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|title=There Is No Such Thing As A Free Press

|author=Mick Hume

|reviewer=Sue Magee

|genre=Politics and Society

|rating=5

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=188

|publisher=Imprint Academic

|date=September 2012

|isbn=978-1845403508

}}

I'll confess that the phone-hacking scandal largely left me cold. It seemed to be about people who had courted the media interest complaining that they had caught the media's interest when they didn't intend to do so. Then the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone came to light and disinterest turned to disgust. The Leveson Enquiry became the best show in town if you really wanted to hear about what celebrities had been doing and I moved to wondering what the outcome would be and whether it would prove to be a talking shop and waste of money. It might have remained that way if the Jimmy Savile scandal hadn't dominated the news for a couple of weeks and I really began to wonder if we here at Bookbag Towers were the ''only'' people hadn't known what was going on. Why hadn't this made headlines when other less important news had? I needed to know more about the press. I particularly needed to know if increased regulation - which seems almost inevitable - could produce more Jimmy Saviles.

The (lack of) ethics of a small part of the media has produced a backlash which put me in mind of the Dangerous Dogs Act. Celebrities have paraded in front of Leveson (and our television screens) telling of how badly they've been treated - and there have been some others for whom there was a great deal of sympathy. The result is likely to be a muzzled press unable to do what it should do. And we have to remember that the right to a free press has been fought for for centuries - Hume gives brief and very readable accounts of the history. It's interesting to note that John Wilkes, remembered for his fight for a free press, would have been seen as one of the hacks which society feels the need to 'contain' were he alive today.

It's polemic and not presented as anything else, but it is extremely well written. I didn't find it a quick read but that was because I found my mind being pushed into corners long unvisited. There was a great deal to think about - why is it wrong for the press to pry into the lives of celebrities but laudable for Jamie Oliver to do the same thing to children's lunch boxes? I didn't agree with all of it but it can't be anything less than five stars because it made me think. And change my mind about certain things.

Hume makes the point that Rupert Murdoch has been demonised, perhaps unfairly. If you're interested in knowing more about him then we can recommend (if a little cautiously) [[The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff]].

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|name= Mick Hume

|comment= Hacked Off (the pro-regulation lobby group fronted by Hugh Grant) admit in their book ''Everybody’s Hacked Off'' that the lobby group: