Sir Tom Stoppard: Newspapers kidnapping sacred idea of press freedom

 
Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard.
GLENN COPUS
18 March 2014

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard has accused newspapers that continue to oppose a new system of regulation of “kidnapping” the principle of press freedom.

He is among 200 public figures, including Sir David Attenborough, Sir Richard Branson, John Cleese, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dame Maggie Smith, backing the Hacked Off group’s call for tighter regulation.

A list of signatures of those calling for a new press regulator underpinned by a Royal Charter appear in an advert published in a number of newspapers today — a year after the three main political parties agreed on the proposal.

Sir Tom told the Standard: “I used to believe that the abuse of press freedom was the price one paid for having press freedom.

“But the law’s redress, the third part of that equation, wasn’t up to the job, and the abuses finally capsized my idealism.

“There is something repugnant now in the way the anti-Leveson press is trying to kidnap a sacred idea to defend the indefensible against a mild corrective — the Charter — which, I would say, would be thought reasonable and necessary by the vast majority of its readers.”

The draft Royal Charter was sealed by the Queen in October, but editors have so far refused to sign up.

Newspapers have instead set-up the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

The new body will replace the current Press Complaints Commission and is ready to begin operations on May 1.

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