Society of Editors Director, Bob Satchwell (pictured), said the inquiry lead by The Prime Minister will hopefully clear up a lot of the questions and allegations that have been made.
“It is important to approach this with an open mind. The press will cooperate with the inquiry fully.”
Earlier he said: "In addition to The News of the World there were 20 odd national newspapers and 1300 local and regional papers across the country and that it was a nonsense to suggest that ethics in all of them had broken down or that the PCC system was broken beyond repair."
“The role that the PCC played will come out in the inquiry. The report they put out was wrong and they accepted that. They also did a lot of behind the scenes work at the time. The News of the World and other papers made sure the practices didn’t happen again.”
“The Prime Minister has placed importance on the police investigation. At the time the police said no one but the two who were jailed were involved, if Mr Cameron thought that a reasonable conclusion then the PCC would too.”
“We need to know the scale of the crimes, if others were committed then who was responsible. Was it 4000 or 6000 victims. At the moment we don’t know who will be charged.”
“Things will change, the PCC has accepted that. If people keep an open mind we may come out of it with some sensible outcomes and we can draw some conclusions.”
