This week has been all about the politicians at the Leveson inquiry. And while, I’m not going to give a full run down of all that was said (that would take WAY too long and there’s Guardian blogs for that) there is something that came up with all the witnesses this week that will massively affect the future of journalism and how we conduct ourselves when we are working as journalists. And that is the matter of press regulation.

On Monday (June 11), Lord Justice Leveson published his “draft criteria for a regulatory solution” that outlined his initial thoughts about the future of press regulation. He then spent the rest of the week questioning politicians including David Cameron, George Osborne, Ed Miliband and John Major about what they thought should happen.

Having spent most of my week watching the live feed, I’ve noticed that there have been a few key points that the politicians agreed on.

Firstly, they all seemed to agree that something needs to be done. The system cannot continue the way that it is and therefore it appears to be inevitable that there will be changes to come regarding the regulation of the media. Nick Clegg went as far as to say that the Leveson inquiry is a once-in-a-generation chance to “sort all this out”.

The PCC was criticised numerous times and it was clear that many consider it “toothless”. John Major made suggestions that the new watchdog should be able to impose fines and remove the VAT exemption on newspapers that are breaking the rules.

All the politicians said that a new system needs to be more independent, compulsory and have more effect than the current one.

One thing that seemed to divide opinion was the idea that there would be statutory intervention. Some were of the opinion that it would be the only way to make such regulation compulsory, however others were a lot more wary of the idea.

I think statutory intervention is an interesting one. It’s something that on the surface appears to be the only way to make regulation of the press compulsory. However, it’s also a bit of a dangerous step to take. It could easily become a step towards the censorship of the press. And that’s definitely not something that we want. Cameron made the suggestion that one way of ensuring that all publications were signed up to the regulatory body was to say that those who weren’t would not receive certain information when the government released it. And that really is playing with the freedom of the press. And I’m definitely not ok with that. There has to be a better way.

One suggestion that I thought was an interesting one came from Gordon Brown. This was the idea of incentivising good journalism. So as well as there being sanctions for bad practice, there would be some form of incentive for publications that were acting in a way deemed ‘good’. Quite what this would look like in practise I’m not sure, but it’s definitely an interesting idea.

And finally, the other thing that was mentioned a couple of times that doesn’t seem to have received much coverage is the suggestion of a system that is more like the Irish system. Now I don’t know much about the Irish system for press regulation, but from what I’ve heard they have an independent ombudsman who receives complaints from members of the public, decides whether they are valid and then will seek to resolve them. This sounds like a system that could work in the UK as well. Obviously it would take a lot to set it up but I think it’s something that Leveson should be considering.

What do you think should be the future of press regulation? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @wannabehacks