(Ink) Stains on Society

Today, another slew of journalistic lowlife walked free from a court case hanging over them as the Crown Prosecution Service dropped all charges against them.  Yesterday, several other hacks were acquitted of conspiracy to corrupt public servants - it seems juries are more willing to convict those policemen, prison officers, etc. who accept the bribes than the journalists who wafted the money under the noses in the first place.  This probably stems from a deep-seated British aversion to jailing journalists, fearful of emulating more repressive regimes around the world.  One Chinese investigative reporter was handed a seven-year prison sentence for exposing a secret communist document mandating a crack down on western values, democracy, civil liberties and the rights of the individual.
It's a fine sentiment but no-one is above the law, even though many journalists thought they were.  If someone has committed a crime, they deserve to be punished, irrespective of their profession.  The Court of Appeal is on the side of wrongdoers, saying that the severity of offence is not one that should be brought before the courts.  This all follows on from the ludicrous acquittal of Rebekah Brooks and her coterie - it is inconceivable that when having a deep-rooted love affair with Andy Coulson that they did not talk shop, pertinently phone hacking - passion and plausible deniability are not natural bedfellows, unlike Brooks (then Wade) and Coulson.  Coulson himself was only convicted because he admitted he hacked phones and claimed he thought it wasn't illegal - if he hadn't condemned himself out of his own mouth, the jury might have been moved to acquit him as well.  In seeking to assert British values of freedom of speech, juries are unwittingly undermining judicial process - another core British pillar of our rights.  Had they suffered as did Christopher Jefferies or the family of Milly Dowler, they may have been of a different opinion but doesn't that expose something rotten at the heart of British society?
The Leveson inquiry was supposed to lance this boil.  Countless reporters and editors (including the likable Ian Hislop) decried its recommendations, saying there was no need for reform as existing law was being enforced.  The hollowness of that argument is apparent today.  Industrial phone-hacking and blagging went on but it seems no-one is responsible for all that.  Now, two parallel codes of conduct are in operation - the one drawn up and run by the editors and the other set up by royal charter (the latter not dissimilar to that used by Denmark, that bastion of oppression).  By not joining the royal charter code of conduct, editors are potentially exposing themselves to severe financial penalties in libel cases (even if they win, they still have to pay their own costs) - it seems a price they are willing to pay if they can continue to trash the lives of ordinary people and shirk impartiality.  And, unless they are directly affected, the British people are happy to abet them in this.