The acquittal of former News of the World editor and Cameron spin doctor-in-chief Andy Coulson on perjury charges at the high court in Edinburgh appears to have hinged largely on a phrase uttered by the…
As criminal trials proceed against more journalists for alleged corrupt payments to public officials, and more evidence emerges about industrial-scale phone hacking at Mirror Group newspapers, The Sun…
What has happened to British journalism’s proud record of speaking truth to power?
Rowan Staszkiewicz/PA Wire
Britain’s rights to basic freedom of expression, which writers, journalists and free-speech activists fought for over centuries have been sacrificed and abandoned in the space of a few short disastrous…
At 16.38 on December 10th 2014, the casual viewer of BBC News24 may been forgiven for thinking that news had finally eaten itself. For there, on the screen, was the breaking news announcement: GUARDIAN…
When the News of the World newspaper closed in 2011, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, its editor, Colin Myler, said: “I know we produce a paper to be proud of.” To prove the point, the paper’s…
The picture Mazher Mahmood’s lawyers didn’t want you to see.
BBC Panorama.
Well, there was a lot of mucking about, but Panorama has finally broadcast its exposé of Sun on Sunday journalist Mazher Mahmood, widely known as the “Fake Sheikh”. The programme had been scheduled for…
Are the jihadists really plotting a Western Ebola attack?
EPA
All too predictably, the Ebola crisis has been accompanied by any number of breathless headlines – not all of them sensible. “Experts fear ISIS jihadists may infect themselves to spread virus in West…
Dark days ahead for journalism and justice?
Clara Molden/PA
Police “hacking” of journalists’ phone records to identify their sources is a scandal and human rights issue that dwarfs the tabloid phone-hacking affair that led to the Leveson Inquiry. The UK’s trade…
Brenda Leyland, a 63-year old woman from Leicestershire who had been accused of publishing a stream of internet abuse about the family of missing child Madeleine McCann, has been found dead in a hotel…
Not the launch they had hoped for.
Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Some time over the past few weeks, the nameplate outside the Holborn offices of the Press Complaints Commission was removed, leaving an empty space. And now its successor, the Independent Press Standards…
Comment is free - unless it is paid for…
John Stillwell/PA Wire
More than 140,000 people have signed a petition condemning the Guardian for running an advertisement that accuses Palestinian leaders of “child sacrifice”. There is outrage but also surprise: how can a…
In his diaries, cataloguing his time as communications director at Number 10 during the premiership of Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell notes that in the week before the fateful vote on Iraq in March 2003…
In the latest episode in the long-running saga that is the phone hacking affair, Dan Evans, a former journalist at the News of the World and Sunday Mirror, has received a 10 month suspended sentence after…
One man goes to jail. But this doesn’t solve problems with UK journalism.
Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
On the day that Andy Coulson was sentenced to 18 months for his part in the industrial-scale phone hacking that went on at the News of the World, we will no doubt hear from the industry that this is proof…
Andy Coulson: guilty of conspiring to hack phones.
Ian West/PA
The unethical journalism practices laid bare by the phone hacking trial and the Leveson Inquiry have been both astounding and sensational. The parade of celebrities and politicians whose most intimate…
Andy Coulson has been found guilty of phone hacking and his former boss, Prime Minister David Cameron, has been quick to apologise for “giving him a second chance” by employing the former News of the World…
This is a defining moment for British journalism. Not because of the phone hacking verdicts, which frankly told us little more than the trial had already revealed. In October 2013, three senior News of…
Suspects are protected - but what about victims and witnesses?
Image via Shutterstock
A campaign is at large to secure statutory anonymity for all young people under 18 who are accused of crime. Lawyers, criminologists, judges, sociologists, academics, and politicians are in on it. It is…