Raymond Snoddy looks back at the events of 2011 – maybe not a total Bah Humbug year but we hope for much better in 2012…

Raymond Snoddy: If the behaviour of NotW journalists should turn out to be only bad, shocking, disgraceful and illegal as opposed to be beyond the pale of anything recognisably human, we have to wonder whether the Leveson inquiry has been set up on what is at least partially a false premise?

While we have all been fixated by the daily mayhem oozing out from the Leveson Committee another potentially more important inquiry has been moving at its usual, seemingly glacial, speed towards an outcome.

Anyone with even a vague interest in the future of newspapers should pause for a moment and ponder the fate of two small newspapers in Kent – the Medway News and the East Kent Gazette.

The trouble with the Leveson inquiry – is that it is starting to create such a dust cloud that other respectable media stories are being obscured and seem almost boring by comparison.

There is another walking, breathing, potential solution to at least some of the problems of the local publishing industry and he is called Sir Ray Tindle. Tindle Newspapers, famously started after the war with Sir Ray’s £300 demob payment, has always seemed particular – one man’s vision.

… admit that he knew there was a culture of illegality in parts of News International but decided to do as little as possible about it. That way leads straight to the dock. The alternative is only marginally less unpleasant – admit to incompetence!

Raymond Snoddy says the game has just begun – it’s up to everyone in the newspaper and magazine industries to try to design the best possible mixture of carrots and sticks to ensure that self-regulation of the press survives…

Raymond Snoddy says the BBC has been clever to produce a series of cuts where nothing that is easily noticeable or even definable has been closed down…

Raymond Snoddy says those who believe in freedom of speech should be concentrating their efforts on defending and improving self-regulation rather than trying to appease judges by offering up statutory baubles…