It rarely takes long, in arguments about free speech, before someone refers to John Milton or John Stuart Mill. Most of us remember one particularly strong defence of free speech made in both Milton’s Areopagatica and Mill’s On Liberty. Any attempt to censor, suppress or constrain free speech, Milton and Mill argue, denies people access to the truth. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Tag: Martin Moore (Page 2 of 3)
At the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice and Wonderland the March Hare upbraids Alice for claiming she can solve a riddle:“ Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare. “Exactly so,” said Alice.“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least – at least I mean what I say – that’s the same thing, you know.” Continue reading
When a Mail on Sunday journalist intruded on a private memorial service for Ed Miliband’s uncle the editor of the Mail on Sunday, Geordie Grieg, apologised and suspended two journalists. It was a ‘terrible lapse of judgment’ he wrote, and said that it was ‘completely contrary to the values and editorial standards of the Mail on Sunday’. Continue reading
The press defended private investigators (“PIs”) from regulation, then turned around and asked why they hadn’t been regulated. As an example, of the latter, on 25 July 2013 Tom Harper wrote in the Independent: Continue reading
This week it was reported that the editors of the national newspapers had made great strides towards accepting the vast majority of Leveson’s recommendations. The Guardian reported that the broadsheet and tabloid editors ‘agreed at a breakfast summit to 40 of Leveson’s first 47 proposals – paving the way for the creation of a new regulator with powers to levy fines of up to £1m’. Continue reading
At the heart of the Leveson report is an indictment of some of the past practices of parts of the press when it came to their treatment of ordinary people. Not celebrities or politicians but ordinary people who have, often for reasons entirely out of their control, suddenly found themselves in the media glare. Continue reading
Saturday’s Times newspaper claimed it knew the answer to the million dollar question – what is Lord Justice Leveson going to recommend? The judge, the paper said, would reject pure self-regulation and go instead for a ‘system similar to the model operating in the Irish Republic’. Rather than clarifying exactly what this meant, the article then concentrated on why Lord Black and other members of the press might object to such a system. Continue reading
If British newspapers represent public opinion fairly then you would think the public – or at least Telegraph readers – strongly supported the press’ own plan for self-regulation and would die in a ditch to prevent anything else being put in place. Continue reading
There is no shortage of quotes or aphorisms about the corrupting nature of too much power. From Thomas Bailey’s warning that “The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man” to Lord Acton’s ”absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Why does this happen? Empathy, as readers of Machiavelli’s The Prince will know, can be detrimental to the pursuit of power. “It is much safer,” Machiavelli wrote, “to be feared than to be loved.” Powerful people, in other words, can cease to see other people as human. Continue reading
In July, prompted by Section 21 orders from Lord Justice Leveson, many of the UK’s big news organisations offered qualified support for the plan put forward by Lord Black and Lord Hunt for a new system of press self-regulation based on contract law (though none have signed up to it yet). Continue reading
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