Questioning the former Sunday Times editor on his support for statutory underpinning of press regulation, Satchwell suggested such proposals would give politicians of the future opportunity to interfere in the practices of the press. He said no one would disagreed with the idea of a statute guaranteeing the freedom of the press from political intervention but proposed new laws all had a “but” in them and that was where the danger lay.
He suggested that Sir Harry would know from his long experience of clashes with lawyers, judges and politicians that there were dangers of involving law in UK press regulation because there was no written constitution in the UK to prevent politicians of the future amending well intentioned legislation.
Sir Harold replied that whilst safeguards were undoubtedly needed to ensure the freedom of the press from Government control, he believed that proposals put forward by the Labour party and the Hacked Off campaign contained sufficient provisions that such interference would not take place.
As reported in the Guardian yesterday Evans, who gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry in March last year, said he was greatly in favour of the idea that the freedom of the press could be enshrined in law as a result of Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations.
Referring to his own 1974 speech when he said Britain had a half free press and the Society of Editors’ 2010 update that suggested it was now only 45 per cent free, Evans described the press as "unduly restricted". When investigating serious matters in the public interest he claimed that statutory underpinning of a free press could have assisted the Sunday Times during his editorship in its long campaign in covering the thalidomide scandal in the early 1970s.
While he accused British papers of misrepresenting Leveson’s proposals, it was other areas of the report that drew the most scathing criticism from the former editor. Proposals to reform data protection laws were described as 'dangerous' to investigative reporting and he expressed dismay at the lack of focus on media plurality in the published report.
