Newsgathering: Law, Regulation, and the Public Interest

• 1: Introduction


• 2: Newsgathering and the Public Interest by Aileen McColgan


• 3: Protection of Sources and Materials: General Principles


• 4: Powers to Compel Disclosure


• 5: Covert State Powers and Identification of Sources


• 6: Legal Risks for Sources


• 7: Payment of Sources


• 8: Open Government: General Principles


• 9: Access to Government Information


• 10: Access to Courts, Court Documents and Other Aspects of the Justice Regime


• 11: Reporting Public Protest and Events


• 12: Protection of Journalism in Conflict Situations by Conor McCarthy


• 13: Intrusive Newsgathering


• 14: Harassment and Related Wrongs


• 15: Misrepresentation of Purposes and Entrapment


• 16: Clandestine Newsgathering


• 17: Publication Torts and Newsgathering Practice

Gavin Millar QC is a barrister at Matrix Chambers who has a broad practice spanning media, information, public, criminal, employment and discrimination law. Gavin is a noted specialist in all areas of media law including defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, publishing contempts and reporting restrictions. He was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK media in the Guardian Media One Hundred 2012, after representing the Telegraph Media Group at the Leveson Inquiry. In 2013 Gavin advised the Guardian on its Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of Edward Snowdens disclosures. He represented the Sun newspaper in the plebgate libel trial and the recent PJS celebrity injunction litigation.


Gavin is recognised as a leading expert in election law, having appeared in many high profile cases in recent years. Gavins publications include Confidential Information in Coppels Information Rights (4th Edn 2014), Protecting Free Expression in J. Lewis and P. Crick eds, Media Law & Ethics in the 21st Century (IBA, 2014) and Media Law and Human Rights (OUP 2009).


Dr Andrew Scott is a senior lecturer in law at the London School of Economics. He is also Assistant Director of the Executive LLM. Andrew's research interests focus on media law and regulation, constitutional law and competition law.


Dr. Conor McCarthy is a practising barrister and member of Monckton Chambers, London. He has previously taught international law at the University of Cambridge and was formerly a visiting fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He has published widely on questions of international law, human rights law and issues of free expression. He is often instructed in cases raising questions of free expression or the protection of personal, confidential or privileged information.

Newsgathering represents an important contribution to the literature on media law. It is a useful resource which serves to illustrate, as the authors show, the myriad ways in which the state can (and does) exercise coercion over the press. Paul Wragg, Communications Law