journalists

Posted by Luke Williams on May 20, 2005 in general thoughts | 0 comments

A small news story, hidden in the lesser pages caught my eye today. A daily mail journalist has launched a legal battle for compensation against dorset police for arresting him after he tried to collect a postal vote, he’d registered under a pseudonym.

He attempted to break the law, “in the public interest”, was caught and arrested. He identified himself as a journalist and his complaint is that he was falsely imprisoned for 2 days, violating his human rights.

2 things come to mind…

1. Does he have the right to break the law and not then be punished when he is caught?

He did commit a crime, yes, in the “public interest”… how far can we push this? If I robbed a bank to test the police response in my area, would that count as “public interest”? hmmm

2. Why has this not even appeared on the news, can you say this is impartial when an undoubtably huge story would of been created had he succeded?

This is the biggy for me, I like to read news, sad I know… I can’t help it, I’m a information junkie! I only noticed it by accident.
In my mind, the story should be given equal size having failed. “Attempts at vote rigging, foiled by dorset police”