Thank you very much.

Exactly. However, we would say that ethics training incorporated within or additional to these other things, so, for example, bringing -- some people like a philosopher and potentially another journalist working together and going through some challenging case studies within an organisation which is taking these things seriously can enhance and ...

Well, yes. We want to say that with some care. There are certain types of ethics training which are not very effective, and they won't work just by themselves. You can't just send people off for an afternoon -- and we've had this reported to us in a ...

Yes, it is, absolutely. I talked about an open culture, which I think does need unpacking, but that would include opportunities for discussion of difficult issues, perhaps a confidential something to whom people could turn within an organisation if they had concerns for advice as to how they would pursue ...

Yes. So this is in the -- yes. So issues about leadership. That, from this other work in other organisations, seems tremendously important.

Yes. Yes.

That's somewhat more emphasis on certain aspirational things. So if you take the accuracy section of the code, the press must state they're not printing inaccurate or distorted information, I suppose that one could place that more positively, that the aspiration to present the facts, to present the ...

I'd want to explain the role of freedom of expression in terms of its importance in contributing to the two over-arching goods that I have claimed. So freedom of expression's important because the press has this role of presenting information to enable us to make choices about all ...

As I say, I think it encourages a view of ethic as coming into the picture when things are being done wrong, going wrong, and then encourages the view that the complaints commission -- the press -- I forget the name -- that you go to it to register a complaint, rather than ...

At a remove, yes. So my work is enhanced if I'm doing it together with people who can qualify and inform what I am saying by detailed knowledge of what it's like to be -- yeah. But maybe, as you say -- no.

Yes. I think that in this area, if you just had someone like me as an ethicist, for example -- what I found in other works, say in engineering ethics, is I lack the experience of what it is like being that kind of person. I am unaware of the pressures ...

Well, I suppose from my -- it touches on the interdisciplinary nature of my work.

Again I think there should be a reporting process to an external organisation but I think the purpose of that reporting should not -- at the moment, it seems as if the Press Complaints Commission is primarily tasked with dealing with post hoc complaints and allowing people then to have an ...

Well, it's -- yes, I think it should. I mean -- so when I read the code I was a little -- properly, you know, thinking about it for this -- particularly for this Inquiry -- I read it more cursorily for teaching students -- it is striking that there are parts of that code ...

So -- and if one's a journalist and one values being allowed to write what one thinks is important, yes, by -- there's a kind of, as I say, a natural slippage in which this freedom of expression can be seen to be the dominating aspect of one's code.

I suppose if you go back to the PCC code of ethics, it has -- although I don't think it has a very satisfactory account of the public interest, it explicitly states that freedom of expression is itself part of the public interest, and I think that it's -- and ...

Well, I suppose that the press is presenting information to the public. There are lots of people who, for different reasons, have an interest in conveying their information and in some cases their views, their opinions to the public. So there will be politicians, business people, perhaps senior people in ...

Yes.

Right. It's an issue we've already touched on about the concentration of a small number of journalists -- of owners and editors may have an effect on the opinion side of a press' activity and the range of opinion that might be presented. There's also questions with respect ...

Yes.

Yeah, I don't -- I think it it's -- my -- yes, I think the concern -- I have some concern about the code but not particularly about it going into too much detail and -- or too little. I think it's clear enough in that sort of way. I suppose I ...

Sorry.

Yes, that's right. That's the one I sent through because that was very much about emphasising the importance of culture in organisations, and part of developing that culture is allowing people to think these things through on a case-by-case basis and discuss them.

Yes. Well, I suppose I'd say the thing that was more analogous would be the -- also with the engineers, where there was -- I worked with the engineers and the Royal Academy of Engineering came up with a statement of four ethical principles which were quite abstract, and what we ...

Yes.

Absolutely, yes. I suppose what I'd say, just going to that -- I mean, it's difficult to -- I mean, one has in mind these general principles but elaborating and fleshing them out is a very much a case-by-case matter, on a sort of casuistical approach, helps people to come ...

Exactly.

Yes, exactly.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, you have how important the information you're wishing to present is, and the importance will -- the public good has a range of -- it might be important to making decisions -- politician decisions about education, health, welfare, so on. It could be important for preservation of security, and you're ...

Mm.

Mm-hm.

Mm-hm.

No, no, I think that's -- I mean, I think freedom and responsibility are not incompatible notions. What I suppose I'm -- principally behind the notion of freedom in my account is freedom from censorship, from authorities coming in and telling the press what they may or may not say ...

I think that -- I don't think actually there's -- in print, there are an infinite number of things that people could say. I think on most important questions there's probably a limited number of reasonable things that people could say. It's more a question of: are the ...

Yes.

Well, I was thinking there particularly about the opinion side of things, actually, so the extent to which -- I mean, even the heavyweight newspapers now have a lot more opinion columns than they used to. But even though you're presenting a number of opinions in the newspaper, there's ...

Yes. Yes; yeah.

But I still think nonetheless you can -- you know which bit of the newspaper is the comment section and you know which bit is the --

No, no, no. I mean, I accept that, that there's grey areas in this. I'm afraid ethics is full of grey areas.

No, absolutely. I think that's -- I think it's particularly in areas -- I was thinking about this beforehand. For example, in the reporting of this Inquiry, media organisations themselves have interest because they're reporting about other media organisations and they may choose to select facts which present their ...

Yes. I suppose the press is -- I've talked about it presenting information. I suppose the press both presents information and presents opinion, and in the presentation of opinion, we accept that at least certain parts of the press are entitled to partiality. There's obviously some part of the ...

So I think that, as you say, there's a whole range of things that in order to fulfil those functions properly, the press needs to adhere to. You've mentioned impartiality, recognising its own potential conflicts of interest, avoidance of bias, truthfulness, making good judgments about what's important ...

Yes, that's right.

So in line with what I said in the witness statement, I think that public interest in a free press is primarily an interest in a press which serves two particular functions equivalent to the common good: one, the function of informing -- providing information for the public about a range ...

So in my teaching, particularly, I work with colleagues in engineering, biosciences, medicine, dentistry, so right -- a whole range of areas.

So my more theoretical interests are in Plato and Aristotle's moral and political philosophy, and neo-Aristotelian views of moral psychology -- that's about rationality, desire and value -- and then I write on medical ethics and business ethics principally.

Yes.

Yes.