Our liberty cannot be guarded but by freedom of the press. But does a free press really have to suck so bad?

I've had some unkind things to say about Mayor Michael Laws. Last week I fulminated about what appears to be his attempt to extract vengance against the local newspaper for an editorial stance he disapproves of. Such behaviour, I pontificated, represented an attack on press freedom that is unworthy of an elected official.

But then the Herald on Sunday goes and runs a muckraking (and I mean that in the truely pejorative sense) story like this, implying that he was involved in some sort of domestic violence episode and called the police to resolve it. Let's be entirely clear - there is nothing ... nothing ... to suggest Mayor Laws committed any criminal offences. His presently separated partner makes that entirely clear.

So the only story here is that a couple, under extreme stress because of personal traumas that have played out in the public eye, cracked and broke apart in a messy fashion. Leading me to wonder: is a press that serves this up as a major feature for its readers really something worth defending?