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Mark Robertson of the Northumber-
Tom Dodds on transport matters »Two differing views of the press came out in Parliament this week.
Speaking after he announced that newspapers would be given access to court documents for free, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said that "local and regional newspapers are indeed the backbone of our democracy."
How nice of Mr Straw. His Labour colleague Jim Sheridan seems less enamoured with us, however, saying: "A high proportion of people living in the UK have some difficulty in even believing the racing results printed by some of our newspapers".
To be fair to Mr Sheridan, he was speaking specifically about the tabloid press and on a day when most of the red-tops have had to pay damages for what they wrote about Madeleine McCann suspect Robert Murat and two of his friends (£800,000 from Associated Newspapers, Express Newspapers, MGN Limited and News Group Newspapers), it's pretty hard to defend them.
It's pretty hard too to take the high moral ground when defending the News of the World's right to publish stories about people's sex lives, however unusual they may be.
Sometimes it's a bit uncomfortable being a journalist and having to defend the actions of some of my colleagues. But at the end of the day, I've always subscribed to the old adage "I don't agree with what you're saying, but I defend to the death your right to say it."
Any moves to increase privacy legislation or make breaches of the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct a criminal offence - as Jim Sheridan was proposing - would only hurt the ability of the press - all of it - in being "the backbone of our democracy".
Is there a way we can improve the behaviour of some sections of the press without harming its ability to do its job? I doubt it personally but let me know if you have any bright ideas!
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