For some reason known only to themselves, a group of 80 or so MPs and Peers have taken up the cudgel against Lord leveson's report on press freedom even before it's been published. They object to any real restrictions on the freedom of the media despite the appalling disclosures of recent years.
I'm not one to believe in state interference in our lives but I also don't believe in allowing the press to have a free pass to break the law in their supposed pursuit of justice and in the supposed 'public interest'. In recent times, some media outlets have shown a shocking and callous disregard for peoples' privacy and have pursued the most outrageous lines of so-called enquiry. The self-regulation carried out by the Press Council has proved to be worthless and it must now be time for a properly independent body to oversee the activities of the media in general.
This is not to suggest that legitimate reporting should be curbed but there must be real sanctions for those bodies that publish irresponsible and poorly reasearched stories, or that intrude into the private lives of individuals for purely salacious reasons and to make profits. The Press Council has proven itself to be incapable of carrying out this role; it must be replaced by a body with real teeth.
Those MPs and others who have taken up the pen in opposition to what Leveson is believed to be going to report are presumably those who also make a tidy living from their own connections with the media; what is most frightening is that there are so many of them.
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