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ALUMNI NEWS
Lara Fielden (1986, PPE)
on giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry
Weekend Television she chose to work in the
current affairs department, on a new show
called Eyewitness.
‘The Nick Young award was a passport
straight from Catz to one of the most exciting
departments in television,’ she recalls. ‘I was
despatched to film all over the country, and
assisted the editor in the gallery for a live
edition as Nelson Mandela was released. I
simply couldn’t believe my luck’.
Oxford. ‘It was an unmissable opportunity to
take some time out, reflect on my experience
of the media, and write about how it might
be regulated in the digital era’.
Lara began research on a paper investigating
the opaque, and frequently conflicting,
standards required of broadcasting, video on
demand, the printed press and wider online
content and on proposals for a new, coherent
regulatory framework across media.
As the Leveson Inquiry into the ‘culture,
practice and ethics of the Press’ drew to a
close in July 2012, Lara Fielden was called
to give evidence based on her recent report
on overseas press regulation. Lord Justice
Leveson opened the proceedings by praising
her publication as ‘a monumental piece of
work’. For Lara it provided an extraordinary
opportunity to contribute to the debate over
how we might shape the regulation of the
press – and wider media – in the future.
Lara embarked on a career in television as
soon as she left St Catherine’s. As a recipient
of the annual Nick Young Award to London
After a year with LWT, Lara joined the BBC,
initially as a researcher on the BBC2 Foreign
Affairs series Assignment. She went on to
produce and direct a whole range of current
affairs investigations and documentaries
including Panorama and Newsnight. After a
career break when her children were young,
Lara joined the communications regulator
Ofcom. She managed the unit responsible
for adjudicating on fairness and privacy
complaints and was responsible for two
reviews of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code – the
rule book for all UK broadcasters.
In 2011 she was offered a Visiting Fellowship
at the Reuters Institute for the Study of
Journalism, back in the politics department at
Her work proved remarkably prescient. Within
months the phone-hacking scandal erupted,
huge interest in the regulation of journalism
followed and she was asked to develop her
paper into a book. Regulating for Trust in
Journalism: standards regulation in the age
of blended media was published in November
2011 and was launched with a media ‘speed
debating’ event at City University in London.
‘My conclusion was that static standards
and mutating media are on a collision
course. In order for citizens to be enabled
to make informed decisions about the
nature and credibility of the content with
which they engage, I propose three tiers
of clearly signalled standards across media
38/LARA FIELDEN