THE News Media Association (NMA) has secured an exemption for journalists from a proposed new law that criminalises the leaking of information held by Government departments.
The Digital Economy Bill permits Government departments to share information on individuals and companies with each other, where the aim is to detect and investigate fraud against the public sector. The original version of the Bill then went on to prohibit the disclosure of this information for any other purpose.
The NMA and Media Lawyers Association expressed concern that this provision could be applied to leaks and whistleblowing by public servants to newspapers and represented a serious risk to investigative journalism.
The Government has now amended the Bill in the House of Lords to include a defence for “publication of information for the purposes of journalism, where the publication of the information is in the public interest.”
The full story is on the News Media Association website.
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