Mirror faces questions after Newmark honeytrap sting

NEW press watchdog IPSO faces its first major test after a formal complaint by Conservative MP Mark Pritchard against the Sunday Mirror.

Mr Pritchard said the newspaper had used "questionable techniques" to obtain explicit pictures from fellow Conservative Brooks Newmark who resigned from his post in the Cabinet Office.

In the sting, a male freelance reporter adopted the false identity of "Sophie Wittams" and set up a Twitter account describing himself as a "twenty-something Tory PR girl".

Following flattering messages from the mysterious Ms Wittams, Mr Newmark agreed to swap "sexually explicit images".

But, of course, Mr Newmark did not receive an image in return of Ms Wittams, instead receiving a "sunbathing selfie" of Charlene Tyler, a 26-year-old from Boston in Lincolnshire.

Ms Tyler told the Daily Telegraph yesterday it was wrong for the paper to have used her photo without permission, and that Mr Newmark had done nothing wrong.

However, this was not the only image to have been used by the freelancer without permission.

The avatar of the fictional Twitter account with which Mr Newmark communicated was a picture of Swedish model Malin Sahlén.

And she has told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: “I do not want to be exploited in this way and that someone has used my image like this feels really awful, both for me and the others involved in this.

“I am shocked and it is unpleasant for someone to use the picture without permission.”

Sunday Mirror editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley has now apologised to both women, explaining: “We thought that pictures used by the investigation were posed by models, but we now know that some real pictures were used.

"At no point has the Sunday Mirror published any of these images, but we would like to apologise to the women involved for their use in the investigation."

Nevertheless, the newspaper boss stood by the story, claiming it was in the public interest.

The public interest defence is much used by newspapers and, in this case, it mainly relates to Mr Newmark's role as co-founder of the Women2Win organisation.

Women2Win is aimed at attracting more Conservative women to Parliament - and the Sunday Mirror will argue Mr Newmark's conduct contradicts this position.

Based on previous rulings, though, the newspaper would appear to have a pretty weak case, if nothing else because of the use of entrapment.

"Fishing expeditions", as they are known, must surely carry a more substantial public interest argument than this. Even the Sun and the Mail have said they turned the story down.

Ultimately, the article has done no favours to any of the parties involved. Mr Newmark has lost his ministerial salary and must try to rebuild trust with his wife and five children.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have suffered an awful start to their party conference in Birmingham, a double-whammy coming in the form of Mark Reckless's decision to defect to UKIP.

MP for Rochester and Stroud, Mr Reckless became the second Tory to resign and seek re-election on the UKIP platform after Douglas Carswell's move in Clacton just over a month ago.

Finally, this story has done nothing to rebuild the already-pathetically low levels of trust between the national press and the public.

Coincidentally, it came at the end of a week in which it became apparent the same Trinity Mirror group of newspapers was also heavily involved in phone-hacking.

Phone-hacking, fishing expeditions, honey-traps - all of them are bound to produce a juicy story - but are any of them actually news?

Proper journalism sticks to the facts of what has actually happened or discloses serious levels of hypocrisy and/or incompetence.

It does not seek to manufacture the story for its own monetary gain.

Defamation 101: Sally Bercow's Twitter folly

JUST seven words and a bit of punctuation was all it took to land Sally Bercow in a lot of trouble on Twitter.

Mrs Bercow, wife of the House of Commons Speaker John, made her post on 4 November last year, querying "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*".

Lord McAlpine, though he was not named in a Newsnight report two nights earlier, had subsequently been identified on the internet as the Conservative politician from the Margaret Thatcher era, accused of child abuse.

Except that he had never done such a thing and had instead been a victim of mistaken identity - as his accuser admitted after seeing a different photograph.

The failure to check these facts cost BBC Newsnight - and ITV who repeated the allegations - dearly, with Lord McAlpine being easily able to prove in court that the story referred to him.

But the modern world of social media, such as Twitter, added an extra element to the mess.

Indeed, Lord McAlpine was able to identify thousands of Tweets which he considered defamatory, though he later dropped claims against Twitter users with fewer than 500 followers in return for a charitable donation to the BBC's Children in Need.

With 56,000 followers at the time, Mrs Bercow did not qualify for the exception - and instead she decided to fight her corner, claiming there was nothing defamatory in what she had written.

Unfortunately for her, the judge Mr Justice Tugendhat decided she was wrong.

Now, to bring about a suit of defamation - that is, slander or, more commonly, libel if the relevant material is published on a permanent record such as newspapers or indeed Twitter - the claimant must show three things:

• that the statement referred to him or herself - in the case against Mrs Bercow, he had no problem on this point given that he was named;
• that the statement was published to a third party- again, this was easy to prove given that Mrs Bercow was not denying she had made the Tweet;
• and that the statement was actually defamatory - this is the trickier one in the case of Mrs Bercow's Tweet but, again, defamation law is quite clear on what might be considered defamatory. 

Something is defamatory if it tends to:

1. Expose him/her to hatred, ridicule or contempt;
2. Cause him/her to be shunned or avoided;
3. Lower him/her in the estimation of right-thinking members of society, generally;
4. or Disparage him/her in their business, trade, office or profession

• Notice, the words 'if it tends to' - this means that the person suing does not actually have to prove that the words actually caused any of the four above things to happen. It is enough that they might have happened as a result of the offending statement.

Mrs Bercow's defence in court was none of the traditional defences against defamation - i.e. justification, fair comment or privilege - but simply that her Tweet was not defamatory.

Of course, in the purest sense, the Speaker's wife is correct that her query - "Why is Lord McAlpine trending?" - is not defamatory, but merely inquisitive.

However, the law of defamation is more complicated than that, and it is her addition of "*innocent face" which has really landed her in trouble.

In ruling on the case, Mr Justice Tugendhat, said that her tweet meant “in its natural and ordinary defamatory meaning that the claimant was a paedophile who was guilty of sexually abusing boys living in care.

He added: "If I were wrong about that, I would find that the tweet bore an innuendo meaning to the same effect.”

Innuendo is best eschewed if a hefty legal bill is to be avoided.

For, if the followers of Mrs Bercow's can read between the lines in her appendage "*innocent face*", then so can libel judges, as the Daily Star found out in the 1980s.

The newspaper, under the headline 'A lordly price to pay, wrote: "There's been much excited chatter as to why dashing poetry-scribbling Minister Lord Gowrie left the Cabinet so suddenly.

"What expensive habits can he not support on an income of £33,000? I'm sure Gowrie himself would snort at suggestions that he was born with a silver spoon round his neck."

Lord Gowrie's lawyers said: "The reference to [his] expensive habits, the suggestion that he was unable to support those habits on his ministerial salary, the use of the word 'snort' and the reference to a 'silver spoon around his neck' all bore the plain implication, to all familiar with the relevant terminology, that [he] was in the habit of taking illegal drugs, in particular cocaine."

Now, for future journalism students, the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) can update its course textbook McNae's Essential Law for Journalists with the Bercow case.

Meanwhile, those of us, like me, who are just joining Twitter would do well to learn from Mrs Bercow's expensive folly.

You can follow my worldly observations on my new account, @gallowgate_pete.

Cameron brokers long-awaited press regulation deal

PRIME MINISTER David Cameron has finally thrashed out a "historic" deal with his deputy Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband over a new press watchdog this week.

The regulator will be established by royal charter, meaning there will be no need to pass statute in the Houses of Parliament.

Importantly, the charter can only be amended if there is a two-thirds majority in both the Commons and the Lords. This is unlike other charters which are altered by the Queen on the advice of Privy Council, which comprises of government ministers of the day.

So, almost two years since the News of the World phone-hacking story broke and over 100 days on since Lord Leveson published his £5m report, why has it taken so long just to get to this point?

Well, the main problem was that Mr Cameron was opposed to any statutory underpinning of regulation as suggested by Lord Leveson.

This contrasted with Mr Clegg and Mr Miliband who both thought that the judge's recommendations should be enforced in their entirety.

The schism caused a protracted period of political wrangling, which left the newspaper industry in limbo - and the gridlock reached its peak last Thursday when Mr Cameron called a halt to the cross-party talks.

Instead, the PM had planned to force a Commons vote on a royal charter on Monday evening - but, ultimately, the parties and victims campaign group Hacked Off were able to make a deal in the early hours of the same day.

Incredibly, though, the talks did not include a single member of the press.

Now, at this point, it must be accepted that the newspaper industry has caused a lot of damage over the years. Indeed, Lord Leveson himself stated it had "wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people".

But to exclude the whole industry from discussions over its future regulation seemed a pointless thing to do - especially when it ended up being some members of the press who actually could be said to have forced the breakthrough.

Alan Rusbridger, Chris Blackhurst and Lionel Barber - editors of the Guardian, the Independent and the Financial Times, respectively - broke ranks with other media titles by suggesting the way forward was to accept the idea of a charter.

In the end, the trio's proposal formed the basis for what politicians agreed on.

The politicians, bless'em, all seem rather pleased with themselves with Mr Cameron describing it as a "neat solution". However, there has already been dissent in the ranks of the Fourth Estate.

For, while some of the aforementioned newspapers have cautiously welcomed the plans, others remain virulently opposed to any external interference.

Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail, News International - representing the Sun and the Times - as well as the Telegraph Media Group are all exploring the possibility of setting up their own body.

The Mail branded the deal "a grim day for all who value freedom" and, like the Times, accused Mr Cameron of threatening press freedom for the first time since newspapers were licensed 300 years ago.

Tim Jotischky, deputy editor of the Telegraph, tweeted late on Monday: "We can never lecture a Mugabe or a Putin on freedom of expression again. Quite an achievement for Hacked Off et al."

Meanwhile, magazines Private Eye and the Spectator have already rejected signing up to the new regulator.

Spectator editor Fraser Nelson said: "Press regulation is too important an issue to be answered by some tawdry deal cooked up at two in the morning in Ed Miliband's office.

"The result is unacceptable, state licensing of the media, something we haven't had in this country for 300 years."

Eye editor and Have I Got News For You panellist Ian Hislop agreed, adding: "You can't really say this is a considered and thoughtful process when, in the middle of the night, two bits are added to other bills.

"This doesn't really look like thoughtful considered legislation which has been worked through."

Moreover, some of the other implications of the new regulator - such as the extent to which the new regulator monitors online content - are unclear. Will bloggers be affected at all, for example?

The local press, which was hitherto seldom in trouble, also fears a "crippling" rush of compensation claims under the new system of arbitration for small-scale complaints.

All in all, then, the situation still remains a rather messy one - but, despite the rushed nature of the deal, it is difficult from a media perspective not to disagree with Indy editor Mr Blackhurst.

He said: "I don't think it's too bad. It could've been a lot worse, it could've been better. I think we have to recognise the mess the industry got into. The industry did some bad things and our existing regulator just wasn't up to the task."

Only time will tell if the new one is.

Leveson leaves Cameron in a spot of bother

PRIME MINISTER David Cameron faced accusations of betrayal yesterday after he rejected Lord Justice Leveson's call to set up a press regulation body underpinned by law.

Lord Leveson wrote in his report that the press had "wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people" for many decades. He also described some of the behaviour of the Fourth Estate as "outrageous".

"There have been too many times when, chasing the story, parts of the press have acted as if its own code, which it wrote, simply did not exist," the judge added.

However, Mr Cameron, speaking in the Commons shortly after the 2400-page document was published, said he had "serious concerns and misgivings" over bringing in laws to underpin any new body.

The Conservative leader added: "We should be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and the free press."

Unsurprisingly, that has not gone down too well with Hacked Off, the campaign which represents all victims of press intrusion, both the rich and famous as well as ordinary members of the public.

Actor Steve Coogan was one of the first to speak out. "By rejecting Leveson's call for statutory regulation, [Mr] Cameron has hung the victims of crime out to dry," he said.

"He has passed on the opportunity to make history. He has revealed there isn't an ounce of substance in his body, that he has one eye on courting the press for elections in years to come, and doesn't know the meaning of conviction."

Gerry McCann, father of Madeleine, and Christopher Jefferies - who was subjected to all sorts of lurid and untrue allegations about the murder of his tenant Jo Yeates - have refused in protest to meet with Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

And the stand-off leaves the ball, as Lord Leveson himself, said in the Prime Minister's court. The only problem is that Mr Cameron does not seem keen to play.

That position very much put him at odds with his coalition partner. Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg revealed himself to be perhaps the least liberal Liberal leader in history by fully backing the recommendations.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband eyed the latest bandwagon to jump on by taking the same stance.

For, while it is ultimately difficult to tell Mr Cameron's exact motives, and it could all be to do with elections, Mr Coogan and the others might just be wrong on this one.

After all, the Prime Minister is hardly making a populist move, on the face of it.

Yougov polling for the Media Standards Trust shows that 79% of the public agree with the statement: "There should be an independent body, established by law, which deals with complaints and decides what sanctions there should be if journalists break agreed codes of conduct."

However, the situation is not quite as clear as that. Another poll by the firm for The Sun newspaper found that only 24% of people agreed that there should be "a regulatory body set up through law by Parliament, with rules agreed by MPs".

Against that, 42% think that the body should be "set up through legally binding contracts by the media industry, with rules agreed by newspaper owners".

Peter Kellner, head of Yougov, explained this apparent contradiction by the framing of the two questions: "In short, we don’t like the idea of politicians curbing the freedom of speech. But neither do we want editors and publishers remaining in charge of regulation."

Kellner added: "Ideally, we would like a new law to force the media to behave better – but don’t want MPs making that law.

"The trouble with that, of course, is that law-making is the central function of MPs. More than anything else, that is what we elect them to do."

Meanwhile, even Lord Leveson has said that “press freedom in Britain, hard won over 300 years ago” should not be jeopardised, and that all of the press served the country "very well for the vast majority of the time".

But, quite how the judge squares those sentiments with the need for new legislation remains unclear.

The simple fact is that existing laws dealing with phone-hacking, libel, harassment, and invasion of privacy were not enforced.

Of course, in many cases, completely appropriate existing law has been implemented. Just this week, former News International boss Rebekah Brooks and ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson appeared in court accused of making payments to public officials for information.

They, and others formerly in News International, have also been charged with phone hacking.

Additionally, Mr Coogan, Mr Jefferies, the McCanns and many others have all been successful in libel suits against the press.

Understandably, victory in the courts rarely fully compensates the initial feeling of mistreatment by the press. It does, however, show that there is already a procedure in place to keep the press in check.

Even the broadcast media, which is independently regulated by Ofcom and the BBC Trust, slips up from time to time, as recent events have shown.

The fact remains that there will always be some downright nasty people, and therefore some downright nasty journalists, willing to push the boundaries too far.

It is a shame that the industry seems to attract more than a proportional share of those sorts but the vast majority are good eggs including almost all of them in the local press which is seldom in trouble.

Moreover, it must be pointed out that not all the figures in the media opposing statutory regulation are exactly Mr Cameron fans.

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop spends most of his lifetime mocking the Prime Minister but wonders, like myself, why we cannot just enforce the laws we "already have against phone hacking, harassment, libel, bribery etc".

Of course, ultimately, it may be the case that MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems, the Scottish Nationalists, and some Tories, will begin the legislative process by winning a vote, expected to be held at the end of January.

Even if the vote were non-binding, Mr Cameron would then be under extreme pressure not to set the wheels in motion for the introduction of statutory regulation.

Now, another law on the statute book would be a blow for the free press of this country and investigative journalism, in particular.

Nevertheless, the effect has already been exaggerated in some quarters - after all, we would hardly be living in North Korea.

Frankly, though, it is hard to see the new law being anything other than a law which asks for other existing laws already to be enforced.

In other words - just like the 16-month-long, £5m Leveson Inquiry, it will probably be a bit of a waste of time.

Paedogeddon gets out of hand

BUMBLING BBC boss George Entwistle apologised today after a Newsnight report wrongly implicated a Conservative peer in the ongoing child sex abuse scandal.

The report, which was broadcast on Friday 2 November, featured an interview with victim Steve Messham who identified former Tory treasurer Lord McAlpine as his alleged abuser.

It has since emerged, however, that Lord McAlpine was a victim himself - of mistaken identity, after Mr Messham realised his error having been shown a different photograph of the peer.

Mr Messham has apologised to Lord McAlpine but the peer is understandably more angry with the BBC for letting the botched report go ahead.

Lord McAlpine's solicitor Andrew Reid has confirmed the peer will take legal action, and it is almost certain that he will win his case.

For, while he was not actually named in the report, he does not have to be in order to pursue a successful writ for defamation.

All that Lord McAlpine will need to prove is that he could reasonably be expected to be identified by the report, which has happened, and that it has harmed his reputation.

It is another blow for former Newsnight editor Mr Entwistle who has only been in the top job at the BBC for 54 days. Already he looks way out his depth, and he has been constantly one step behind throughout this saga.

Astonishingly, Mr Entwistle has said that he was only aware of the episode of Newsnight after it had been broadcast.

And that really is quite unbelievable following the recent controversies which have dogged the Corporation's flagship news review show.

Newsnight has been on the ropes for weeks now and it is already under investigation for its reporting, or lack of reporting, of abuse by former presenter Jimmy Savile.

On that occasion, the BBC effectively did the opposite to what has happened now to Lord McAlpine, dropping a report last year into Savile, only for ITV's Exposure documentary to pick up the story from freelance journalist Mark Williams-Thomas last month.

Yes, some time ago, there was actually some legitimate journalism going on. How and why Savile had got away with what he had done for years was still a story worth telling, particularly from the victim's perspective, despite the perpetrator's death last year.

Quite why Newsnight editor Peter Rippon felt it necessary to drop the report due to an apparent clash with a planned Christmas tribute to Savile remains unclear. It was, in my view, a truly proper piece of journalism, and it should have been screened.

However, the media has now largely moved from Savile, and it is now gorging itself in its own inimitable, sensationalist style, making it difficult to decipher the hard facts from the hearsay.

This was no less in evidence than in the Thursday edition of ITV's daytime television show This Morning, on which Prime Minister David Cameron appeared.

Far from the expected cosy chat on the sofa, presenter Philip Schofield confronted Mr Cameron with a list of alleged paedophiles which he had found on the internet.

Schofield has since apologised for his utterly reprehensible approach but the damage to his credibility has already been done and his interview with the PM is just the latest example in how this story has now gone too far.

Of course, sections of the media getting itself in a tizz over paedophilia is nothing new - but engaging in sensationalism simply does not help the situation.

You only have to recall when the late and unlamented News of the World ran its nefarious campaign against paedophiles after the rape and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne.

In fairness to the News of the World, many praised its campaign for a change in the law which has proved to be very popular among the population at large.

However, the newspaper articles also, infamously, caused a mob from a Welsh estate to daub graffiti on the front door of the house of... a paediatrician, in another case of mistaken identity.

Never one to miss a trick, satirist Chris Morris brought back his mock investigation show Brass Eye which took the approach of the News of the World and applied it to broadcasters.

And now, just over a decade down the line, life is once again imitating art. You would think the likes of BBC and ITV would really be more careful but that is perhaps expecting too much.

*Update: George Entwistle has resigned as Director General of the BBC.

Superinjunction farce leaves Giggs exposed

THE WORST-kept secret in Britain was blown out the water yesterday when a Liberal Democrat MP used parliamentary privilege to expose Ryan Giggs as the married Premier League footballer hiding his affair behind a superinjunction.

John Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley, revealed that Giggs was the man at the centre of the gagging order during an urgent questions session at the House of Commons.

But, while Mr Hemming's revelation was an unexpected part of the debate, it came as no great surprise to the many people who were already aware of Giggs' name being used in relation to this on Twitter.

Mr Hemming was able to make his statement without fear of prosecution for contempt of court as he is afforded the protection of absolute privilege in the Commons.

However, that protection does not extend to the media in areas of strict liability such as contempt.

And so that meant the BBC was originally in the frankly farcical position of being able to tell us an MP had blown Giggs' cover but without using the Welsh footballer's name.

Meanwhile, the superinjunction officially remained in place, much to the frustration of the Sun newspaper who had appealed twice to the High Court to have it removed - but failed both times.

The second of these failures came just minutes before Mr Hemming stood to speak in the Commons. 

And so, this morning, in a rare show of unity in strength by the national press - albeit perhaps an unintentional one - every newspaper had Giggs on its front page.

But, despite the Sun's attempts in the courts, top marks must actually go to the sub editors at the Mirror for their brilliant pun, 'Naming Private Ryan'.

Of course, Giggs is not the only philanderer failing to keep his name out of the public eye with the use of a superinjunction.

Last week, the former boss of collapsed bank RBS, Fred Goodwin, was similarly 'outed' in Parliament when Lib Dem peer Lord Stoneham used absolute privilege to reveal his name during a debate in the Lords.

And, earlier this month, BBC presenter Andrew Marr was technically in contempt of his own gagging order after he performed a spectacular U-turn by revealing the details of his affair himself.

"I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists," Marr told the Daily Mail, rendering his superinjunction invalid.

But, as the latest issue of Private Eye magazine succinctly pointed out, he had in fact spent the last three years of his career doing exactly that.

Now, the real issue here - as is often the case with media furores - is one of the public interest - i.e. is it in the public interest that people know about these affairs or is the right to a private life a more important consideration?

Well, the answer usually lies somewhere in between but, in the Marr case, the superinjunction should surely never have been imposed as the sheer hypocrisy of it absolutely wreaked.

As Private Eye notes, Marr is "a hack of three decades-standing, a respected writer on the history of journalism and a former political editor responsible for countless ministerial grillings".

And the satirical fortnightly magazine also reveals a Marr quote in which he opposes exactly the sort of gagging order which he himself had used.

"There is an argument about whether to allow a judge-made law to accumulate or to have a clean, honest, open debate in Parliament," Marr has said.

"I'm on enough of a traditionalist to believe that is what should happen rather than allow it to be settled by judges."

As for the other cases detailed in this blog, there is a compelling argument for Goodwin's injunction being overturned in that his affair took place in the months leading up to the collapse of his ailing bank.

The Giggs case is less clear cut than those of 'jug ears' Marr and Fred 'the Bed' Goodwin - but it is still wrong that some rich people use the law as a playtoy while other less fortunate have their private lives exposed.

Of course, the three cases mentioned here are just a drop in an ocean of gagging orders.

For a start, Private Eye states it is aware of no fewer than 53 superinjunctions and the nature of these instruments often means that the media cannot even mention that there is a court order in place.

Perhaps most importantly, it should be pointed out that not all of these injunctions will simply be a Who's Who gallery of shaggers.

Some of the orders will be protecting companies like Trafigura who used a superinjunction to hide the fact that they had been charged with dumping toxic waste off the coast of west Africa.

In line with events this week, this gag was also unmasked by a combination of 'mischievous' Twitter users and Paul Farrelly MP in Parliament.

It is becoming pretty clear that even superinjunctions are no guarantor of keeping your name out of the public spotlight.

That news will not sadden any journalists out there - especially considering the fact that these gagging orders are often evidently being used when the details are in the public interest.

Perhaps those who feel they have been mistreated by the media should use the law already in place to make their point, rather than hiding behind the gagging orders.

For the avoidance of doubt, the existing law is article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to privacy...

This is balanced, of course, by article 10 - the right to freedom of expression.

Court confusion

HEARTY congratulations to a good friend on a local newspaper are in order after he stood up and challenged Crown Court for the first time in his career.

In doing so, my friend proved two lawyers and the judge wrong, and ensured that his newspaper would not lose the story to an invalid court order.

The newspaper was looking to report the fact that some heinous toe rag had just been sent down for six years after stabbing his victim, only narrowly missing his heart.

The confusion arose because the case involved a 15-year-old defendant, a juvenile.

The lawyers and the judge thought that this gave him automatic anonymity under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

But section 49 of that Act which gives automatic anonymity only applies at a Youth Court.

In order for the defendant to be protected in an adult court, a section 39 order would need to be applied.

Any decent media law student will know the big difference - a section 39 order is not automatic. It must be announced to the court and logged in the records.

After checking that there was no section 39 order in place in this instance, my friend was more than happy to be able to correct the lawyers and the judge.

I understand that he now takes a well-earned break for a couple of weeks. Well done, again, mate!

Good week, bad week

A MIXED week for the British press saw freedom of speech saved on the one hand and abused on the other.

I refer, of course, to the lifting of the ban on the Guardian's reporting of Parliament on Tuesday - and to a separate incident courtesy of Jan Moir's homophobic bile in her Daily Mail column.

While I was beaming at the ultimate victory of the Guardian in the first story, Ms Moir's comments left me shaking my head with bewilderment.

Firstly, the Guardian's victory was hugely important as the defence of a fundamental point of democracy - the right to report parliamentary proceedings openly.

This was enshrined by the Bill of Rights in 1689. It states: "Freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament."

Yet, incredibly, Carter-Ruck, the lawyers for British oil-trading firm Trafigura, had been granted an injunction preventing the reporting of question tabled by an MP to a minister.

The injunction not only prevented the question being reported but also stopped the identification of the MP, which minister might answer it, or where the question could be found.

The Guardian could only report that Carter-Ruck were the lawyers involved and that they had been prevented from reporting in Parliament.

But their front page story provoked Twitter users and bloggers into action over what lay behind the mysterious ban.

Within hours, Twitter accounts began to display the details which the Guardian could not report, making a mockery of the injunction against the newspaper.

The question was from Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP for Newcastle-Under-Lyme. It concerned the reporting of an incident in which toxic waste was allegedly dumped by the company in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast.

Eventually, the story was picked up on by the mainstream press, featuring on two prominent blogs and in the Spectator and Private Eye.

News of the gag caused outrage on all sides of the House of Commons with Speaker John Bercow describing it as "quite astonishing".

At lunchtime on Tuesday, Carter-Ruck withdrew its gagging attempt, shortly before a 2pm High Court hearing at which the Guardian intended to challenge it.

But, though it was the Guardian newspaper which benefited, this has been seen as an even greater victory for new media.

The users of Twitter were particularly influential on the result, finding out the details and spreading them like wildfire to cause enough noise to get the lawyers to back down.

Just days later, the Twitter users were at it again. But this time they were in opposition to the press or Jan Moir of the Daily Mail, to be precise.

Ms Moir was the target of their ire because of her spurious, unfounded comments about the nature of the death of pop star Stephen Gately in her Friday column, a day before he was even buried.

She suggested that Gately had lived "a life... shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice" adding that his death "strike[s] another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships".

The story has attracted more than 500 comments, mainly critical, to its own website.

Twitter users posted outraged updates, some from the website's most famous exponents, Stephen Fry and Derren Brown, who are both gay.

On his feed, illusionist Brown urged the public to lodge a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission whose website crashed.

The PCC are unlikely to be able to do much about it. As stated on their website in the FAQs, they are unable to impose fines because they are a non-statutory body.

Even if they had that sanction, they do not "generally accept complaints from third parties about cases involving named individuals without the signed authorisation of the person concerned".

They also do not make decisions on matters of taste and decency, citing that this would restrict press freedom.

Mail editor Paul Dacre, who is current chair of the PCC Editors' Code of Practice Committee, would be showing great ignorance if he attempts to let this story blow over, however.

As shown by the Guardian this week, the freedom of the press is a constant, hard-fought battle and the Fourth Estate is vital to the running of democracy in this country.

But some of its members would do well to remember not to abuse their rights.

They should also recall that a journalist's first duty is to the truth and not their own agenda - and that includes columnists.