Media Quotes of the Week: From aerial abduction of journalist is an act of 'state thuggery' to the Bashir scandal is being exploited by BBC haters

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, in a statement on the abduction of journalist Roman Protasevich who was removed from a flight and detained by the Belarusian authorities after the plane was instructed to divert to Minsk: "This is breath-taking behaviour and demonstrates just how far President Lukashenko will go to in order to silence journalists and those critical of his regime. This act of state thuggery cannot be allowed to go unchallenged – the international community must do more to stand up to this unacceptable behaviour from a regime set on dismantling press freedom and instilling fear in journalists in Belarus."

• There are 29 journalists currently detained in Belarus

Boris Johnson on Twitter: "The video of Roman Protasevich makes for deeply distressing viewing. As a journalist and a passionate believer in freedom of speech I call for his immediate release. Belarus' actions will have consequences."

Dominic Cummings at the select committee hearing on Covid claimed he had wanted to move Downing Street away from a culture of being a "press answering service" and reacting to what was in the papers every day: "The media realised I was trying to massively diminish their influence and they wanted to get rid of me." 

Max Hastings in The Times [£]: "As long as the pandemic persists, which seems likely to be many moons yet, so will the invisibility of other issues and of lesser politicians. Johnson’s licence to address the nation at will, without facing tough scrutiny from a shamefully tame media that defers to the national emergency, confers a huge advantage upon him."

Richard Pendelbury in the Daily Mail on the death of Max Mosley: "He used his fortune to try to erase the [News of the World] orgy story and images from internet search engines — a Sisyphean task. He also waged a bitter war against elements of the print media. In this campaign he backed draconian new laws to curb what he saw as the excesses of the Press and his opponents regarded as fundamental freedoms. His was the money — more than £500,000 — behind the private office of Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson. A Mosley family trust even donated millions to fund a new Press regulator, Impress, hoping its existence would trigger the imposition of ruinous fines against his Fleet Street critics. Not least among those critics was this newspaper, which in 2018 published a series of investigative articles showing Mosley had misled, if not lied to, the court at his privacy trial about his neo-Fascist past. Labour dropped his funding like a hot brick. Mosley once again summoned his lawyers, this time with no success. The articles were accurate in every shocking detail."

Alan Rusbridger in the Observer: "This has been a bleak week for the BBC. The Bashir saga is shaming. But we can’t allow the future of the corporation to be defined by its enemies. And the prime minister would do well to approach any questions about journalistic ethics with a degree of humility."

Janice Turner in The Times [£]: "Journalists having fainting fits about Bashir know that in his stealth, cunning and, above all, plausibility he is the quintessence of our trade. Bashir lied, forged, deceived; but such methods have exposed monsters. Journalism encompasses great integrity and deep shadiness, sometimes in the same byline. Bashir could convince Diana her closest confidantes were selling stories to newspapers only because so many already were."

The Times [£] in a leader: "Another inquiry is now needed to answer the many questions excluded by his tightly drawn terms of reference. These include the inexplicable decision by the BBC to rehire Mr Bashir in 2016 and the way in which the BBC treated whistleblowers. Only by acting with complete transparency can the BBC expect to win back public trust."

The Guardian in a leader: "An institutional reluctance to confront hard choices may indeed have been part of the problem when Mr Bashir came up with his bombshell interview in 1995 too. But the BBC is far too important for that failing to be used as an excuse to bash or trash a corporation that should be defended and cherished, and whose hallmark, as Lord Dyson says, is its high standards."

David Aaronovitch on Twitter:  "I hold no brief for Martin Bashir, but there is an industrial level revision of history going on about whether Diana 'would have given that interview' if he hadn't deceived her brother. Lord Dyson makes clear in para 1 his view that she would."

Lionel Barber on Twitter: "The issue is not whether Diana would have given the interview. It’s Bashir’s deep deception, the half-assed BBC investigation into the case, Bashir’s exoneration and later rehiring by Tony Hall. Colossal failure of editorial judgment all round now exploited by enemies of BBC."

 David Yelland on Twitter: "How dare Boris Johnson, himself fired from The Times, for making up quotes, get on his high horse on journalism ethics: Bashir is a disaster but it is being used by BBC haters including Johnson and his luddite mates...All those in glass houses, editors past and present, should pause before attacking the BBC and remember Bashir, then, was typical of our culture. The Beeb is still a national asset, a prized thing, a force for good."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Will we end up with just two local newspaper groups? Mail finds 'vile' Mosley pamphlet and Matt's not funny says Labour

Chris Morley, Newsquest NUJ co-ordinator, quoted by Press Gazette, on the proposed takeover by Newsquest of the CN newspaper group in Cumbria: “The rate of takeover of independent newspaper operators is speeding up with apparently just two big players in the market – Trinity Mirror and Newsquest. With Johnston Press paralysed by its debts, the industry seems to be moving to a duopoly of giant owners which is incredibly dangerous for diversity, given the ruthless substitution of unique content for shared material, and plurality of the media. There is too little choice for readers and too few opportunities for journalists."

Alice Pickthall, media analyst at Enders, quoted by the Guardian: “In order to survive, consolidation is key to compete with the online players and retain some share of digital advertising. As the digital market grows, publishers aren’t seeing a proportionate amount of share gain. Facebook has had an especially big impact on the local market. If a local business is offered a lovely shiny [presence] on Facebook who wouldn’t use it? The largest [traditional] players in the market will win, they will continue to pick up smaller publishers to maintain scale in a shrinking market.”

Culture secretary Matt Hancock in the Commons announcing part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry into the behaviour of the press will not go ahead, as reported by the Guardian: "We do not believe that this costly and time consuming public inquiry is the right way forward... It’s clear that we’ve seen significant progress, from publications, from the police and from the new regulator. The world has changed since the Leveson inquiry was established in 2011. Since then we have seen seismic changes to the media landscape.”

Daily Mail after uncovering a racist pamphlet published in the 1960s by Max Mosley, the privacy campaigner and supporter of press regulator Impress: "The discovery of the Mosley pamphlet – arguably one of the most racist official leaflets ever published in a modern British parliamentary election – raises the question of whether Mr Mosley committed perjury, which carries a prison sentence of up to seven years, and whether the trial might have had a different outcome if the judge had known of its existence."

The Times [£] in a leader on Max Mosley and Impress: "To have a supposedly independent press regulator backed by the state was always a contradiction in terms. For it to be dependent on funds handed down by a supporter of Hitler to a motor-racing tycoon with a personal grudge against certain newspapers did not resolve this contradiction. A press regulator cannot credibly be anti-press any more than Ofsted could be anti-school. That is why Impress’s authority is not recognised by a single significant national news outlet. It is less a regulator than a privacy campaign group in disguise, kept afloat by someone whose chief motivation appears to be to prevent the press investigating his own past. It should be wound up, saving Mr Mosley large sums and leaving the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) to regulate the press."

Matt Ferner Retweeted CNN

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch,  as reported by CNN: "Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now I'm not saying that you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media."

Matt Ferner on Twitter: "There's nothing more horrific, crushing, draining & painful than covering mass shootings. I vomited while covering the San Bernardino attack I was so overwhelmed. I often can't sleep for days after going to shooting sites, so many I've lost count. No love, I literally hate them."

Mike Lowe‏ @cotslifeeditor on Twitter: "Breaking news: I hear of a newspaper where management has been so spooked by the number of factual and grammatical errors in direct-to-web content that they've had to create a little team of proof-readers/checkers to oversee content. I think they're called 'subs'."

James Mitchinson Retweeted Jeremy Corbin

Yorkshire Post editor James Mitchinson‏ @JayMitchinson on Twitter: "Dear Yorkshire: the smirk on the face of @jeremycorbyn hides a pernicious vendetta which could see politicians force newspapers like The Yorkshire Post under State control. The 'change' he speaks about is the death of democracy using data protection laws. #freethepress"

Derby North MP Chris Williamson on PolitcsHome: "How free  is our media when a handful of proprietors control 71 per cent of the national newspaper market? Now the prospect for some in the commentariat might be scary, but calling for robust and independent media regulation, while pointing out the power that rich men have over information, sounds like common sense to me. In any case, thanks to social media, the circulation of the right-wing press is already falling as low as the gutter in which its editors minds reside. So like it or not, change is definitely on its way."

Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray in a statement on Jeremy Corbyn's warning to right-wing media owners that 'change is coming': “The Society of Editors does not align itself with any political party nor stance, however we do stand for a free press, a self-regulated press, and we are concerned that in his statement Mr Corbyn appears to be suggesting Labour have plans to change the media landscape in the UK. If that is the case then we would ask him to clarify what those proposed changes are and to urge him to resist any temptation to attempt to silence voices that may be opposed to his point of view through press restrictions.”

The Telegraph in a celebration of cartoonist Matt Pritchard's 30 years with the paper:  "Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, was also invited to join the anniversary celebrations. His team politely declined, saying none of the Matt cartoons they had seen about Mr Corbyn were funny."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From freethepress campaign says Bah Humbug! to Section 40 to is Impress the press regulator that hates the press?

Freethepress campaign urges readers: "Say NO to section 40 and Leveson Part 2. Press freedom, the lifeblood of democracy, is under attack. But you can do something about it. The British government has opened up a public consultation on the next stage of the Leveson Inquiry. It is asking us two questions. Should the government implement Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013? And should the government go ahead with Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry?We say an emphatic NO to both of these questions. And we think you should make your voice heard too."

David Aaronovitch in The Times [£]:  "In addition to being a hack I’ve chaired the freedom of expression organisation Index on Censorship for nearly four years. In that time I’ve seen the variety of ways and the ingenuity of arguments that people use when looking to constrain or limit free speech. It never stops and it’s by no means mainly autocrats who seek to do it. There’s always a good and urgent reason, but to me it’s evident that freedom of speech and expression is the one freedom that underpins all the others."

Max Mosley in a letter to The Times [£]: "As David Aaronovitch points out, the rich often force newspapers to suppress stories that should be published. A newspaper can be hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket even if it wins a major law suit. That is precisely the problem that Leveson has solved. When section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act comes into force, a newspaper can respond to threatened litigation by offering inexpensive arbitration. If this is refused, the court can order the aggressor to pay the costs of both sides. This new law strongly reinforces press freedom and should be commenced without delay."

Gavin Millar, QC, in a letter to The Times [£]: "Huge costs in court cases against newspapers are problematic, but section 40 (2) of the Crime and Courts Act would not solve the problem, as Max Mosley suggests (letter, Dec 16). True, it dangles a “carrot”. Newspapers may not have to pay costs even when they lose the case, but they have to join a state-approved regulator to bite at the carrot. This is currently Impress, funded by Mr Mosley. Valuing their independence, newspapers understandably refuse to do this. In fact, section 40 (3) would create, not solve, a problem. Costs could be awarded against our “refusenik” newspapers even when they win. This is the “stick” in section 40. Drastic state penalties of this sort are incompatible with free speech. They inhibit investigative journalism and allegations of misconduct against powerful people who might sue.
Section 40 is dangerous humbug. Like Old Marley it must be pronounced “dead as a doornail” after this Christmas consultation."

Rachael Jolley, editor, Index on Censorship magazine, in a letter to The Times [£]: "Index on Censorship has published stories by censored writers for more than four decades. Now we ourselves face the prospect of censorship via legal action in the UK. As it stands, legislation on the statute means that we — as an independent publisher that declines to join the press regulator Impress — face the prospect of crippling legal costs, even if we won a case that had been brought against us. Our publication, to which last month the British Society of Magazine Editors gave an “editor of the year” award for its work, could be forced out of business. Any regulation that could potentially bankrupt the media and make investigative journalism too costly to publish should be fiercely resisted."

Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC, in a letter to The Times [£]: "IPSO is supported by most of the press and uses its formidable new powers effectively. When the public consultation ends next month, the culture secretary should not invoke section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. If Hacked Off brings a legal challenge, I predict that the courts will rule that section 40 is arbitrary, unfair and incompatible with a free press."

Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked: "The recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry include the Press Recognition Panel’s use of extreme financial pressure to make all press outlets sign up to a new press regulator, and the suggestion that even third parties — that is, people not directly affected by an offensive press article — could be allowed to complain about it. The idea, now too widely accepted, is that the press must be tamed and the easily offended empowered. The opposite is the case. We should ignore, or challenge, professional offence-takers, and give the press greater freedom and independence and power over itself and its output."

The Sun in a leader: "Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act would be the instant death of investigative journalism. Newspapers could no longer afford to expose scandals in the public interest and provably true. The only safety would be under a new industry regulator, Impress — a dubious outfit bankrolled by Max Mosley, a tycoon with a vendetta against the Press."

Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun: "Newspapers, and the people who produce them and write them and own them, are a constant thorn in my side, an unending headache, and I sometimes lay awake at night wondering what the editor of the Daily Mail would look like without a head. So you’d expect me to be whooping for joy at the news that over the Christmas break, while you’re making merry with the party poppers and the crackers, various shadowy Government people are drawing up plans to bring the nation’s newspapers to heel. But I’m not. I’m horrified to the point of panicky breathlessness. And you should be too."

Nottingham Post editor Mike Sassi, quoted by Press Gazette: "Like all local newspapers, The Nottingham Post receives dozens of complaints every year. The vast majority are dealt with amicably, often by us explaining to complainants how and why something has been reported. A small number are resolved with a swift clarification and, if necessary, an apology. However, if Section 40 were to become law, complainants would have a huge financial incentive to pursue us, knowing that even if they lose we have to pay their costs. The number of complaints would inevitably increase."

David Higgerson on his blog: "IMPRESS, in my opinion, has demeaned and belittled journalism in its quest to force others to make life so difficult for the Press that they have no choice but to sign up. In doing so, it has alienated the vast majority of journalist for whom facts are everything, and getting something wrong is something they try to avoid at all costs."

MediaGuido on press regulator Impress: "MediaGuido has found that four senior Impress employees have endorsed loopy comparisons between the Daily Mail and the Nazis. Impress CEO Jonathan Heawood has shared multiple social media posts calling the Mail “fascists”, “a neo-fascist rag”, and a claim that it is “increasingly adopting fascist style politics”. Another post shared by Heawood compares the Mail to a newspaper from Nazi Germany... How can a press regulator reasonably regulate an industry if it wants to ban newspapers? How can they come to fair and balanced judgments if its CEO believes they are “neo-fascists”? Impress is the press regulator that hates the press, it is a farce that the government is giving these people the time of day…"

Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail: "It seems to me utterly incredible that a group of individuals who don’t bother to disguise their hatred for some newspapers should be the leading lights of a State-approved body which is supposed to regulate the free Press — and that the same organisation should be funded by a man like Mosley. Are we dreaming? Can this really be happening? If politicians really do want State control of the Press, you’d think they might come up with a few respectable members of the great‑and-the-good rather than this immature and undistinguished shower who garrulously tweet their illiberal prejudices."

• My Media Quotes of the Year are on InPublishing here

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Media Quotes of the Week: From Davies blames MacKenzie for 'flushing journalistic rules down the toilet' to Alex Salmond's sobering headline

Nick Davies in Hack Attack: "For anybody who wants to understand why things went so wrong in British newspapers, there is a very simple answer which consists of only two words - 'Kelvin' and 'MacKenzie'. When Rupert Murdoch made him editor of the Sun in 1981, MacKenzie effectively took the book of journalistic rules and flushed it down one of the office's famously horrible toilets."

Nick Davies, interviewed by Press Gazette: "I think that the bad guys hate me. Is it reasonable to cite this, that [Press Gazette editor] Dominic Ponsford once said to me: ‘I can’t follow up your stories because all our advertising comes from these newspapers'."

Dominic Ponsford in an editor's note to the above: "I can only think that I must have been being largely flippant, or flattering, when I said that, because there was a long time (between July 2009 and July 2011) when Press Gazette was among the very few titles following up The Guardian hacking scandal coverage. As a trade title for all journalists it is true that we are more positive in general about tabloid journalism than The Guardian."

Peter Oborne reviewing Hack Attack in the Telegraph: "There are very few British journalists and politicians who are entitled to reflect on the lessons of the phone-hacking scandal without feeling a sense of profound personal shame."

Will Gore reviewing Hack Attack in the Independent: "Davies may be on the side of the just. But he is as ideologically driven as those he despises. In the end, his real target is neo-liberalism, which 'has reversed hundreds of years of struggle' and undermined the protection offered by democratic governments to ordinary working people. The consequence is that, while it is a great read, Hack Attack’s outlook sometimes feels a little too black and white: you are either with us or against us."

Catherine Bennett in the Observer: "Not for the first time, the public willingness to forget all about Max Mosley is frustrated by Max Mosley's determination to be forgotten about. His latest legal action against Google, for not having suppressed pictures of what the News of the World falsely alleged to be a 'Nazi themed' sex party, has duly renewed interest in records of that historic event and in its host, Mr Mosley, who may now be less well known as the son of the fascist demagogue, Sir Oswald Mosley."

Max Mosley in the Observer: "Your privacy or your private life belongs to you. Some of it you may choose to make available, some of it should be made available, because it's in the public interest to make it known. The rest should be yours alone. And if anyone takes it from you, that's theft and it's the same as the theft of property."

Rodney Edwards ‏@rodneyedwards  on Twitter: "John Simpson tells Enniskillen audience that BBC 'grotesquely over-managed', adding: 'All these rough women we have running the place now'."

• N.B. Simpson, according to the Sunday Times [£], claims he said "tough" not "rough."

Chris Morley, NUJ Northern & Midlands organiser: "Local World is a new company born without the twin millstones of historic debt and pension fund deficit to drag it down so its future should look bright. Indeed, the £18.5m operating profits show newspapers do continue to make big money as digital revenues were still less than a tenth of the total revenue. Yet the company’s declared strategy does not earmark any place for newspapers and instead David Montgomery merely seeks to transform Local World into a ‘digitised transaction business’."

Media law expert David Banks in the Telegraph on the decision by an Old Bailey judge not to name two councillors who didn't pay their council tax: “This is an example of the way that data protection laws create privacy rights which many ordinary people would say are barmy.”

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in a personal minute to his minister of defence about Chapman Pincher, who died this week aged 100, according to the Daily Telegraph: “I do not understand how the Express alone of all the newspapers has got the exact decision that we reached at the cabinet last Thursday on space. Can nothing be done to suppress or get rid of Mr Chapman Pincher? I am getting very concerned about how well informed he always seems to be on defence matters.”

Martin Bright in the Mail on Sunday on working for Tony Blair's Faith Foundation: "Blair’s Religion And Geopolitics site was launched last month, and I’m proud of it, despite its omissions. But there was no chance of autonomy for its editor – me. Blair’s increasingly strident position on the world stage clearly is affecting the ability of his charities to work independently. I always found Tony himself engaging, committed and utterly genuine in his belief that we need a better understanding of the role religion plays in global conflict. But something always jarred about the grandness of it all. He doesn’t do humility and nor do his organisations. Perhaps that’s his tragedy. In that strange first interview, I had been asked what I would do if I disagreed with the future direction of the charity.  I said that there was only one course of action possible: I would have to resign. So, a few weeks ago, I did."

David Loyn in the Guardian:"Emotion is the stuff of propaganda, and news is against propaganda. Reporting should privilege the emotional responses of audiences, not indulge journalists."

From the Guardian: "This article was amended on Monday 4 August 2014 to change the headline, removing the word 'sober'."

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S & M: The Sun on Max Mosley's failed court bid

The Sun couldn't resist giving Max Mosley a spanking today in its report of how he lost his bid in the European Court to make newspapers warn people in advance if they were publishing stories about their private life.

The Sun intro reads: "FORMER Formula 1 chief Max Mosley was left licking his wounds yesterday after losing a £30,000 bid to gag the Press."

Picture of the Week: Max meets hack in the City

Ex-News of the World hack Paul McMullan and Max Mosley have clearly hit it off at the debate about 'How far should reporters go? the lessons of the News of the World phone-hacking story' at City University. (Pic: Jon Slattery)

Nick Davies apologises to the News of the World: 'It wasn't just them, most of the newsrooms in Fleet Street were involved in illegal activities'

Guardian journalist Nick Davies, who has led the investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the World, apologised to the paper last night.

Davies, speaking at a debate at City University on 'How far should a reporter go? the lessons of the News of the World phone-hacking story' said: "I want to apologise to the News of the World. I feel sorry for them. It is a fluke and bad luck that this paper is subject to all this attention and that one journalist [Royal correspondent Clive Goodman] got caught.

"All of us can say that illegal activity was going on in most Fleet Street newsrooms. We know this as a fact." Davies said the Information Commissioner has even identified the Guardian's sister title, the Observer, as a culprit.

[Nick Davies in a post below makes clear that in referring to illegal activities, he means the use of private investigators and is not suggesting the Observer was hacking voicemail.]

He argued that changes to technology in the 1980s with access to mobile phone records plus the pressure exerted by newspapers struggling "to stay alive" and "endless bollockings" dished out by newsdesks had created an atmosphere in which reporters pushed the invasion of privacy.

Davies said: "They've no business in our bedrooms. They've gone too far. It's outrageous what they did to Max Mosley [the former Formula One president whose sex life was exposed by the News of the World ]. What business is it of the public what John Terry is up to in private. John Terry is only a role model as a central defender."

Ex-News of the World features editor Paul McMullan, speaking at the debate, admitted he had hacked phones and medical records to expose cocaine dealers. "If you want to get on in tabloid journalism you have to outsmart lawyers," he said.

He described phone-hacking as a "third-rate journalistic tool" that was "not so serious" with most messages on voicemail being of the "I'm down at Tesco's buying a pint of milk" category.

MediaGuardian commentator Roy Greenslade, in the somewhat awkward position of trying to speak up for the News of the World whose executives had declined to attend the debate because they were at the Tory party conference, argued that celebrities and footballers needed to be monitored because they were role models that influenced young people. But you felt his heart wasn't really in it.

However, he sounded far more sincere in defending Andy Coulson's position that when he was editor of the News of the World he had no knowledge that phone hacking was going on. Greenslade claimed: "The size of a newspaper nowadays is such that an editor cannot be involved in every story."

He said some of Goodman's stories had been quite trivial and Coulson would not necessarily know where they had come from. "People will say 'of course he knew' but it's feasible to me that you don't know the methodology of every story ."

Greenslade claimed that journalists in Fleet Street had been deploying "dark arts" and dodgy methods ever since he started in journalism 40 years ago.

Max Mosley, also speaking at the event, compared his "adventurous" sex life to that of the one he imagines for Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre - "the missionary position with the lights out and a few minutes of fumbling." Dacre has accused Mosley of "unimaginable depravity."

Mosley said: "The danger is we will lose a free press if the press is not responsible. We want major investigative journalism not tittle tattle." He claimed there was no justification for journalists to break the law in pursuit of a story.

However, this argument was dismissed as "too simplistic" by the former Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald. He said there were times when we should want journalists to break the law when investigating important stories in the public interest, like Watergate or the Thalidomide scandal.

None of the journalists were keen on Mosley's idea that prior notification of stories should become part of UK law, but Davies did float the idea of some kind of tribunal that could look at contentious stories before publication and decide if they should be published in the public interest.

As ever, the difficulty was coming up with a process that would protect privacy and still allow journalists to undertake investigations in the public interest.

Almost as difficult a conflict as that faced by Roy Greenslade, having to defend the News of the World in a public debate.

• Pics Jon Slattery. Top: Roy Greenslade (left); Nick Davies (right). Bottom: Paul McMullan (left), Max Mosley (right).
  

Max Mosley: 'Why I'm going to Strasbourg'

Former Formula One president Max Mosley, who is one of the speakers at tomorrow's debate about the News of the World at City University and won a privacy action against the paper after it ran a story about his sex life, has written an opinion piece about why he is going to Strasbourg seeking a ruling that the UK government should make prior notification of stories compulsory.

A breach of privacy can be hideously painful for the victim and his family. It is much worse than burglary. Possessions can be replaced but privacy can never be restored. Today, the damage from an invasion of privacy is permanent, constant and world-wide. No matter where the victim goes, all it takes is a quick look with an Internet search engine and all is revealed.

Faced with a law to protect privacy, the more scurrilous tabloids have a way round it. When they have a story which they know is illegal, they make sure the victim cannot find out until it's too late. They even use "spoof" first editions. They know that if they can get the story out without their victim seeking an injunction, there is almost no risk they will be sued afterwards.

Why this is so can be seen from my example. I had no knowledge of the story until the Sunday it was published, so I had no chance of stopping it. All I could do was sue for damages later. I was awarded a record £60,000 against the News of the World. They also had to pay £420,000 towards my costs. But my legal bill was £510,000, leaving me £30,000 worse off. On top of this, the private information was published all over again and on a huge scale.

This was not a surprise. At our very first meeting, my lawyers explained that because the story was already out, all I would get if I sued was a large bill and massive additional publicity. They also warned that if I lost, the bill would be £1 million. I was astonished that this was the state of the law in the UK. No wonder the tabloids are confident their victims won't sue.

The tabloids go to great lengths to stop their victims going to court because the UK has quite a good privacy law. The judge weighs an individual's right to privacy against society's right to know. Both are protected by the Human Rights Act. Neither takes precedence over the other.

Sometimes the balance can be fine. But difficult and finely-balanced decisions are what judges do. They apply an "intense focus" to all the facts and reach a fair decision. Given the huge variety of possible circumstances, it is unrealistic to suppose a statute could prescribe in advance when privacy should prevail over free speech or vice-versa.

Some journalists and editors object. They claim that judges, not Parliament, are making the law. In fact, the judges are applying a law passed by Parliament as recently as 1998. But whenever an entirely independent, unbiased judge decides that there is no public interest sufficient to justify publication of a private matter, the tabloids react with fury. Independent supervision is fine for other professions, but not for them.

At least one tabloid editor claims the right to expose to the world any private activity he considers "immoral" or "depraved". Anything sexual is fair game, even if it is between willing adults in private. He believes they have no right to privacy if their activities are not to his taste. Doubtless the Taliban would support his attempts to tell grown ups what they may or may not do in their bedrooms, but we shouldn't.

When private information is relevant to democratic debate or to a decision the public have to make, it should be published, even if painful for the individual. And the judge will allow it because the public interest outweighs the right to privacy. But the suggestion that there is some pressing public need to expose a promiscuous footballer or a gay businessman is laughable.

Quite obviously, the only effective remedy is to prevent unlawful publication before it happens. But the victim can only seek an injunction if he knows what's going on. The problem of deliberate concealment by certain red tops to stop their victims going to court must be removed. A newspaper should be bound to inform its victim if it intends to publish something which there are reasonable grounds to believe infringes his right to privacy.

The victim would then be able, if he so wished, to have the case for and against publication considered by an independent judge. The fate of the victim and his family would no longer be entirely in the hands of a red-top editor who just wants to sell his paper. And the costs would be significantly less than 5% of the cost of a self-defeating, post-publication trial.

In Strasbourg, we are seeking a ruling that the UK government should make prior notification compulsory. The government do not deny that the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act require an effective remedy for breach of privacy and they must know their post-publication remedy is useless. But, for whatever reason, they want to retain the status quo and continue to allow certain tabloid editors to operate beyond the reach of the law.

A civilised society should not allow an individual to be tormented for no better reason than entertainment or profit. All such cases should be dealt with free of charge by an independent Press Complaints Commission. Justice would then be available to those who are unable or unwilling to spend vast sums on litigation. Unfortunately, the current PCC is a creature of the press with no power to prevent publication and no right to inflict financial penalties. We need an independent PCC with teeth but we probably won't get one. The prospect of a career-threatening tabloid attack is too much for most politicians.

• The News of the World issued a statement after Mosley won his privacy action claiming the press in the UK was less free "after another judgement based on privacy laws emanating from Europe" and said it would continue to fight for its reader "right to know".
• Two more secret injunctions for rich and famous