BBC Breakfast - 16th July onwards

If the press were to follow the same rules as broadcasters, it would die and we would have nowhere near as much investigative journalism as we do now.

I’m clearly not going to persuade you but as a journalist working in broadcast media, I am wholly and undoubtedly in favour of living in a country where people and papers can say what they want freely.

The press is dying already, and let's be honest, we don't have much actual investigative journalism from the press anymore. Website requirements and 30 minute deadlines before publishing a story, as well as losing money hand over fist, are putting pay to that. The broadcasting industry is where you see much more in the way of actual investigative journalism, usually in current affairs documentaries. Heck, I think requiring newspapers to work under the same rules as broadcasters, might actually give the press some actual credibility again, and might save it, or at least slow its death throws down.

Indeed. It's not like the tabloids are as influential as in the past. The Sun may have persuaded voters to vote Tory during the Thatcher era and Labour in 1997, yet they're pretty insignificant in 2019 with an older skewed readership of which would vote Conservative regardless.

I do think the press needs some additional control. The ability to print a front page full of lies and follow up with a paragraph of correction is pretty dangerous

Budding journo? Find whatdothey know, submit FOI. Get a cost for something or a 'shocking' number (which can be rubbished or explained with simple digging), publish. Instant tabloid article.

FOI killed investigative journalism.

Although Carole Cadwalladr has been doing great work for investigative journalism in the press over the last couple of years, perhaps more free to do so without the shackles of supposed "impartiality" within broadcasting.

I don't think any of us here though are saying the press should be impartial - let's just start with them being truthful.

Nobody is truly impartial, not even the BBC, and nobody ever can be. What passes for it these days is sometimes refered to objectivity, meaning you present two sides of a story all the time, even if one side is always made out of facts, and the other is always fiction. I hardly call that objective. Even worse is when they put out a pound of official propaganda, and then present an ounce of counterspin. That isn't really objective either. True journalism isn't about objecticity, it's about skepticism. Not skepticism to the point of conspiracy theory, but useful, honest skepticism. Present the facts, compare it to what's being said by politicians, and then go from there.

I'd like to see some factual reporting from the press these days, I'd like to see them call out politicians of all affiliations when the facts and the spin don't match up, but most of the press is in bed with one party or another (but mostly one party), and are so blindingly loyal to that party, that they don't even question it when their own side is lying to them. That's what needs to end, this idea of blind loyalty to a party or ideology.

That is absolute nonsense. FOI is so crucial to getting to figures that journalists used to dream of accessing. Remember expenses? One of the biggest scandals to hit politicians in the last 20 years? FOI.

Remember: it's not the data at fault, it's what you do with it.

Also: broadcasters seem to do OK so print journos can, frankly, do one Morals get stretched to breaking point and I've had enough.

Any journo using whatdotheyknow is asking to get scooped by a rival. They would surely apply direct.

Even when it descends into personal insults?

I find it hard to believe that describing someone as having “a Mr Spock hairdo and owl eyes” is acceptable in any situation.

One can put arguments forward in an opinion piece quite legitimately and forcefully without resorting to personal insults.

That quote was just unnecessary.

Sadly, the newspaper columnists are unstoppable. A pencil pusher somewhere in the industry has decided, quite incorrectly, that a recipe of insults and poorly researched commentary is going to save the sector. It won't. Newspapers are dead. We're witnessing a 'zombie industry' propped up by venture capital funds hoping and praying for some kind of return on investment. I recently visited such a newspaper. The office resembled an insurance sales office from the 90s. Old furniture, a fowl smell of damp and sweat. It was by far the most depressing experience of my life. I felt sorry for the journalists working their socks off, knowing they won't have a job in the next few years.

A rather bleak post, I know, but it's the reality we face. Pick up a paper today, smell it, read it from front to back page. Enjoy it. We'll soon look back on them with rose coloured glasses, wincing when Channel 5 has a show entitled 'The most shocking newspaper columnists of the naughties.'