Abstract
From the British Journalism Review of 10 years ago (vol. 24, issue no. 1, 2013)
❛There’s a danger that something has to be done because something has to be done, that newspapers behaved so badly that retribution is required. There is no merit in a change in the law designed merely to make a point. What do any of the current proposals do to make the newspaper industry better? The truth is that the most honourable reporters may cause pain in investigating news and the most reasonable requests for information can hurt.❜
– BJR editorial
❛Freedom in all of its forms is highly unfashionable in these miserable, misanthropic times. But it is right to say that there has been little or no real public debate about these crucial issues for the future of our society. And it is certain that the case for real press freedom has been all but absent from the deliberations to date. ❜
– Mick Hume, author of There is No Such Thing as a Free Press
❛When, after a long ministerial silence, the royal charter proposal was finally made public, we were shocked. Instead of delivering “the whole of Leveson”, as ministers and even the prime minister had assured us it would, it was dramatically watered down and compromised. The charter itself would be open to meddling by ministers. ❜
– Brian Cathcart, executive director of Hacked Off and professor of journalism at Kingston University London
❛The count of “assassinated journalists” kept by UNESCO, the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, showed that 95 had been killed on account of their work in the last nine months of the year [2012] alone. By the end of the year the total reached 115. ❜
– William Horsley, international director of the Centre for Freedom of the Media, and Jackie Harrison, chair of CFOM at the University of Sheffield.