Leveson - press freedom must be preserved

I have lived in Russia, where freedom of the press is a luxury that its citizens did not enjoy in Soviet times, and only enjoy in a limited form today.  Perhaps it is because of this that I share David Cameron’s caution about agreeing to the statutory underpinning of an ‘independent’ press regulator as suggested by Lord Leveson today.

Once the State purports to control the media at any level, like it or not, the scope for the manipulation of the message immediately increases.  Of course, manipulating the message is not the exclusive preserve of the Left (although they are a lot better at it than the Right in my experience, certainly at a local level)

 It is interesting that it is the left wing parties today, and I include the Liberal Democrats in that description,  who do not seem to recognise the dangers to press freedom that even ‘light touch’ state control implies.  Perhaps is suits them not to do so.

There are already laws in place to ensure that journalists do not engage in criminal or libellous activity.  Perhaps these, and in particular the law of defamation, do need to be re-examined and brought up to date. Some of the principles were established in the 19th century and you need a deep pocket to challenge a newspaper in court.

I hope that all parties will set aside party politics and  get together now to discuss these vital issues in order to achieve a workable outcome.  Press freedom is one of the vital underpinnings of Democracy.

I am pleased to say that an old acquaintance of mine, Oliver Kamm, appears to be in agreement with my view.  He has also, inevitably put the case more elegantly.  Read his latest comment here!

On another topic which is closer to home, Leveson discounted the need to regulate the expression of opinion on the internet, because ‘no-one believes it’.  I, along with many other internet communicators,  find this somewhat insulting!!!

 I can’t say that I have never exaggerated somewhat on this site, but most of it is true!