‘9 out of 10 stories on young people don’t report what they say’

 ‘Less than 1 in 4 stories are positive about young people’

These are a couple of many sad but true statistics that portray the majority of young people negatively in the press and media, however, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The Leveson Inquiry is a formal legal practice put into place by Lord Justice Leveson. The inquiry is formed to mainly challenge the media ethics and culture within the press to make it fairer, unbiased and honest with the information it provides in stories that sell in big tabloid newspapers such as the Sun, Daily Mirror, and Daily Star etc. The inquiry is split into four main categories these are:

Module 1: The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour.

Module 2: The relationships between the press and police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest.

Module 3: The relationship between press and politicians.

Module 4: Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest ethical standards.

All of these are platforms where the inquiry looks into the relationships between the public, press and politicians. The young people will fall into Module 2, as they are the public.

The Leveson inquiry, in my opinion will provide a stand for fairly democratic representation into what the young people have to say about the media in terms of allowing them to discuss, debate and challenge media ethics issues on how they have been portrayed or treated in the eye of the press. However, I don’t believe the Inquiry alone has many powers that will make great impacts or changes to the press in general, because the inquiry needs support from the Press Complaints Commission to make the real changes to how the press/media should change its cultural ethics to meet the needs of the public.

In some ways I do believe the inquiry will offer support for any young person who has faced unethical issues with media but I haven’t seen enough evidence of the inquiry to make me believe that the process can make or has made a real difference because I still see exaggerated sensationalized stories, for example, in the Sun newspaper. Whether that newspaper along with all other tabloids will change its ethics in the future, we will have to wait and see.