MAIL Online: Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre last night launched a passionate defence of Press freedom in a keynote speech to a major newspaper industry conference.
He warned of the dangers of a privacy law being brought in by the back door following recent court cases involving celebrities trying to prevent reporting of their private lives.
In particular, he argued, the 'arrogant and amoral' judgments of High Court judge Mr Justice Eady, who presides over the overwhelming majority of privacy cases, were 'inexorably and insidiously' leading to greater restrictions on the freedom of the Press to publish stories about the rich and powerful.
Mr Justice Eady had used the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act against newspapers and their age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places, Mr Dacre told the Society of Editors annual conference in Bristol.
'If Gordon Brown wanted to force a privacy law, he would have to set out a bill, arguing his case in both Houses of Parliament, withstand public scrutiny and win a series of votes,' he said.
'Now, thanks to the wretched Human Rights Act, one judge with a subjective and highly relativist moral sense can do the same with a stroke of his pen.'
Two years ago, Mr Justice Eady had ruled that a cuckolded husband could not sell to the Press his story about a wealthy sporting celebrity who had seduced his wife.
Mr Dacre, who is also Editor in Chief of Associated Newspapers, said: 'The judge was worried about the effect of the revelations on the celebrity's wife.
'Now I agree that any distress caused to innocent parties is regrettable but exactly the same worries could be expressed about the relatives of any individual who transgressed.
'Followed to its logical conclusion, it would mean that nobody could be condemned for wrongdoing.
'The judge - in a reversal of centuries of moral and social thinking - placed the rights of the adulterer above society's age-old belief that adultery should be condemned.' >>> | November 10, 2008
THE GUARDIAN: Daily Mail Chief Paul Dacre Criticises BBC Growth and Privacy Rulings
The Daily Mail editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre, used a rare public speech last night to attack BBC expansion and the rulings of a leading high court judge, which he claimed were introducing privacy laws via the back door.
Opening the annual Society of Editors conference in Bristol, Dacre made an impassioned defence of the popular press and said that the unchecked growth of the BBC had abetted the collapse of ITV's news services.
The regional press also needed safeguarding from the "ubiquity" of the BBC, which had gone unchecked, he said.
"With its preposterous proposal for 65 ultralocal websites, [the BBC] is going for the jugular of the local newspaper industry.
Lines must be drawn in the sand," Dacre told the Society of Editors.
However, Dacre saved his most stinging attack for the high court judge, Justice David Eady, who he said was harming the British press by imposing a privacy law, with "arrogant and amoral judgments".
"The British press is having a privacy law imposed on it, which apart from allowing the corrupt and the crooked to sleep easily in their beds is, I would argue, undermining the ability of mass-circulation newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market," he said.
"This law is not coming from parliament. No, that would smack of democracy, but from the arrogant and amoral judgments, words I use very deliberately, of one man," Dacre added.
"I am referring, of course, to Justice David Eady who has, again and again, under the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act, found against newspapers and their age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places." >>> Oliver Luft | November 10, 2008
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