Colin Myler, the editor of the News of the World, used the occasion of the 125th birthday of Liverpool’s Press Club to launch an attack on the UK’s privacy laws, which he claimed were “strangling the British media.”
Myler recently felt the full force of those laws through his paper’s well-publicised run-in with F1 boss Max Mosley – an occurrence that left the paper £60,000 poorer, but nonetheless brought it huge publicity.
Myler
Myler, who hails from Widnes, began his career on the Catholic Pictorial news agency in Liverpool.
Speaking at last week’s anniversary Christmas Lunch for the Club , he told an audience of 160 journalists and their guests that the laws were “insidious”, “shameful” and were "strangling the British media.''
He said: ''We are far from blameless in where we find ourselves. But the insidious way in which a privacy law is being imposed on the British Press through the back door is shameful.
''There is little or no debate through our elected MPs in Parliament, only edicts from the benches of the High Courts in London fed by Human Rights judges in Strasbourg who are, in any case, unfriendly to freedom of expression.''
He added that privacy injunction threats now “fly in on a daily basis.”
Speaking of the situation currently facing the newspaper industry he opined that there was “no mistaking the difficult times our industry finds itself in”, adding:
“'Many young people don't feel the need or desire to buy and engage in newspapers any more.
"And the fragmentation of our business is breathtaking...there's no such thing as a newsroom any more.”
However, Myler did have positive things to say about the future of the sector.
He noted: ''Despite the economic climate that is as tough as anyone can remember, I firmly believe newspapers still have a strong future.
"Some will struggle to survive, but, as an industry, we really do have to be more positive and not allow those so-called media experts and commentators to tell us how badly we are doing.
''We have to embrace the seismic changes we are going through and harness our great skills and talents to reach our audiences in the form they want to access, whether in print or digitally.''
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