article_snippet.sent: That’s the sort of thing you like to print in your newspaper, isn’t it?
article_snippet.sent: Robin Esser is particularly critical of the recommendations in the Leveson Report that threaten the right to protect journalists’ sources, and which mean information acquired confidentially can be seized by the police.
article_snippet.sent: Robin Esser points out that legislation designed to have a chilling effect on investigative journalism already exists — laws on contempt of court, data protection, bribery, harassment and terrorism, among others.
article_snippet.sent: There is also the arrival by the back door of a privacy law.
article_snippet.sent: the national Press is now regulated and self-regulated to such an extent, Robin Esser says, that it is only half-free.
article_snippet.sent: The ‘outrageous’ recommendation that whistleblowers should report misgivings only to the organisation that is responsible for the abuses — never to the media — guarantees that fewer scandals will be exposed.
article_snippet.sent: The Information Commissioner, Chris Graham, had been campaigning for prison sentences for those who breached the Data Protection Act; newspapers worried almost any inquiry by a journalist risked being classified as a breach.
article_snippet.sent: Of course newspapers must continue to entertain, Esser concludes, but newspapers must also be a thorn in the sides of those in power, wrongdoers and those who abuse the young and old.