THE greatest challenge facing editors today lies in publishing what readers have a right to know, Evening Press editor Liz Page told a major conference.

Speaking as she accepted the presidency of the national Society of Editors, Mrs Page said the press must maintain vigilance to get public information out to readers.

"Our biggest difficulty is finding out 'the truth' or 'the facts' in a society obsessed with secrecy, privacy and spin," Mrs Page told the conference in Belfast.

She said the Society of Editors could be proud of the contribution it made towards finally achieving a Freedom of Information Act; but the Bill that resulted was seriously flawed.

"It lacked a simple purpose clause that should make it crystal clear to every public servant that openness is far better than secrecy," said Mrs Page.

"Quite simply, we want every public servant from the Ministry of Defence to the local primary school to understand that the information they hold does not belong to them - it is as much the public's information as the money they spend is the public's money."

Mrs Page said the best way to ensure true freedom of information was to remind the public constantly about their lives, their children's futures, their health and their well-being, about which, so far, they had had no right to know.

"It is crucial to persuade them that this legislation is not something for politicians, civil servants or journalists. It is for them - our readers, our listeners, our viewers.

"Continued vigilance must be the watchword, as it must be with those other pieces of legislation that are too frequently misused. The Data Protection Act is too often quoted when officials don't want to tell us - and therefore the public - what we have a right to know. Similarly, the Human Rights Act is waved around in some quarters as though it is a weapon to beat off the media.

"Of course, everyone is entitled to privacy...that does not mean these two pieces of legislation should be used to protect the guilty, the corrupt or the inefficient. We protect our own private information - about bank accounts or health records, for example - as much as anyone. However, information about incidents that happen in public places or involve public money should not be protected by laws that were written for a different purpose.

"The right to free expression and the right to know are, at least, equally important and fundamental human rights which can be too easily forgotten or taken for granted. We must never forget that the public has rights as much as individuals. We are the guardians of those rights. "

Updated: 11:16 Wednesday, October 24, 2001