Any local reporter would be pleased to hear a leading politician stand up for public interest journalism. Jeremy Corbyn did just that in his speech on media reform yesterday. But let’s not forget that Labour – and Corbyn himself – are adamant supporters of Leveson 2. Make no mistake: this is a dangerous attempt to muzzle local newspapers and expose reporters like me to crippling and needless law-suits.
The most worrying aspect of Leveson 2 is Section 40, which would force papers to pay legal costs for people suing them regardless of whether they won their case. This would make the work of journalists much more difficult. After all, many of our best stories – such as yesterday’s splash in the Manchester Evening News about a doctor who had allegedly been getting the causes of death wrong in dozens of post-mortems – would have probably been canned for fear of messy legal ramifications.
In fact, it’s hard to think of any of our investigations which wouldn’t have been significantly more difficult (or even impossible) under the Leveson regime.
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