Ben Lowry: Amid global threats to free expression, the UK's leaders seem to realise the importance of an independent press

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​Rishi Sunak was one of the speakers at the conference of the Society of Editors, in which he explained the government’s support for free expression.

The Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer also spoke at the event, as did the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, Baroness Carr.

These are three of the most influential people in the land, and all of them outlined their personal interest in, and commitment to, free expression as a central tenet of a democracy.

They also all recognised that there would be occasional tensions between their own spheres of public life, politics and the law, and the media, but that all three were essential.

You might thing that they said these things to curry favour with journalists, but I think it was a reflection of something more than that.

There is an understanding among many people in the UK establishment that free speech and an unhindered press are under threat, and for a number of reasons.

One reason is that a number of emerging global world powers do not have the western tradition of an untrammelled media, and guaranteed rights to speak freely. In China, there is neither democracy nor a free press. This means, for example, that we do not even know how many people were massacred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, when pro democracy students were crushed (literally) by tanks. Some estimates are that more than 2,000 protestors were killed. Such brutality would be unthinkable in Western Europe or North America over the last 100 years, and when there have been smaller such tragedies, such as at Kent State in the US when four anti Vietnam war students were shot dead, it has been openly reported and carefully examined ever since.

Look how China has extinguished democracy and criticism and scrutiny in Hong Kong. Barely anyone in Northern Ireland mentions this development apart from the former Alliance leader and Fine Gael MEP John Cushnahan, who regularly writes on these pages about the unfolding nightmare in that city state.

Another reason for the political and legal concern is the emergence of a younger generation that is so sure in its categorisation of certain views as bigotry (such as challenging the aims of the Black Lives movement) that it has been shutting down debates in universities, which should in fact be crucibles of debate and free inquiry.

A third reason is the rise of strategic lawsuits (known as Slapps) and of privacy and hate speech laws to further stigmatise views, particularly conservative-inclined views, and close down debate.

And yet a further reason for the concern is the decline of the print media, ie newspapers such as this one.

I spoke briefly from the floor to underline my own concerns about this as the editor of the world’s oldest English language daily newspaper.

Having serialised the earliest surviving editions of this title, from the 1730s, I have an awareness of how the printed press developed in Britain and Ireland and so helped to advance knowledge, to make society more transparent, and so to expose failures and wrongdoing and to entrench a democratic system based on the rule of law.

Newspapers were a key part of the enlightenment and were a central component in the remarkable civilisation that we all enjoy today, in which we can read pretty much whatever we want to read, and speak freely at home or in public gatherings or online.

It is no trade secret to say that newspaper printed editions have been declining in sales relentlessly. At the News Letter, our percentage decline has been lower than the average in the industry. On Saturdays, our weekend edition including Farming Life still has a large sale. Meanwhile, our digital audience gets ever bigger.

But there are big challenges in getting the sort of income that we need to thrive in an age in which many younger people expect their news to be free. The role of the BBC in this challenge, with its free news websites and its ability to poach journalists by paying them more, is something that I mentioned at the conference.

I am ultimately optimistic about the future of newspapers such as this one. It is thanks to readers like you that we are still in existence.

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Ben Lowry is News Letter editor