At a reception recently, Boris Johnson joked that he was in favour of “free press, free speech and free drink.”

At least I think he was joking, it’s hard to tell with Bo Jo.

But I suspect, dear reader, that given the choice of the three many of you would possibly plump for the free booze. I might even do so myself! But when the hangover caused by guzzling a few freebie bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape lifts, I might be wondering which is of greater long-term benefit.

Not convinced? Trust me, state regulation of the press would cause you much more harm.

And press freedom is at greater risk now than ever.

This is possibly because of the excesses of the few, but the Westminster Government is being urged to use a very large sledgehammer to crack a very small nut. And in this case, the sledgehammer is being wielded by some very rich people with an axe to grind (pardon the mixed metaphor).

Well, at least in the case of Max Mosley this time it’s a sledgehammer and not some sexually deviant method of inflicting pain. Mosley, you see, was all over a certain tabloid a few years ago after a sting caught him in a sado-masochistic sex session with prostitutes—allegedly in Nazi gear. Except they weren’t, in Nazi gear that is.

Considering Mosley is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascists in the 1930s, it made a good angle. But Mosley went to court and it was accepted that the Nazi bit wasn’t true. It was just an ordinary sex orgy.

His own business, you may think, and you may well be right.
Mosley, clearly, hasn’t forgiven the press. He’s just pumped £3.8 million of his own money into an organisation called Impress, which will carry out a regulatory role. Very philanthropic, no doubt.

This spells danger for a free press, how?

Well, the Government has just concluded a consultation exercise and has to decide whether to implement a plan which would include Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. This means that if someone takes a newspaper to court for libel, it’s the paper that pays all the costs of both sides. Even if the paper wins.

Er, what? Apart from anything, does this not go against natural justice? Can you imagine the gleeful advice in compo-seeking lawyer offices: go for it, you’ve nothing to lose.

There is one way newspapers can avoid all this, of course. If they sign up to a regulator.

But Impress is the only one approved by the State.

Not surprisingly, Mosley thinks this is all perfectly fair. As do a number of other press haters; among them actor Hugh Grant.

So, we are in danger of getting the rich and powerful (politicians and the like of Max) having a major influence on what the press can and cannot print.

In normal times, any sense of fairness would see this proposal laughed away. But these are not normal times. Newspaper circulation has been dropping across the industry for years, caused in part by the myriad of ways we get our news including the internet. Newspaper owners respond to this in various ways, from drastically cutting journalistic resources to dumbing down content.

And the horrible behaviour of the phone hackers has contributed to the fact that the press enjoys less trust than ever.

I would be the first to concede that the press in Britain does itself no favours at times.

But to solve the problem of trust by forcing papers to agree to be regulated by an organisation funded by Mosley’s millions just doesn’t seem right.

There is also a major anomaly; while many people are angry about the excesses of the media, it is largely what we still loosely (and too snobbily in my book) refer to as the tabloid press. While they would undoubtedly by hit by the legislation, the real damage would be done to the local press.

I know that over the years, trust in the local newspaper is much, much higher and that still continues to be so.

That is not to say that everyone loves their local paper, either. I’d be the first to admit to making mistakes over the years which have affected people’s lives adversely. But the local paper is very close to the local community and over the years the Impartial Reporter has brought to light many issues in health, education, local government, crime and so on, that would otherwise have been hidden.

The public, that’s you and me, have the right to know what is going on. Yet in certain quarters, information is guarded and kept under wraps, sometimes by vested interests, sometimes simply because certain people in authority think they should decide what you know and what you don’t.
It’s not always easy, either, as journalists bring to the attention of the public unpleasant matters. We are stakeholders in the area as well, and often come face to face with the people who were the subject of negative coverage.

Recent events in Northern Ireland have really highlighted the necessity of responsible journalism.

Would the public have realised the seriousness of the RHI scandal if certain journalists hadn’t done their homework and shone a light on it?
The response to journalists doing their job was interesting from those in power, was it not? The controversy was labelled a media creation initially, and when that didn’t work, some journalists were accused of having an agenda.

Steven Nolan and the BBC were particularly in the firing line. There’s nothing new in leading DUP figures attacking the BBC, but this was especially pointed. Gregory Campbell, in response to questioning from Nolan replied that “digging works both ways.”

Aside from us listeners being intrigued as to what exactly he would try to dig up about Nolan, it sounded menacing from Campbell, and he recently has repeated that he would “keep digging.” In another astonishing outburst, another DUP MLA recently accused the BBC of forcing “regime change” with its agenda.

And in another twist, there were suggestions from some within the party that the News Letter should be boycotted over its coverage.

The press and media should, of course, be open to legitimate criticism; and I have to be honest and wonder sometimes about the attitude of personal animosity in some of the Belfast media towards certain politicians. If some journalists are so much into themselves that they think they are the story, that can’t be right, either.

But the attempts by sections of the political class to denigrate the motives of good journalists is a thinly-veiled attempt to control and nobble a free press and that is not good for democracy.

The former Tory, and later Unionist, Enoch Powell once said: “For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain to complain about the sea.” A free press is here, and we’re not going away you know; so expect storms at some stage. In an era of social media, internet, fake news and everyone having a say, a free and trusted press is probably more important than ever.

I’ll drink to that!