Belcher made a statement at the Inquiry on behalf of Trans Media Watch, a charity dedicated to improving the media coverage of trans or intersex issues. Belcher was a founder of the organisation and is a long-term campaigner for British transgender rights.
London-based journalist, author and media campaigner. Former foreign correspondent with Reuters and Foreign Editor and then Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday. Professor of Journalism at Kingston University London at time of giving evidence and specialist adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport which produced the report "Press standards, libel and privacy" (2010). Gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on teaching journalism ethics and standards. In 2011, co-founded Hacked Off to campaign for a free and accountable press.
Journalist and Director of the English Centre of International PEN at the time of the Inquiry, who presented evidence on PEN's behalf. In the wake of the Leveson hearings, he was a major force behind setting up IMPRESS as an independent press regulator and became its first CEO.
Founder and Chair of Support after Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM), an organisation focused on providing a befriending service to family members and close friends bereaved by murder and manslaughter. Submitted research on the impact of press coverage on families affected by such events.
Former journalist and founder in 1990 of the British Association of Journalists, a group which had broken away from the National Union of Journalists following a bitter dispute within the NUJ over negotiations about mergers with print unions. At the time of giving evidence, the BAJ was the recognised union for journalists working within MGN Ltd and claimed around 1,150 members. Turner gave evidence of the deep-seated culture of bullying and corporate greed that existed in the national press. He requested Lord Justice Leveson to enable journalists to give evidence to the Inquiry secretly and be guaranteed anonymity. Steve Turner died in May 2016.
Australian computer programmer and director, founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, an organisation he formed in 2006, dedicated to leaking hitherto secret information. Assange gave evidence of his dealings with the Press Complaints Commission and his complaints about the many false statements and libels of him in the press.
Journalist and academic, Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent at time of Inquiry. Put forward the view that the main question facing policy makers was not how to prevent phone-hacking but how to finance an ethical future. Hackgate, as he called it, had prevented people from acknowledging that there could be circumstances in which a reporter gaining access to private telephone messages could be morally and ethically justified. If this exposed crime, or protected public health and safety, or prevented the public being misled by a powerful individual or organisation, it should be sanctioned, he said.
Founder of Polaris Media, an independent communications consultancy, and a former BBC, News of the World and Sunday Times journalist. Gave a scathing assessment of the contemptuous attitude of most of the press and lamented the inadequacy of the PCC in moderating it.