sensible to me. Would it be useful to include some of the more notable witnesses in the lead? I only ask because I think part of this inquiry's notability and public interest is because of the famous names involved. As you said I don't want to duplicate or put too much detail in the lead. Kaleeyed (talk) 18:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I've changed the sentence in question to a brief list of categories but of course it and much of that section will change anyway as things progress. The only difficulties I forsee with picking out notable witnesses as we go are that being famous and being the most significant witnesses are not necessarily the same thing and the judgement will be very subjective, and secondly that it will need keeping up to date. Listing witnesses from the Inquiry website is one thing, deciding whether witness X was more significant than witness Y is another, and we are early in the process. Will it be necessary to explain why a witness was important, which might draw editors into trying to give a running commentary on the proceedings? If somebody wants to take it on fine, but I'm not volunteering! --AJHingston (talk) 21:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Is their any reason why the name of the witness should not be accompanied by a link to the video of their evidence?

Background to inquiry

I just had a thought, that really there should be a Background section, just a brief opening paragraph that summarises what had happened before the Inquiry and why it was felt to be needed, how David Cameron reached the decision to open the Inquiry, etc. This is mentioned in the leader but not so much in the body of the text. Kaleeyed (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the usual problem is who will write it and how. The normal approach to sourcing does not apply, because reporters cannot be expected to adopt a neutral point of view nor are the things said in the press necessarily reliable. There is a very brief but authoritative summary on the Leveson website and the opening speeches to the inquiry, especially that of counsel to the inquiry, are helpful, but as time goes on the immediate circumstances (eg the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone) have less significance, and Operation Motorman and its aftermath, the complexities of the relationship between the media and politicians and repeated House of Commons committee reports, and the consequencies of the enshrinement of the right to privacy in UK law may be seen as more important is establishing an atmosphere in which such an inquiry could even be contemplated. --AJHingston (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

People who were not asked to give evidence?

As the former Assistant Police Commissioner, John Yates, plus former Conservative Press Officer, Andy Coulson were instrumental in the whole scandal, is there any reason why they should not be mentioned this in the article? I'm not suggesting this because they were not asked to provide evidence (yet)? Zylog79 (talk) 17:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Any commentary about judicial proceedings whilst they are underway is fraught with difficulty. Firstly, the inquiry is in its early stages and press relationships with the police and politicians are to be explored in due course. Secondly, it is coterminous with police investigation of allegations which may yet go to trial and the inquiry is therefore inhibited in examining witnesses on these matters. Thirdly, anyone who has been involved in legal proceedings (and I am not a lawyer) knows that there may be all sorts of things that cannot be disclosed at least whilst they are underway - the people who do know the truth are not permitted to say. Speculation about who might give evidence, about what they might say and any reasons why they might or might not give evidence is not really for Wikipedia and is likely to fail for sources. Even if verifiable in a particular instance, it is very unlikely to give a balanced picture because we will not know about other witnesses or what else might be happening behind the scenes. Unless there is a statement in open hearing (for example about which group of witnesses are to be heard next) it is usually best to steer away from this sort of thing. As to whether such people should be mentioned in the introduction, we already have an article on the News International phone hacking scandal which need not not be duplicated here but it is a mistake to suggest that this inquiry is simply about that. It was part of the immediate circumstances in which it was set up but very little of the inquiry's time to date has been spent on it and the final recommendations, when they come out, will be far wider in scope. --AJHingston (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)