Saving...
Freedom of speech is being taken for granted and must be defended against threats from a ‘heavy handed political establishment’, Viscount Rothermere told the London Press Club Ball.
Politicians seeking to muzzle journalists and a free press should take care to ‘treat us with the respect we deserve,’ he said as he also fired the starting gun for the Journalists’ Charity’s 150th anniversary friend- and fund-raising campaign.
Lord Rothermere, patron of this year’s London Press Club Ball and president of the Journalists’ Charity for which it was raising funds, used his short speech to mount a vigorous defence of freedom of expression and to hammer home the vital role of an unshackled media in a modern democracy.
Against the backdrop of the Leveson Inquiry into the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, which is also examining the wider relationship between the media, police and politicians, he said the Press was ‘locked in horns with the political establishment’ and having to navigate ‘choppy waters’.
As a result, there had never been a more important time for journalists ‘to stand up, and remind everybody what it is that we are all actually here to do’, he told the audience of 400 senior journalists, editors and executives.
Lord Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust said: ‘Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the support of a free, open and accountable democracy… these are all things that up to now this country has taken for granted.
‘But be warned, these are not values that survive simply due to the fact that they exist.
‘These are values that only survive, like anything that is precious to us, if we look after them, If we
value them and if we respect them.’
Speaking at the Ball in the Natural History Museum on Thursday October 13, he said: ’I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that currently we are locked in horns with the political establishment as to the pattern of our future…locked in horns with a political establishment whose daily heartbeat and consequent survival is sustained through the channels of communication that we provide.’
His message to politicians was: ’Be careful to treat us with the respect that we deserve.
‘Don’t forget that more often than not, it is left to us, the press industry in this country, to stand up for people up and down this land against an often heavy-handed political establishment.’
He said UK has ‘the best journalists in the world’ and a journalism which is ‘the envy of the modern world’ but added: ’As we become embroiled in a debate regards the workings of our industry and its future, it is important that we all work together, we think together and we speak clearly with one voice – reminding people that they live in a country where freedom of expression is the defining aspect of our democracy.
‘And whilst, like our political peers, we are not always perfect, what we stand for and provide is a way of life that for many people around the world could only ever be regarded as the unattainable dream.’
Among senior media figures present at the London Press Club Ball to hear Lord Rothermere’s speech were Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre; executive director of the Telegraph Media Group Lord Black of Brentwood; Independent on Sunday editor John Mullin; Press Association editor Jonathan Grun; and Society of Editors’ executive director Bob Satchwell, plus Journalists’ Charity Chairman Bill Hagerty and other Trustees.
