Paper tigers

Today's protest by the Press Complaints Commission that they are not the toothless anachronism which critics describe unfortunately carries about as much conviction as the doubtful copy that appears in the publications which they have a notional responsibility in regulating. And to those who make a living in the libel courts, the denials sound as plaintive as they are pointless.

It can be argued that a number of landmark judgements have made the PCC irrelevant and significantly less profitable as a means of personal recourse for high-profile and highly-paid individuals with a grudge. And now that it is very inadvisable to print something potentially defamatory without first contacting the target individual for comment, the advent of super-injunctions means that damaging press coverage can be muzzled or at least muffled beforehand.

Of course, as Ms Moir would readily point out, you cannot libel the dead. But that is no longer the issue for fans of Stephen Gatley or indeed anyone who holds a remote sense of loathing for the Daily Mail. The societal changes that Grub Street has helped to engender is that a press which is unflinching in its demands for decency and propriety from leaders & role-models should at least make a show of holding the self-same qualities in its own day-to-day dealings.

Successive governments have talked tough about press freedom but the growing reliance on spin and PR has produced variable if not contradictory results plus a couple of u-turns. One of the more memorable was when a media minister in John Major's government warned how privacy invasions by the press meant that they were drinking in the last chance saloon - only to discover a few weeks later that one of the tabloids had induced his ex-mistress to reveal what he did while wearing his beloved Chelsea strip.

What the PCC has failed to do, and which the courts are probably no more competent at doing themselves, is making a reasonable distinction between public interest and public intrusion.

Most editors would probably stand on their chairs and shout Vive La Telegraph as an example of how a newspaper caused a widespread change in perception about politicians and their own peculiar in-house interpretation of public service. Of course, they would also rather avoid having to address suggestions of a prior quid pro quo arrangement which allowed excesses at Westminster (widely-known to lobby correspondents) to go unreported. A similar sort of reticence is apparent when questions are asked about the 'creative' side of the industry and if mobile phone tapping is less endemic in journalism since Andy Coulson got himself a new job.

It is unclear, especially with the dawn of a new enlightenment at Downing Street, whether the continuing inability of the PPC to effectively police its rogue elements will mean a judicial solution which effectively puts anything that politicians and their respective paymasters get up to off-shore as off-limits to the press. Such a situation is clearly unacceptable in a democracy - but these days you never know.