An inquiry into Australian media has concluded that a new press regulatory body is required to deal with public complaints.

The inquiry, called in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal and headed by retired judge Ray Finkelstein, offers several recommendations to deal with public trust in the press.

The inquiry concluded that existing measures are insufficient and underfinanced to deal with public concerns. Only a limited number of news media participate in such initiatives. Finkelstein recommends a binding authority that would compel apologies and corrections across all platforms. It would be independent but government

Industry response has been negative. The strongest concern has been that a government-financed body has no place in determining the fairness of journalism. It suggests industry self-regulation remains the best solution.

He did not recommend government support of the industry generally, but noted the weakness in some instances of the regional press and said the matter bears continued attention.

Hardly surprising but worth chronicling: A new United Kingdom study has found a decline in public trust of the broadsheet and tabloid press.

With the extent of the phone-hacking scandal much more evident, the poll suggested that only five per cent of Britons trust the tabloid journalists, while 41 per cent trust the broadsheet journalists. That level is down from seven per cent and 54 per cent, respectively, last November.

The YouGov survey for the University of Nottingham found that trust in British members of Parliament rose in the same period to 24 per cent from 17 per cent.

Howard Kurtz, the former Washington Post media critic recently installed at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, offers his views of the context of the News of the World hacking scandal that has collapsed the venerable tabloid and collided with the fortunes of the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.

Kurtz views the scandal as emblematic of an age in which some media push the envelope of ethical acceptability for the sake of public popularity. He doesn't entirely blame media.

"In the end, the public’s indifference to how salacious stories are procured creates this lucrative market," he writes.