Newsprint space restrictions mean that articles usually have to be cut. So it was with the contributions to today's Media Guardian print feature about the Leveson inquiry: After all we've heard, what should be done?
So, to keep faith with the seven people who so speedily responded to my requests, I am publishing the full, unexpurgated versions of their original contributions. (NB to sub-editors: you may judge my skills, or lack of them, by comparing the two versions. NB to Bill Hagerty: Twiddly bits restored!)
Anyway, I simply asked the seven to share their hopes for the future, and here's what they wrote:
SIMON KELNER
Rarely, if ever, in the field of public inquisition has there been quite such a knowledge gap between the investigators and the investigated.
The Leveson inquiry has devoted huge amounts of time - and public money - to establish facts that were perfectly obvious to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the way newspapers work.
It is only reasonable, therefore, that within the industry there is a certain amount of fear about whether the new system of regulation proposed by the inquiry will - as well as giving the public more protection - pay enough regard to the realities of operating a free and independent press in an increasingly hostile commercial environment.
It was clear from the exchange between David Cameron and Lord Justice Leveson last week that while both men know what they want, they don't quite know how to get it.
Lord Justice Leveson said that he had no intention of creating a framework that provided more work for lawyers (the irony of which, as he looked out on the serried ranks of legal representatives, will not have been lost) so we can assume that his mind is inclined towards more effective self-regulation.
His main difficulty will be in trying to find a one-size-fits-all remedy. Our national press is not homogenous: it's a many-headed beast, and the commercial pressures and editorial imperatives are very different at one end of the market from the other. Whatever form the new regulation takes, this should be recognised.
And whatever new body emerges, it has to be guided by people who have a clear knowledge and understanding of the particular exigencies of running a modern newspaper.
A new code of conduct will be introduced but in order to ensure all newspapers come into line, and to give the public some confidence that this is not just self-regulation by the self-interested, there will have to be some form of statutory underpinning.
There is an attraction, for example, in levying VAT on any newspaper that refuses to abide by the new code. And, in trying to get a balance between stick and carrot, perhaps we can then start looking at our libel laws.
Simon Kelner is chief executive of the Journalism Foundation and a former editor of the Independent
LORD FOWLER
I remember as a journalist in the 1960s being amongst a group of reporters who were door-stepping the occupants of a house in London.
I cannot remember the reason but what I can remember is the scurrying away there was when the words "complaint to the Press Council" were uttered. I very much doubt if raising the threat of the Press Complaints Commission would have that effect today - and that is part of the trouble.
The commission does not have the clout that is necessary for a body which above all is there to protect the public interest. It has no powers of investigation or enforcement. It is seen by the public not just as a defender of freedom of expression but also the apologist for some of the excesses. Did no one at the commission know or suspect the phone hacking of the last years ?
The PCC must be replaced by a new credible regulator armed with the powers that the commission has lacked. It must be self-evidently independent and entirely fearless.
At the same time, we should recognise one crucial difference between self-enforcing bodies that oversee, for example, solicitors. Journalism is not a profession. Anybody can be a journalist and the sanction cannot be the withdrawal of a certificate to practise. The sanction must be a financial penalty certainly on the paper and probably on the journalist also.
At the foundation of the new system there must be a code of practice accepted by the press itself. And what happens if one media group says it is not willing to accept? It is at this point there should be a reserve statutory power to enforce membership.
Lord Fowler, an ex-journalist and regional newspaper chairman, formerly chaired the House of Lords communication committee
MICHELLE STANISTREET
The PCC failed abysmally as a regulatory body - a self-serving organisation for the media bosses, more akin to a gentleman's club than a regulator with teeth.
Journalists were denied a seat at the table and the sprinkling of independent representatives proved insufficient to dilute the vested interests and properly stand up for the rights of readers.
Unlike Ofcom, it refused complaints from third parties giving papers a free hand in peddling bigotry, whilst vulnerable groups like asylum seekers and the disabled struggled to get genuine redress.
The NUJ wants a truly independent body, with press freedom and journalistic standards at its heart. To have teeth, it needs to be underpinned by statute, with a press ombudsman to mediate with the public.
An overarching body would hear appeals from the ombudsman and administer an ethical code - the NUJ's code of conduct would make a great start - and decide on punishments, including fines and compensation, for newspapers that breach the code.
It would respect a conscience clause for journalists. Leveson can take inspiration from the Irish Press Council - which has a role for the NUJ and other civic groups. This is a chance for real reform that we cannot allow to be squandered.
Michelle Stanistreet is general secretary of the National Union of Journalists and was books editor at the Sunday Express
STEPHEN ABELL
After the initial catharsis of victims voicing their legitimate grievances back in October, the course of the inquiry is now familiar to all in its minutiae: Lord Justice Leveson's expressive eyebrows, levitating and descending in disapproval or approbation; Robert Jay and his sesquipedalian (a word he will know the meaning of) tendencies; the steady troop of defensive editors and politicians, with their sometimes oddly conflicting memories.
But now we enter the crucial phrase; what does Leveson actually do about the great oxymoron in the room: regulation of the free press?
Leveson's published criteria for future regulation are broadly sensible, and indeed recognisable: it should be effective, cheap, cover all "newspapers", preserve freedom of expression, and be a free public service than protects the vulnerable.
It is the latter point that those who currently work at the Press Complaints Commission would recognise as the reason they get up in the morning (it is certainly not for the universal applause).
I believe that Leveson should look to build on what the PCC has generally done well (been an efficient complaints and pre-publication service), but make some crucial developments. First, editors and proprietors should self-regulate properly, with transparent audits into their internal decision-making processes.
Second, there should be fines for failures of those processes, which could be used to help the industry fund the new, more independent regulator. Third, the system should be incentivised to encourage membership: kitemarks, libel relief, meaningful press cards, access to shared resources are all valid avenues to explore.
Finally, we should all recognise that – even before the Internet – there was no perfect solution for the paradox of keeping something free but also in check. Leveson must recognise that even his very best will not be the final answer.
Stephen Abell is a partner at the Pagefield consultancy and former director of the PCC
GEORGE BROCK
There's a way round Leveson's problem. The inquiry has looked at many things, but the heart of the matter is the tension between privacy and disclosure in the public interest. There's a bargain waiting to be struck, if Leveson and the government are bold enough. Law, regulation and incentives should work together.
Create a better privacy law than the current muddle, not just to avoid unjustifiable invasions by news media but also because digital technology creates an urgent need for clearer and more effective limits.
Enable quicker, cheaper legal dispute resolution in privacy and defamation cases. Improve and make consistent the public interest defences in both civil and criminal law: robust defences for disclosures which have public value. When assessing a public interest defence, a court would take into account how the quality of the editorial process in question is monitored and maintained.
Any publication that ever expected to find itself in court would have a strong incentive to join a regulatory organisation, which should not need backing in statute. Editorial codes of conduct would need to be transparent, enforceable and supervised by people independent of the newsroom. Good journalism would gain; bad journalism would lose.
George Brook is head of journalism at City University, London and a former managing editor of The Times
MARK STEPHENS
In making his recommendations, there are two fundamental questions Lord Justice Leveson must ask: (1) Will regulation be effective? (2) Will the proposed regulations distort the market for news and information?
The PCC was wholly ineffectual and ineffective. It is far from clear that any future regulator will be more effective.
We have perfectly good criminal laws, unenforced, by pliant policemen which would've stopped the excesses of the media. Laws criminalising phone hacking, bribery of policemen & public figures, harassment, trespass, etc.
In the US, phone hacking stopped dead in 1998, after a Cincinnati Enquirer journalist hacked the phones of executives of Chiquita Bananas. The company paid a $10m pre-action and the journalist went to jail. All this on a public interest story.
Since then we have seen the growth in the US of "newsgathering torts" which have prevented the excesses we saw grow unchecked in the UK.
Any new regulator proposed by Leveson LJ will operate in a market of print papers – when most news is increasingly to be found on the web and increasingly newspapers are closing, or downsizing – only last week in the US, the Times-Picayune shed half its workforce losing 200 jobs. Another paper was closed. This trend is being replicated in our local newspapers.
If any regulatory framework is harsh we will see regulatory arbitrage with a move away from traditional print to online news sources like MSN, Yahoo, Huffington Post at the expense of traditional print journalism.
The law has the advantage of applying to all media, web included. Perhaps Lord Justice Leveson's real problem is how do you find policemen who have never taken a tip-fee or hospitality from a newspaper, to freely investigate what are in fact crimes not regulatory challenges?
Mark Stephens is a media lawyer with Finer Stephens Innocent
BILL HAGERTY
Following the inquiry that lost its way, diverting from its original brief to become no more than an unprecedented display of collective amnesia that could keep sociologists busy for several years, Lord Justice Leveson should renew his study of the suggestions for a fail-safe system already put forward on behalf of the newspaper industry.
Lord Hunt, chairman of the about to become redundant Press Complaints Commission, has urged for a new regulatory authority with a standards arm in addition to a mediation service, backed up by a contractual system through which it could potentially levy serious fines.
He also envisages a commercial contract between the authority and publishers that would commit publishers to cooperating fully with any standards investigation that takes place and to paying for the investigation if systemic failures are uncovered. In other words, self-regulation with teeth.
Measures to ensure it has real bite makes it essential for any serving editors or senior executives to be eliminated from the standards and appeals committee and replaced by equal numbers of lawyers, media academics, lay members and – why not? – former editors no longer tied to a title or group.
Astride this muscular set-up should be, as suggested by Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, an ombudsman with contracted investigative powers.
And I would also like to see the introduction of a conscience clause in journalists' contracts of employment, enabling them to refuse any assignments they considered unethical or – horrors – illegal and giving them recourse to the authority if disciplined for their action.
Leveson doubtless will wish to go further, but the swift adoption of these home grown measures is – to coin a phrase – very much in the public interest.
Bill Hagerty is a former editor of The People and is the outgoing editor of the British Journalism Review