My reply to the review written by drywontonmee.

Having just seen this film win two BAFTA awards last night, I have just watched it again, and I cannot agree with the review made by drywontonmee titled "Superb acting - ending as diabolical propaganda." The reviewer objects to the film on the basis of it being biased: “…the subject of this 'based-on-fact' drama had been suckered into promoting the Leveson inquiry, so the last half an hour also promotes it.”

I disagree with this analysis for the following reasons:

1, The Leveson inquiry does occupy a small section at the end (actually only about 10 minutes) and Christopher Jefferies is seen testifying there. He is also seen promoting Leveson's recommendations in a television interview. This is all historically true. The film makers may (or may not) support Leveson, but I fail to see how this film promotes Leveson in a way that could be called propaganda. To be propaganda there must be some distortion of fact; as the film makers present no discussion of the right and wrongs of Leveson in the film, it cannot be propaganda in this respect. I also fail to see how the Leveson inquiry could have been ignored in the film given the very high publicity that was made of Jefferies' participation.

2, The reviewer claims that the subject of the film (Christopher Jefferies) had been “suckered into promoting” the Leveson inquiry, but I see no evidence for this in the film. Nor do I see evidence for this elsewhere. As I understand it, Jefferies was not compelled to testify before the inquiry, so presumably he decided to testify of his own free will. I think evidence of this can be clearly seen in news broadcasts of his testimony (available on Youtube), so I cannot see any way the accusation of Jefferies being “suckered in” can be substantiated.

3, Jefferies is a patron of the “Hacked Off” campaign, so even if he had initially been “suckered in,” he presumably is now largely in favor of the Leveson inquiry, given that his report that is favorable to people like Jefferies who had been vilified by the press with little or no evidence.

The reviewer is concerned that this film is attempting to limit free speech because Leveson is attempting to limit free speech. I do not believe either of these premises is true. I suppose that one could argue that one effect of implementing Leveson’s recommendations could be to limit free speech, but this is quite a different thing.

This film is not about free speech, it is about the way the press can ruin the lives of people who are totally innocent. I suggest that if you want to look for violations of free speech, you could do worse than to start with the way Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed all of Levison's recommendations (which ironically he commissioned) in just a few hours after publication.