The overwhelming majority of journalists would not know – and wouldn’t want to know – how to hack a phone and it is unfair to restrict them because a few do  Introducing regulation on the basis that a handful of journalists have broken laws that already exist – and were caught doing so by other journalists – seems odd, to say the least.  There is little doubt that there was something extremely murky going on at the News of the World but it is worth remembering that the paper has since been shut down.  To any observer this looks an awful lot like politicians using the excuse of one newspaper’s poor conduct- which, it is worth repeating, has been shuttered- to attempt to regulate the rest. One of the popular suggestions at the moment is that no journalist should be able to print a story about a politician without getting their permission first. Such a rule would strike at the very heart of a free press.