We’ve some way to go before the dust settles on the phone hacking scandal. But if you work in the media or PR, already you can’t help but feeling that nothing will ever be quite the same again.

Phone hacking notwithstanding the standard of journalism in the UK is in the main excellent. Let’s not forget that it was the dogged determination of a team at The Guardian that broke the News of the World story. But the media is far from transparent and in the last few days we’ve seen its worse tactics spill out on the front pages of newspapers and in news bulletins.

Journalist Adam Westbrook has written up an excellent post on his blog concluding that greater transparency is critical to restoring trust in the media. He highlights some of the issues.

“We have no way of understanding who “sources close to David Beckham” might be. Stories ripped from agencies are often bylined with a fictional name. […] And it’s not just something endemic in the press: I’ve written before about the lack of transparency in mainstream broadcast media too. The BBC, Sky and ITN use agency footage as if they shot it themselves.”

What’s to be done? News International has started to make efforts to tackle the crisis head on and rebuild its reputation. Rupert Murdoch accepted Rebekah Brooks’ resignation today and according to reports is meeting the Dowler family this afternoon.

Yesterday we learnt that both James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch will appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee next week and the Prime Minister has promised an inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.

It’s almost certainly game over for the self-regulation of the media. The Prime Minster hinted on Wednesday that a gutsier organisation modelled on the advertising watchdog the Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) could replace the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

The ASA has the power to refer print advertisements that breach it’s rulings to the Office of Fair Trading which can issues fines, and broadcast advertisements to OFCOM, which has the power ultimately to revoke licences.

It’s conceivable that the Government may decide to go further down the route of transparency as part of its scrutiny of the public affairs industry and require journalists and media organisations to publish details of meetings. Alternatively politicians, public servants and public companies could be required to publically record meetings with journalists.

The challenge for journalism is figuring out a level of transparency that is both acceptable and enables it to do its job.