Michael Wolff: The folly of Brits' free-press ire

• A free press means no laws, no regulation, no nothing
• Brits are demanding regulation because of Rupert Murdoch

I can't decide how to begin this column:

Britain moves to quash its free press. Or …

Britain denies the existence of the Internet.

For the better part of a year, the British people have witnessed the airing of the dirty laundry of the British press. An official investigation, called the Leveson Inquiry, has, day after day, heard endless testimony about the rudeness, salaciousness, intrusiveness, unfairness and, also, intrepidness of the famous British tabloids. Late last week the inquiry returned its report recommending that Parliament pass laws that would monitor the press and punish its bad behavior.

British lawmakers and even many British journalists continue to insist in the fashion of dubious regimes the world over that, of course, even with such laws, the press would still be free, that this is just about regulating abuses.

It does no good, in my experience, to argue to the British that a free press — that is, as it is practiced in America, still the gold standard of a free press — means no laws, no regulation, no nothing. That the democratic presumption is that the unfettered right to publish is necessary to free expression. That no abuse can trump the virtue of free expression. And that almost any effort to prevent abuses will diminish free expression — whether through self-censorship, lawyerly avoidance or prosecutorial overstepping.

To this, the Brits say, "Yes, yes, quite right … but of course the press must still be civil."

The reason the Brits have gotten to the point of demanding regulation, arguably a form really of state licensing, last practiced in Britain in 1694, is because of Rupert Murdoch.

Many people in Britain have strong, if not violent, feelings toward Murdoch. The fact that his papers hacked the phones of thousands of people in Britain (including a kidnapped and murdered 11-year-old) and bribed the London police for juicy information about celebrities has not helped his reputation.

As it happens, all of these abuses are covered by existing laws, and some 50 people have already been arrested.

But no matter. The point, advocates of regulation — notable among them actor Hugh Grant — is that the British people should somehow be protected from incivility itself. Celebrities should not be bothered. Crime victims should be sheltered. Old ladies should not be distressed. Feelings should not be hurt. Why, Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling testified at the hearings that the tabloids had the temerity to reveal her address!

And the point is that Rupert Murdoch, who has such great power in the U.K., should have less. And tabloids in general, which tend to support conservative politicians, should be tamed or muted, at least according to the righteous left.

At any rate, what you have in Britain is the kind of perfect storm that depending how the political winds blow could actually result in the end of a 300-year tradition of an unregulated press. It's a tempest of Murdoch hatred, plus left-wing self-interest, plus a weak conservative government, plus really, really rude low-class tabloids that finally the upper class can act against.

Except for the fact that this is all quite beside the point.

The British press, like newspapers everywhere, is a shrinking and, ultimately, dying business. One reason it is now facing such opprobrium and regulation is that it is no longer strong enough to mount its usual aggressive counterattack. The Leveson Inquiry and its attendant proposals are all part of kicking the beast when it's down.

And yet the toughest regulation, the most radical defenestration of the tabloid press as the virtuous might wish, will not mean any interruption in news or information or gossip or salaciousness — or pictures. For that, there will continue to be the unregulated Internet. The recent long-lens pictures of Kate Middleton without her bathing suit top, which were effectively banned in Britain even without new regulations, were as available to people in Britain as they were to everyone else in the world.

Indeed, the Leveson Inquiry often seemed like a British comedy about British myopia as day after day, month after month, it sifted through the behavior of an outré Fleet Street culture that is about as relevant as the British Empire.

There was hardly any mention of digital enterprises or behavior. Aside from Prime Minister David Cameron's embarrassing text messages to Murdoch's fallen executive, Rebekah Brooks, charged in the hacking and bribery scandal, there was no mention of smartphones, well on their way to becoming the primary source of news for all Britain.

Certainly British media was not about to use its irrelevance as a defense or reason to throw itself on the mercy of the court. British media, like media everywhere, maintains a stiff upper lip when it comes to its obsolescence.

In some sense the threat of punishment to the press even seemed proof of its continuing importance.

It was all a remarkable charade, a nation pretending, as the British do so well, that nothing has changed.

Possibly, there will be press regulation in Britain.

And, no, it won't matter in any practical way because a flourishing free press, on British laptops, tablets and smartphones, will be as readily available as Britain's newly regulated press.

But it does matter in an intellectual or, perhaps, sentimental way. A free press, arguably mankind's singularly best idea, is more important than any British reputation or inconvenience.

We, as well as the Brits, ought to take joy rather than umbrage in its abuses. The abusers confirm its freedom.

Michael Wolff can be reached at michael@burnrate.com and on Twitter, @MichaelWolffNYC.