Restraint or Revelation: Free Speech and Privacy in a Confessional Age A Spiked report: Amazon.co.uk: Tessa Mayes: Books

Neil Wallis, former editor, The People newspaper, UK

'A long overdue reassessment of the balance between privacy and press freedom.'

Guy Black, director of the Press Complaints Commission

'An excellent and cogent survey of the constantly shifting sands of privacy regulation'

Hugh Tomlinson QC, Matrix Chambers

'An interesting, thought-provoking report raising counter-arguments and making us all think'

Dr Richard Keeble, Department of Journalism at City University and author of 'The Newspaper Handbook'

'An important, original contribution to a complex and crucial debate'

Book Description

From Catherine Zeta Jones' high-profile law suit against Hello! magazine to celebrity revelations and gossip about their sex lives, the new spiked-report by journalist Tessa Mayes details the imapct of new legal and cultural developments upon the UK media.

Mayes says that: 'The arguments for new media privacy laws in the UK rest on the notion that free expression and privacy rights need to be 'balanced' against each other. This effectively means that there is no such thing as a right to free speech - or, indeed, a right to privacy.

'Privacy has been redefined as a state protection from hurtful public discussion; and free speech has become qualified by restricting speech that may cause offence.

'The quality of speech about private lives in our confessional age is a cultural issue. It should not be transformed in to a legal question about censorship in a democracy.'

'Restraint or Revelation?' includes contributions from photojournalist Ray Bellisario, Andrew Billen (staff writer, The Times), Lauren Booth (columnist, New Statesman magazine), Dorothy Byrne (commissioning editor, news, current affairs and business, Channel 4), Phil Craig (TV producer and co-author 'Diana: Story of Princess'), David Northmore (investigative journalist), Professor Robert Pinker (Press Complaints Commission), Mike Jempson (The PressWise Trust), Clive Jones (chief executive, Carlton Channels), Jane Kerr (royal reporter, The Mirror newspaper), Anna McKane (lecturer, Department of Journalism, City University), Karen O'Connor (editor, Correspondent, BBC), Julian Petley (Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom), Alex Renton (former chief writer and foreign reporter, Evening Standard), Bob Satchwell(executive director, Society of Editors), Labour MP Clive Soley, barrister Michael Tugendhat QC (represented Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones), Neil Wallis (former editor, The People), and Toby Young (theatre critic, Spectator and author).

About the Author

Tessa Mayes is a regular contributor to spiked-online.com, The Sunday Times and the British Journalism Review. She also works as an investigative undercover television reporter. 'Disclosure: media freedom and the privacy debate after Diana' by Tessa Mayes was published in 1998.