As Lord Justice Leveson said on the first day of his inquiry into press practices, his task was to determine "who guards the guardians".
After 25 weeks of testimony and many thousands of pages of written submissions, it is necessary to come back to that fundamental question.
The Leveson Inquiry was not aimed at the decent journalists who make up the bulk of the profession: men and women who use their wits, contacts, skills and sweat to fill the columns of our newspapers each day. It was born out of public revulsion over phone-hacking at the disgraced News of the World.
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