Breaking down the barriers to the public’s right to know is to be the key theme of this year’s Society of Editors’ conference, to take place in London in November.
The year’s biggest annual media gathering will open on Monday 11 November at the Tower Hotel in the heart of the capital.
The conference will highlight the public’s right to know, freedom of expression and the need to lift what the SoE calls “the increasing number of barriers to the free flow of information to the public through the media.”
It will look at issues such as secret justice, reporting restrictions in coroners’ courts, the law of contempt, and anonymity where it is inappropriate and sometimes dangerous.
The conference will also focus on increasing concerns across all sections of the media that journalism is being constrained in the post-Leveson, post-Savile era.
A specific session is planned on the police and the media and other concerns arising from the continuing debate about the future of newspaper regulation.
Society of Editors president, Jonathan Grun, editor at the Press Association said: “There has never been a more important time to re-examine the key issues of the society’s foundation.
“It is about defending the freedom of the media to inform the public who have a right to be informed and to be heard.”
The SoE says further details about the programme and booking arrangements will be announced by the end of this month.
For more information please contact SoE executive director, Bob Satchwell, on 07860 562815 or at [email protected]
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It’s like Gourndhog Day.
When is the media and SoE ever going to learn that the media will earn the right to print when they take their responsibilities seriously. This means that we DO NOT have a right to pry into the lives of private individuals, tittle tattle and gossip is not in the public interest and the ego of an editor should not have priority over a single story which could cause great distress to people and where there is no public interest other than te public’s need to be nosy.
The media simply do not take this seriously.
It’s not the media which needs defending. It’s the public which needs defending from the media.
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There is no “right to know”, only handfuls of real journalists who are prepared to fight the Establishment and their editors to get real stories into print.
Part of the problem is there are too many Editors who come from minor fee-paying schools who want an easy time.
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