The British Press Requires Tougher Regulations - against arguement

Having recently taken part in a debating competition (and winning) with this motion and the Leveson inquiry going on, I've decided to post up my speech which I think holds up some very valid arugements as to why the British Press does not require tougher regulation:

P – British newspapers will become drones, leading to no opinion in society which is crucial for human development.

E – Countries like North Korea have everything around them censored. It leads the people to be all thinking one thing having no diverse opinion, which has led to naivety.

A – Press opinion is vital for the people to have opinion themselves. We need this sort of diversity to progress as a race. This is the way it has always been, Christopher Columbus had to have his own opinion to realise that the world was in fact round and not flat. Imagine if he had not have had that opinion? It would have affected everything that we now know today about space, meaning we would never have had the genius minds that developed and are still developing space travel. It is simple opinions like this that is essential for the evolution of man. Without this we would never progress and it is the media that helps to create these different opinions that people have.

L – To say that the British press needs tougher regulations is completely barbaric to the human race.

　

P – Regulations will not stop things such as phone hacking as the opposition will wrongly state.

E – The NOTW phone hacking scandal was of course a terrible crime committed by Mr Murdoch’s newspaper. The scandal as anyone apart from the opposition it seems, will know that phone hacking is in fact illegal and the police have been criticised for their handling of the situation.

A – It is wrong for the opposition to say that tougher regulations will mean an end to phone hacking, because phone hacking is in fact illegal as we all know. This therefore makes it a crime that the police have to deal with. No amount of press regulation will be able to stop what is clearly a criminal act.

L – The opposition assumption has therefore been proved obviously incorrect, because further press regulation will not stop a criminal act such as phone hacking.

　

P – People deserve to know the truth about their MPs if they want to run the country we live in.

E – The MPs expenses scandal in 2010 brought to light the truth about our leaders from all major parties and how they had been spending your hard earned cash that you believed would be spent on improving this country. Instead we find it being spent on moats for ducks and toilet seats.

A – If we add more press regulation, stories like these will not be uncovered, because journalists may feel like they cannot give the public the information in case of an infringement of regulations. Surely information like this, the good people of our country deserve to know, especially when there was an election looming at the time. The opposition are therefore saying that tougher regulation will lead to our so called MPs spending your money on their own unnecessary needs. Furthermore, who is going to regulate the newspapers? Surely not the MPs as this scandal proves that they cannot be trusted with what they think we should know and not know.

L- Tougher regulations means you are not just restricting the press, you are restricting the people of our country and how can the opposition possibly say this it right?