Press Freedom, Privacy and The Public Sphere

Taking as its starting point the reduction of the News International phone-hacking scandal to a debate on the balance between privacy and press freedom, this article will argue for the recasting of these rights in terms of their mutual significance for the public sphere. After reviewing the history of the legal approach to balancing these two liberal freedoms from the state, the article will assert that each is incapable of recognising the threats posed to the public and the press by the market. Contrasting the theory of press freedom with the concept of the public sphere, and distinguishing between individual, social and political dimensions of privacy, the article will call for a turn to a civic republican approach to press regulation that would more effectively protect the public from both state and market interference, and empower the media to hold both political and economic power to account.