Press offices have too much power in giving access to power

BACK GIVING evidence at the Leveson inquiry into UK press standards, Guardian reporter Nick Davies was unequivocal in his dislike of the phenomenon of press offices assuming the role of “monopoly supplier of information” within the police force or other organisations.

The policy is not universal, he qualified.

“Working with police forces in the US, I have been able to make phone calls direct to serving officers who have felt able to answer questions without making reference to press officers and without fear of being disciplined and, again, without crossing boundaries,” he said in his witness statement.

It was “wrong in principle” that journalists should be prevented from contacting officers without the official sanction of the press office, while the recent imposition of “a regime of silence” at the Metropolitan police, rather than being a legitimate precautionary measure to prevent illegitimate collusion with journalists, was “entirely unnecessary and probably counter-productive”.