DAILY EXPRESS: THE media is “shackled” to such an extent that the UK does not really have a free press, the editor of the Daily Express said yesterday.
Peter Hill told a committee of MPs examining standards in journalism that they should be looking for ways of removing constraints on the media, not imposing new ones.
Mr Hill also apologised again for printing inaccurate stories suggesting Kate and Gerry McCann were responsible for the death of their daughter Madeleine, but said they had come from what he believed were credible sources in the Portuguese police.
The idea that newspapers could print whatever they liked about people with impunity was mistaken, he said.
“We have got the laws of libel which are the most severe in the world,” he told the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport.
“We have got the law of confidence, which is now being used extensively by celebrities; we have got the law of privacy which is coming in; we have got European law; we are pretty much up to our ears in laws.”
Legal firms who went round offering so-called “no win no fee” deals – technically known as conditional fee arrangements (CFA) – on libel actions had created a “ridiculous” situation and people came from all over the world to sue in British courts.
The constitutional right to freedom of expression in the US ensured a genuinely free press across the Atlantic, he said.
“We do not have a free press in this country by any means – we have a very, very shackled press,” he said.
“You should be looking at means of removing those shackles, not imposing more.” A genuinely free press is essential to the proper functioning of a democratic society, he said. >>> By Damon Wake | Wednesday, April 29, 2009
