LAST year saw the 35th anniversary of the release of Alan Pakula's All The President's Men, a film that inspired a generation of journalists by showing how a newspaper exposed Richard Nixon's corruption.

The message behind the masterpiece was unambiguous: journalists are heroes who play a key role as a watchdog in an imperfect society.

In 2011, it is unlikely that reporters would have been cast in such a flattering light. A film these days would be more likely to show a journalist asking a private investigator to hack the mobile phone of a missing child, or pay a police officer for titbits about a C-list celebrity's burglary. The reporter, far from putting people behind bars as a result of his stories, would probably be the person who ended up in jail.

This turnaround reflects the fact that 2011 was the annus horribilis for the press. Twelve months ago, the phone hacking scandal that was tearing the News of the World (NoW) apart had still not gone mainstream. The theory that former NoW reporter Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire were rogue villains rang hollow, but hacking stories were still largely being run by one newspaper. Since then, the drips have turned into a waterfall.

Andy Coulson, the former NoW editor who became Prime Minister David Cameron's top spin doctor, quit his government post in January amid allegations of illegal behaviour while he was editor of the red top.

The Metropolitan Police then launched Operation Weeting, an inquiry into phone hacking, which has led to 18 arrests, including various reporters at the former tabloid, Coulson, and one-time News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

This probe followed widespread criticism that the Met's first investigation into phone hacking had been hopelessly compromised by the force's cosy and inappropriate relationship with the newspaper. As an example of the close links, a former Met chief claimed that nearly one-quarter of the force's press office had worked for News International at some point in their career.

The list of apparent hacking victims also grew substantially as the year went on, with hundreds of individuals, ranging from royalty to victims of crime, emerging as possible targets. Following weeks of terrible publicity, coupled with the prospect of a multi-million pound compensation bill, Rupert Murdoch lanced the boil by closing one of the world's most financially successful papers on July 7.

The controversy also forced the tycoon to abandon his long-cherished plan of securing total ownership of BSkyB. The broadcasting application was withdrawn days after the NoW folded.

However, it is the impact of the phone hacking scandal on newspapers generally that could be most damaging. On the instruction of the Prime Minister, Lord Justice Leveson launched an inquiry into "the culture, practices and ethics of the press", a remit that goes far beyond one newspaper's addiction for intercepting communications. The effect has been to give a platform to people to air historical grievances, whether legitimate or not, about their treatment by the press.

Steve Coogan, a comedian who admitted to being "no paragon of virtue", railed against the press during an evidence session, as did actor Hugh Grant, who was once fined for lewd conduct over an incident involving a prostitute.

The testimony of other witnesses probably confirmed why widening the inquiry into general press behaviour was the correct decision. Chris Jefferies, who was the landlord of murder victim Jo Yeates, told the Leveson inquiry how the press trashed his reputation during the police hunt for the killer.

He said headlines such as "Jo Suspect Peeping Tom" and "Jo Suspect Scared Kids" contributed to an portrait of him as strange and untrustworthy: "I can see now that, following my arrest, the national media shamelessly vilified me," he said. "They embarked on a frenzied campaign to blacken my character by publishing a series of very serious allegations about me which were completely untrue."

The parents of Milly Dowler and Madeleine McCann also gave uncomfortable evidence about the cruelty of the press.

Four months into the inquiry, a narrative has emerged of a savage and ruthless print media subverting the law to break trivial stories. Even so, 2012 may end up making the past 12 months look like the good old days. With Leveson expected to produce "recommendations" into "ethical and professional standards" before the year's close, journalism may be about to become a trickier trade to practise.

The Press Complaints Commission will go, perhaps replaced by a statutory body that sets strict rules on news-gathering and what is and is not in the public interest.

And herein lies the rub. Even without the phone hacking scandal, 2011 would have been a bad year for the press. A glance at any journalism textbook confirms that the UK already has one of the most regulated newspaper industries in the Western world. Laws relating to defamation and privacy can seriously impede stories that are in the public interest. In particular, 2011 saw countless examples of rich individuals asking a judge to grant a super-injunction to stop the publication of an embarrassing story. Even the existence of the court orders could not be reported. Many of the gagging orders may have been justified, others might not have been, but the phenomenon made clear that judges and lawyers had more power than editors.

Press impotence was also demonstrated by the stories and secrets that were disclosed in forums other than the print media. It took two Liberal Democrat politicians, one a peer and the other an MP, to reveal Fred Goodwin's super-injunction via parliamentary privilege. This then gave the press legal cover. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (who made headlines himself following allegations of sexual assault, which he denies) has also managed to obtain more confidential documents from whistleblowers in the past two years than most newspapers will acquire in a lifetime.

The economic backdrop for the press also gave cause for alarm, not hope. For many newspapers, redundancies, reduced pagination and even closure were the inevitable consequences of falling demand. However, despite the scandal, legal hindrances and dwindling sales, the print media still produced cracking stories.

The Independent's undercover investigation into the boasts of PR firm Bell Pottinger was a classic, while the Guardian performed a public service in exposing the links between former defence secretary Liam Fox and Adam Werritty.

Another triumph occurred in November when former Pakistan cricket players were jailed for their part in a betting conspiracy. The original story, lest we forget, was broken by the News of the World.

This coming year, the defunct paper's former journalists are more likely to be defendants than witnesses.