Donald Trelford on The Press

Tomorrow, in the Grimond Room at Portcullis House in Westminster, a Select Committee of MPs will ask various senior representatives of the press if - ethically speaking - they are satisfied that their house is in order. This in the light of such recent events as Kate Middleton's harassment by paparazzi, and the jailing of a News of the World journalist for, among other things, eavesdropping on the mobile telephone of Middleton's boyfriend, Prince William. MPs always claim that their concerns about the media are to protect the ordinary public. Strangely, whenever they take up the cudgels officially, the Royal Family seems to be involved.

The hearings of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee will be chaired by John Whittingdale, a former private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, whose geniality contrasts with the acerbity of his Labour predecessor, Gerald Kaufman. These grillings of the press come round like the seasons - I must have attended half a dozen over the years - and follow a standard ritual. Newspaper misbehaves; public outcry; politicians tut-tut and make threatening noises ("last- chance saloon", etc); press retire hurt, promising to brush up their act. Until next time.

On this occasion, the press appear to be standing on more defensible ground than sometimes in the past. Admittedly, the News of the World case was a shocker, but that was dealt with by existing law. Street nuisance and similar laws could have been invoked to deal with the paparazzi, and with the other case on the MPs' minds: the claim by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, that 305 journalists have employed the same enquiry agency to do research, in possible breach of the Data Protection Act. If existing laws are effective, why invent others?

This is especially so with the DPA, for breach of which Mr Thomas wants to introduce a two-year jail sentence. As far as I can see from his report, this would apply to journalists who discover something as intrusive as an ex-directory telephone number. He produces no evidence to show that the journalists had broken the law - or, if they had, whether they could have used a public-interest defence. Besides, 305 journalists is not as many as it may sound; according to the Society of Editors, there are about 70,000 people in the country who call themselves journalists. Breaches of the DPA are nearly all settled in magistrates' courts. The Crown Court has the power to impose unlimited fines, but has hardly ever been called upon. Why, then, toughen up the penalties when the existing sanctions have not even been tested?

Critics of the press do not appear to understand that newspapers have no interest in ordinary people, save as paying customers, and would only consider invading their privacy if these ordinary people were caught up in extraordinary events of wide public interest. The law acknowledges the right of the media to use unconventional methods, including subterfuge, if that is the only way to establish the truth and expose wrongdoing, in the public interest. It can be argued that the main threat to the privacy of ordinary people these days is not from the press at all, but from the Government, which seems set on making private information available to all its agencies without people's consent. Not to mention its ill-conceived attempt to curb the operation of the Freedom of Information Act.

In the dock tomorrow will be the Press Complaints Commission, chaired by the ex-diplomat Sir Christopher Meyer, in his trademark red socks, and the director, Tim Toulmin. They will doubtless point to the success they have had so far in protecting Ms Middleton through reading the riot act to editors and firmly reminding them about the PCC's Code of Practice. As a result, News International refused to publish the paparazzi pictures. The PCC has also earned Brownie points by issuing guidelines on the Data Protection Act, following Mr Thomas's report, and running up to 10 seminars at the News of the World to ensure that the paper's journalists all understand the code. News International's halo (if it ever had one) has been badly dented, however, by the phone-tapping affair, and it will be interesting to see whether the MPs quiz the group's chief executive, Les Hinton, about the extent of the company's knowledge of the paper's illicit association with private detectives (for which, of course, they paid). These questions never came up at the trial because Clive Goodman pleaded guilty.

Other witnesses tomorrow are the managing editors of Associated Newspapers and Trinity Mirror, Robin Esser and Eugene Duffy, respectively; the Society of Editors' director Bob Satchwell, and president Paul Horrocks, editor of the Manchester Evening News; Arthur Edwards, The Sun's royal photographer; and the MediaWise Trust, which is the most likely to be critical of self-regulation by the press.

The newspapers ought to have a fairly comfortable ride, though some grandstanding may be expected from MPs with an axe to grind about their own press coverage. They would do well to heed this line from the evidence submitted by the Society of Editors: "Those who sit in judgement over newspapers, the PCC and the media should take care not to allow personal views about the content of some parts of the media to colour their judgement." On the evidence of previous hearings, this may turn out to be a forlorn hope.

* NEWSPAPERS are often portrayed as cut-throat enemies, acting like the cynical hacks in Ben Hecht's The Front Page - and some such examples could doubtless be found. Yet I know editors - who had better remain anonymous - who do not allow their professional rivalry to stop them being friends or admiring each other. They are now all working together in a powerful campaign against Lord Falconer's proposed emasculation of the Freedom of Information Act. I am impressed by their remarkable and unprecedented unity on this issue - and only hope that the Government is similarly impressed.

* PRODUCTION values in newspapers have improved immeasurably over the past 20 years - in the quality of print, pictures and graphics, and notably in the use of colour. Yet one thing still bugs me: the survival of the fly sheet, the two-page insert that invariably falls out when you fold the paper. Some papers even have a fly sheet on page three, which is unforgivable. Surely, with today's massive paging, it is possible to run in four-page units. I appeal to newspaper managements: kill the fly!

Donald Trelford was editor of The Observer from 1975-93