Privacy and Media Power

Ha! As predicted by me a couple of days ago, the totally unknown TV presenter who hit the headlines in the media, Mark Speight, who was essentially charged, tried and convicted of the murder of his girlfriend by the red top media has been released by the police from his bail conditions and is no longer a suspect (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7178373.stm).

I am essentially a free market type who believes that people should be allowed to make their own decisions and that regulation should be kept as light as possible. Government intervention is almost always counterproductive. Government does most things badly. However, we need some sort of privacy law or restraint on the media so that people like this guy are protected from media exploitation. Right now they can print anything about anyone, totally trash your reputation, all in order to get one day's titillating headline, sell more papers and make more money. They then get admonished by the PCC and get away with an apology of a few tiny lines buried on page 23 some weeks later.

Until the law changes and the PCC gets some teeth and is able to fine a paper big bucks - and I mean millions - for printing lies, exaggerations or wild insinuations, our democracy is being perverted. The problem of course is that every politician is frightened of the media and is not willing to put their head above the parapet. Too many skeletons in all their cupboards.