Thank you very much, sir.

Thank you.

That's fair to say. I agree with that.

Yes, thank you.

Exactly right. So the point is, before we get to that stage, my opinion is that other options should be explored and tested before we actually make that significant step of statutory regulation, but that is a personal view, I have to say.

Yes, but I think also you have to take into account perception, how it is viewed, and the perception is important to ensure that it is not perceived as a regulator that is in some way governed by politicians. It's quite a big leap from self-regulation by a number ...

Yes, I totally agree. I support the independence of the judiciary enormously.

Well, I think it goes back -- again, it is -- I go back to the basic principle here of separation of powers. That is, if you are putting forward the regulation of the press through statute, then the regulator itself, if it has to regulate on matters to do with politicians ...

Yes, but there will always be problems. There will be problems in the future as well and I think it's important that the traditional historic principles that underlie our unwritten constitution --

How? Perhaps you could do it in two stages. Ie, you could see what the press actually propose in terms of a beefed-up regulation, greater powers, greater independence. Then that could be reviewed and seen how it would work and see who actually has joined up to it. Then, if ...

I think that's a fair point, and I think you're right, there has been evidence given in this Inquiry and over a number of months about allegations of wrongdoing, and it is a difficult and dark period for the press. But I do -- personally, I'm very interested ...

I think you have, I think you have done that. I think you are going through that process.

Expressing a personal view, I have a very strong view that the ecology and the way Ofcom is regulated is different to the way the press is regulated and I wouldn't recommend -- and I'm not suggesting -- that they should be regulated together, for a number of reasons. I ...

No, I haven't.

No, I haven't.

I can't remember off the top of my head but I think it does refer to the specific statutes as well.

It's a fair point.

Perhaps you're right. I think within the revised manual it may be slightly stronger, but we're talking there generally about surveillance techniques, and if you had secret filming that was surveillance, in itself that may not be illegal. It may not be a criminal offence. So it was ...

Yes.

Not significantly. Within 2004, I think within -- there are two sides to this. There's both the regulatory position but also the law as well, and within the manual in 2004, I did refer to the major case, the Naomi Campbell case. So the position hasn't changed substantially.

Exactly right. It depends on the facts of the case. We would look at the specifics. It's fact-sensitive, and if the breach was warranted, taking into account the public interest and our definition of the public interest, then it may be allowed to go forward. But we do provide ...

It's applied twice. We have within ITN -- essentially when it comes to secret filming, if we were to do secret filming where there's a high level of privacy issues engaged, there are two stages that would have to be passed. Firstly, there would have to be a stage ...

Yes, definitely.

Privacy is one of the areas -- I would be advising on privacy, it's fair to say. But there are many others as well, whether it be libel, contempt and so. Privacy is one of the areas and it is a part of the role I conduct within ITN.

And then in terms of online postings, again with blogging, tweeting and everything else, it's important that it's re-emphasised to our journalists that our standards are constant. It's not dependent on the way content is delivered. We are a high profile company and whatever is broadcast or ...

Yes. Last -- in December 2010, the Lord Chief Justice issued some guidance about tweeting in court. Then there was a consultation. In the interim, ITN produced a protocol about how to carry out this new form of reporting the courts, emphasising the importance of contempt of court and not to ...

Yes.

No, exactly.

Oh, if it's text? I think it's unlikely. If it's video on demand, that's the way into the regulation. I think when the individuals from Ofcom come to give evidence, they will be better to advise, to actually say what the parameters of their brief is ...

I think you'll find that the -- if it's a mobile phone content, if it's a video on demand, then it may fall under the ATVOD brief, but again --

I'm not aware of there being a general Internet body that regulates material on the interpret. The Press Complaints Commission does have a role to regulate newspapers that are produced on the Internet, but Ofcom, as far as I'm aware, doesn't, and other regulatory bodies on the ...

I'm not -- exactly right, yes.

No. Within ITN?

Well, if it was -- if it was Internet alone, Ofcom would not necessarily deal with it, if it's written text in the actual -- our Internet site. If it was a video on demand, like 4OD or ITV player, Ofcom can regulate that through ATVOD, the relatively recent new regulator ...

All the content that is produced by ITN is subject to ITN compliance manual, which I believe sets a higher standard than the Ofcom broadcasting code. So it's not really dependent on the individual method by which the content is delivered.

We make content for mobile phones. We making a lot of content for the Internet generally as well.

No, I agree with Jim Gray's answers. We are regulated by Ofcom. We respect the regulator, we abide by their code, and we have no issues with the regulation of ITV and ITV news and Channel 4 News by Ofcom.

We don't have many complaints from Ofcom. I think it's fair to say within a year we would have -- I would say about ten complaints that we have to deal with, although within that number not all of them would be substantial complaints. There would be some which ...

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Yes. I'm happy to, if the company authorise me to do so. It's not something I'm concerned about but it's a matter of --

Well, one thing I would say here, Mr Barr, is a simple point, really. I am a lawyer and it's a matter of sort of professional privilege as well. I think if I was to give out details of numbers to do with the company, it's a matter ...

Not many. In my time, I've been at ITN now for, as I said, over ten years, and we have not fought a libel case all the way through the courts and lost. We have been -- that's fair to say. In terms of complaints, if we get a ...

We do not have a large amount of defamation and privacy legislation, it's fair to say. I think the key with ITN is to try to ensure that problems are stopped before broadcast, and we work very hard through our systems and high journalistic standards to ensure that what ...

No.

No.

No.

It was quite a long time ago I was in newspapers -- it was 12 years ago -- so in terms of the actual details of methods, I can't really recall, you know, details of methods from my time in newspapers. My experience in the last 12 years is in broadcast ...

I think it's fair to say different organisations have different levels of risk, and my experience is that the broadcasters -- we would probably take a risk level akin to a broadsheet, something like a broadsheet newspaper, but a tabloid newspaper may, in some circumstances, take a higher risk than ...

Yes, but I think fundamentally you're correct, that there is more bite to the role as a compliance lawyer in the television sector than there is in newspapers, but that's not really just about the lawyer. There are other things as well. For example, we have tighter external ...

Yes. I wouldn't always be quite so blunt at that. There's a process of doing it --