A creeping legislative tide which threatens to submerge journalistic freedoms is something we should all be wary of, says Romana Canneti
- The UK is classed as one of the ‘worst’ Western European countries in the world’s press freedom index.
- ‘National security’ is increasingly used to justify a ‘heavy-handed’ approach to UK media.
- Legislation that erodes journalistic safeguards threatens our Art 10 rights.
In its annual World Press Freedom Index, published in April, Reporters Without Borders (known previously as Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)) ranked 180 countries and regions ‘according to the level of freedom available to journalists... based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists…’ The self-styled ‘world’s biggest NGO… specialising in the defence of media freedom’ awarded the top five slots to Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
Britain, birthplace of John Wilkes, John Stuart Mills and John Milton, surely didn’t lag far behind? We pride ourselves on our ‘free press’. We’ve enshrined freedom of expression in Art 10, Sch 1, of our Human Rights Act 1998. Our print
