The Leveson Inquiry is a public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British Press, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011 after the News International Phone Hacking Scandal. The Leveson Inquiry was split into two parts. On the 14th September 2011, press release stated Part 1 of the Leveson Inquiry would be addressing: “the culture, practices and ethics of the press, including contacts between the press and politicians and the press and the police; it is to consider the extent to which the current regulatory regime has failed and whether there has been a failure to act upon any previous warnings about media misconduct." Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry would be addressing: "the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International, other media organisations or other organisations. It will also consider the extent to which any relevant police force investigated allegations relating to News International, and whether the police received corrupt payments or were otherwise complicit in misconduct." According to reports, Part 2 of the investigation will not be able to commence until the current police investigations and any other following criminal proceedings have been completed.

The News International phone hacking scandal, which was dubbed various names such ‘Rupertgate’ and ‘Murdochgate’ after allegations were made against magnate Rupert Murdoch and his companies, (including News of the World) that he and his companies had been regularly hacking the phones of various celebrities such as Andy Gray, members of royalty and public citizens. The results from investigations conducted between 2005-2007 showed that the paper’s phone hacking activities mainly targeted celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family. In July 2011, it was uncovered that victims of the paper’s phone hacking included murdered schoolgirl MillyDowler, relatives of deceased British Soldiers and the victims of the 7/7 London bombings.

Rupert Murdoch

On July 20th 2011, David Cameron announced a panel of six people who have been working with the judge on the enquiry. Those on the panel were:

• Sir David Bell, former chairman of the ‘Financial Times’

• Shami Chakrabarti, director of ‘Liberty’

• Lord Currie, former ‘Ofcom’ director

• Elinor Goodmen, former political editor of ‘Channel Four News’

• George Jones, former political editor of ‘The Daily Telegraph’

• Sir Paul Scott-Lee QPM, former Chief Constable of ‘West Midlands Police’

The Leveson Inquiry was approached and broken down into four modules:

• 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 the 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.

The end of News of the World On the 7th July 2011, James Murdoch announced that the News of the World would publish its last ever edition of the newspaper after 168 years in print, on July 10th

2011. These decisions resulted in the loss of 200 jobs. James Murdoch also stated that the paper was “sullied by behaviour that was wrong” and said that “if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company”. Reports from other executives of the company state that the phone hacking was more widespread than they had been lead to believe, and are now cooperating with investigations into the allegations.

As a result of the phone hacking scandal, the Metropolitan Police are continuing to look into phone hacking by all UK newspapers. Cases against UK newspapers are more than likely to be taken to the UK’s civil courts. Gaby Hinsliff, the source who wrote this statement in a former article and former Political Editor at the national Sunday paper, The Observer, predicted that ‘the police investigation could be actually be of more lasting importance than any findings from the Leveson Inquiry.’ The Leveson Report also suggests that important exemptions in the Data Protection Act for journalists pursuing stories in the public interest should be scrapped. In response to this, Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham stated that there were “legitimate concerns” over the impact of Lord Justice Leveson’srecommendations could have on journalism. He also warned that his recommendations would make the Information Commissioner a "mainstream statutory regulator", a label which he did not want to associated with.