A week after they ran a featured cover story headlined: “Themystery of Melania,” the Daily Telegraph has apologised and agreed to paysubstantial damages to the US First Lady. In an extraordinarily candidcorrection issued last Saturday, the newspaper stated how the story “containeda number of false statements which [they] accept should not have beenpublished”.

For once, a national newspaper corrects and apologisesquickly for serious inaccuracies about someone. That’s great, right?

National newspapers should correct and apologise quickly forsuch serious errors, of course. But most victims of libel or serious inaccuracyspend months, if not years, in legal proceedings, or battling against IPSO, toget some kind of justice - not a detailed correction, apology and settlement indays.

Leveson found that it could be ruinously expensive fornewspapers to defend legal claims - especially when the litigants were wealthy.Yet, the wealthy and the powerful are precisely the people who should be thesubject of press enquiry and investigation.

Equally, Leveson found that some ordinary people who werethe victims of libel were being deprived of access to justice, as going throughthe courts can be so risky and costly.

Leveson’s solution? A new mechanism to dramatically cutlegal costs for newspapers, while making it possible for anyone illegallywronged to bring a claim - provided it was genuine.

It was a breakthroughfor freedom of expression - or it would have been - if it wasn’t for the factthat the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers opposed it at every turn andcontinue to reject the system.

Their rejection exposes the fact that corporately, some ofthese newspapers aren’t very interested in freedom of speech at all.  Andnow, whenever faced with legal action from a wealthy claimant, The Telegraphhas little choice but to settle quickly and humiliatingly.

The Telegraph should join an independent regulator andcampaign for the full Leveson system to be implemented, so they wouldn't haveto worry about bankruptcy after a costly lawsuit. Newspapers should be speakingthe truth to the powerful and standing up for the voiceless. But, because theyrejected the Leveson system, most newspapers are running scared from the rich,while ordinary people are left defenceless.

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