The British government is considering legislation to curtail the press after the phone-hacking scandal perpetrated by the News of the World including monitoring contacts between national newspapers and politicians.
An editorial in the Los Angeles Times argues: “No one, journalists included, should defend the hackers. Their behavior — including the now-infamous deletion of messages from the cellphone of a missing 13-year-old girl — was unforgivable, unethical and most likely illegal. But, even where the tabloid press is concerned, reporters and editors shouldn’t be supervised or second-guessed by government. If laws were broken, the lawbreakers should, of course, be prosecuted, but new restrictions on the freedom of legitimate journalists to do their jobs are uncalled for.” -db
From an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2011.