What was on the radar: a qualitative study of perceived legal risks in UK journalism

Based on interviews with UK journalists, lawyers, and experts, this article examines perceptions of legal risk in journalism during 2023 —a pivotal year when the Online Safety Act, National Security legislation, and ECCTA 2023 anti-SLAPP provisions (ss. 194–195) were passed but not yet fully implemented. The interviews revealed that defamation, privacy, and data protection were perceived as the primary legal risks to UK journalism, prompting cautious practices, whereas national security and copyright were not viewed as severe. While journalists expressed varying levels of concern regarding these legal risks, media lawyers and a majority of the experts highlighted their severity. These differing levels of awareness may have been shaped by the participants’ specific roles and experiences, as well as by contextually emerging legal issues. Furthermore, journalists and media lawyers identified strategies developed to mitigate these perceived risks, which were perceived as improving reporting quality but inevitably restricting journalism. The findings suggest that although UK law treats prior restraint as exceptional, in practice legal concerns lead newsrooms to pre-emptively manage legal risk, indicating a “chilling effect” of the law on journalism. This study provides a baseline for studying perceptions of legal risk in post-2023 UK journalism.