A journalism student's view of the Leveson Inquiry

The Exeter Daily asked Emily Furness, a student at the Journalism Academy at Exeter College, how she thought the Leveson Report might affect her and her peers as journalists in the future...

With many once-mighty journalists now facing prison sentences, behavior has changed towards journalists since the Leveson Inquiry. The future for journalists now looks tougher than ever.

The Leveson Inquiry is aimed not just at News Corporation newspapers but the press as a whole. It examines the relations of power between the press and the public, politicians and police.

Starting off with a scandal as to whether the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked by News of the World, this became a much larger and widespread issue than first anticipated, with questioning as to why politicians, the police and the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) had failed to investigate any previous allegations back in July 2009 in the first place.

Critics of Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation and the News of the World, which is now closed, argued that the amount of power he had in his company was so great that no regulators, or other major corporations that were also meant to have a great sense of power, would stand up to him.

This scandal will now affect the future for journalists as the chairman of the PCC, Lord Hunt, has now decided that he wants a new "tough, independent regulator with teeth".

He wants a new body meaning tougher punishment for journalists that ‘get it wrong’ - journalists could now face million-pound fines, full investigation of complaints and will have to make prominent apologies if any mistakes are made.

But that's not all, there could now be an investigative arm to look into serious wrongdoing by papers, and legally enforceable contracts to bind publishers into the new system and ensure funding, and with Ofcom these rules could be linked straight with the government.

So as a career, the term ‘walking on eggshells’ seems very relevant for the future journalist, checking facts more times than ever before and knowing that one cut corner could lead to serious consequences no matter what the situation, even if no harm was intended. Once printed you can’t take it back.