UK Judge Calls for Independent Panel on Media
MALVEAUX: Tabloid journalists in Britain lisping in on the private phone calls of celebrities, listening in on the British royal family, even ordinary citizens. This was a scandal that rocked the British press, but one of their oldest tabloids put them out of business and led to a year-long ethics investigation of phone hacking. Well, today the judge leading that investigation issued his final report. It calls on the tabloids to set up an independent panel to regulate their practices. British prime minister David Cameron reacted to the judge's decision.</s>DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: A regulatory system that complies with the Leveson principles should be put in place rapidly. I favor giving the press a limited period of time in which to do this. They do not need to wait for all the other elements of Lord Justice Leveson's report to be implemented. While no one wants to see full statutory regulation, let me stress, the status quo is not an option.</s>MALVEAUX: We're going to have more on this story from our Dan Rivers out of London in just a bit when we can call him up. In the meantime, Japanese authorities are now dealing with this mysterious boat. It was found grounded off the country's Sado Island in the Sea of Japan. Now, inside police found a number of decomposed bodies. The damaged wooden boat has markings that appear to be Korean characters. Now, authorities think the remains may be those of North Korean fishermen or defectors. They don't know how long the boat had actually been adrift at sea. And U.S.-based Continental Airlines is now cleared of blame in the crash of the Concorde back in 2000. One- hundred-thirteen people were killed when the high-speed jet went down on takeoff at Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris. Well, today, an appeals court in France ruled that Continental is not criminally liable of negligence or manslaughter. Now, the ruling comes two years after another court ruled that Continental was responsible for that crash. Want to go back to Dan Rivers in London. I understand we have got a connection there. Dan, you've got some more information on what is taking place. The judge ruling the final ruling and recommendation from his report regarding some of the British tabloids that got into some serious trouble from phone-hacking all the way to essentially spying on the royal family and many others. What do we know?</s>DAN RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, basically, this is a response to this sprawling phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. which exposed the way that tabloid journalists were going about getting stories, not only doing things in a very underhand way. In many cases breaking the criminal law to get stories, hacking into the phones of celebrities, of sports stars, of politicians, even of murder victims and of the victims of terrorism, so a broad range of victims. Now, a huge volume of suggestions, 2,000 pages in total, from the judge that's been charged with trying to come up with a solution to all of this as to how better to regulate the British press. And, basically, the suggestion is it should be an independent form of regulation of the press with some sort of legislation to back that up, but basically the press should have an independent body overseeing it, making sure that it's playing fair and that the people who feel that they're not treated well have a means, a cheap means, of getting redress, getting apologies on the front pages, getting compensation if necessary.</s>MALVEAUX: Dan, I notice one thing you said. You said suggestions. So are -- is this completely voluntarily? I mean, how would this be enforced? Would this body, this independent body, have some real teeth, some real power in enforcing how the press behaves?</s>RIVERS: Well, it's a very delicate balancing act that he's tried to perform here, Lord Justice Leveson. We don't have a First Amendment here, guaranteeing the freedom of the press, and so they're very concerned that they don't try and muzzle the press while, at the same time, trying to gently suggest that they all join this scheme. They're not going to force the press to join this regulatory scheme, but there are going to be -- there's going to be sort of financial jeopardy if papers don't join in, it is suggested. They could be liable to greater damages in court cases, for example, and they're talking about a kind of stamp of approval that papers who are in this scheme could put on their front page to say this is a trusted brand of journalism. So, they're trying to entice them in. The question is, though, will the politicians agree to actually implement any of this?</s>MALVEAUX: Yeah, good question. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. So, we're talking about a brutal $6 billion campaign filled with those nasty attack ads. You remember them. Well, now, President Obama and his former rival Mitt Romney, are they ready to bury the hatchet, break bread together? Well, that is about to happen at the White House, minutes away. We're going to get a live report. Could be kind of an awkward lunch date.