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There is no particularly strong legal basis for "freedom of press" in the UK. While recent history has had the press being largely unhindered by the government, our history is one of strict restrictions that have been gradually relaxed over the centuries.

You're probably confusing us with the US, which has some constitutional guarantees.

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Thanks for clearing that up. US press seems curiously absent from even covering this story. As per @mathewi the only US media companies on the #panamapapers team are Miami Herald, Univision, Fusion and McLatchy.

I guess we'll see how active they'll become and what their spin will be, if any, in the coming days.

The US press situation is a standard consolidation story. They are dependent on leaks and access to officials, and have little meaningful competition to drive risky behavior.

There's a reason Fox leans republican and CNN leans democrat -- they get to avoid competition.

In a market like NYC with 4-5 papers, the Post and Daily News always try to one up each other, posting off politicians in the process.

Apparently they split out all the documents relating to Americans and haven't released them yet. So nothing has "hit home" so to speak for American media.

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