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Chris Mullin’s high court victory is a reminder that journalism must be protected from the baleful gaze of powerLast week saw a good day for press freedom. An Old Bailey judge ruled that Chris Mullin, the former Labour minister and journalist, would not have to hand over the notes that he made while looking a decade later into the 1974 IRA Birmingham pub bombings. The West Midlands police had applied for an order under terror laws to force Mr Mullin to reveal the sources for his 1986 book, Error of Judgement, and the television documentaries he later worked on. He declined to do so, and the court backed him. This was the right decision. Protection of journalists’ sources is a cornerstone of the free press in a democracy.Mr Mullin had, through years of patient digging, exposed significant and important failures by the police that resulted in the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of six innocent men. To prove the guilty men were free, Mr Mullin had to find out who they were. To discover this, he had to give assurances that he would not reveal his sources. The court heard that one bomber had confessed to Mr Mullin and that he had notes from speaking to another alleged bomber. Without giving his word to former members of the IRA, it is hard to see how this miscarriage of justice would have been overturned. Continue reading...