Writing in last week’s FT Weekend Magazine, Brian Cathcart (professor of journalism at Kingston University) wrote an acidic piece called ‘The ordeal of Christopher Jefferies’.

It was about the (innocent) man who was effectively tried and convicted of Joanna Yeates’s murder by the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Record, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Star and the Scotsman.

It outlined, in perfect focus and great accuracy just how much newspapers need to have professional standards and how much they need to resist the dubious ethics that they believe characterise their readers.

Compare and contrast the egregious behaviour of the newspapers listed above, and their journalists, with this story from the Telegraph. Journalism is capable of great things but when it fails, boy, does it let itself down big time.

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