NUJ: Leveson should consider conscience clause

The National Union of Journalists has said it will use its core participant status at the Leveson inquiry into press ethics to call for a conscience clause that would prevent journalists who expose unethical practices from losing their jobs.

The NUJ is also intending to reassert the "savage cost-cutting" within the industry that it believes is at the root of the phone-hacking scandal.

"Specialist correspondents, once the mainstay of newsrooms both nationally and regionally, have become something of an endangered species. In this context investigative journalism has been hit hard, as costs have been cut and investment massively scaled back in the newspaper industry," a spokesperson said.

"We also want to paint a picture of the reality of newsroom culture and the pressures that journalists in some workplaces have come under to deliver the goods, and even to write stories that are inaccurate or misleading."