Beware this odious new threat to press freedom

We all fear being frail and being unable to live independently. Worst than that, most of us fear what might happen if we end up in a care home where the staff are untrained, uncaring or even abusive.

In 2011, the BBC Panorama team went to South Gloucestershire and spent five weeks filming what was happening at the Winterbourne View private hospital in Hambrook. The evidence collected, using secret cameras, revealed dreadful details: patients with mental disabilities were being abused, dragged along the floor; in one case an 18-year-old had cold water poured over her as a punishment. The investigation took place after a senior nurse had raised worries about treatment at the home with the government regulator the Care Quality Commission, which had failed to investigate.

Investigative journalism like this brings vital information to the public domain, exposing corruption and injustices that otherwise would not have become known, and calling powerful individuals and bodies to account.

But a clause within the new data protection Bill, currently being debated in the Houses of Parliament, places it under threat.

Clause 164 gives those being investigated the right to delay or stop journalistic reports before they are shown or published, by applying to the information commissioner (ICO) to assess whether the data used has been properly collected and is in the public interest.

Viscount Colville, ITN documentary producer, told a recent session of the House of Lords: “At worst, [it] will result in public interest journalism being delayed or thwarted altogether by a regulator with limited expertise of the media... My concern is that, even if the ICO does not exercise her powers, the prospect of her doing so will have a chilling effect on editors’ decisions about whether to publish.”

He added that legal advice was increasingly to be risk averse, making it more difficult to publish investigations.

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, representing hundreds of UK news outlets, agrees. “Without a doubt, the proposed clause 164 in its present form will have a dampening effect on newsrooms in the UK, from national and broadcast to the smallest of regional publications trying to hold those who run their local hospitals and public bodies to account.”

Funding for investigative journalism is already limited. Investigations like these are both time consuming and extremely expensive. There are already pressures on both television companies and newspapers to focus on less difficult types of reporting. This element of the data protection Bill will provide just one more disincentive to news organisations to carry out difficult public interest reporting. In a democracy we must do everything we can to protect important journalism that exposes abuse, fraud or misuse of public money.