Caroline Thomson: Leveson could base press regulation on broadcasting model

Outgoing BBC chief operating officer Caroline Thomson has suggested that Lord Justice Leveson could use the broadcasting regulation model as the basis for a new regulatory regime for the newspaper industry. Thomson, in a speech the day before she leaves the BBC after almost 37 years, drew parallels between the newspaper industry's current trust crisis as a result of the phone-hacking scandal and the corporation's own phone-in and competition problems five years ago. She also took a swipe at James Murdoch over his Edinburgh TV festival MacTaggart lecture in 2009, in which he said the BBC was a threat to independent journalism, arguing that profit was the only reliable guarantor of independence. "For James Murdoch to lecture us on the ethics of journalism is a bit like taking your advice on tax affairs from Philip Green," Thomson said, speaking at the Church & Media conference in Salford on Tuesday . She argued that Leveson could look to media regulator Ofcom, which polices the broadcasting code setting out standards expected of broadcasters, as he draws up proposals on the future of press regulation to put to the government. "Legislation should always be a last resort in media regulation ... But as Lord Justice Leveson reaches his conclusions it is hard to imagine he won't feel that one too many shots has been fired in the last chance saloon of voluntary press regulation," she said. "A similar solution to that used in broadcasting content regulation – legislative underpinning setting up an independent body to apply of codes of practice drawn up by the industry, with politicians then kept completely out of the picture, is probably the right course of action." Thomson lost out to George Entwistle for the BBC director general job and will leave the corporation on Wednesday. Her post was made redundant as a result of a restructure announced by Entwistle last week – his first in the new job – and Thomson is thought to be considering job offers from outside broadcasting. She also looked to the BBC's future and gave an idea of her vision for the corporation had she become director general, saying that as the BBC changes "it must never lose sight of its purpose". "It is always when the BBC loses sight of what it is here for that it runs into trouble with licence fee payers. Confidence doesn't mean arrogance. Indeed, if we are in a biblical frame of mind, humility is in order," Thomson said. She added that the guiding word for the corporation, alongside the Reithian mission to "inform, educate and entertain", should be the Latin motto carved on a wooden crest in the council chamber at Broadcasting House: "quaecunque", meaning whatsoever. Thomson said the word was used briefly by the BBC in the 1930s. "The quotation is taken from St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians: 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things,'" she added. "Just as the Reithian trilogy is still the best quick summary of what the BBC is about, so I think quaecunque is an excellent guiding word for the BBC in the digital age." • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook