Lessons from history on the topic of newspaper licensing will come in an address by Geoff Kemp of Auckland University’s department of political studies, later this month.

Kemp will speak at Macquarie University on October 23.

He says the fallout from the ‘News of the World’ phone hacking scandal has put press freedom on the agenda for public discussion and put press licensing back in the news, three centuries after England’s statutory licensing system was brought to an end.

Kemp quotes a submission to the Leveson Inquiry by Alan Rusbridger, editor of ‘The Guardian’, who said those who talked about licensing journalists or newspapers should be referred to history. “Read about how the licensing of the press in Britain was abolished in 1695 and look at the arguments why, they are remarkably similar to the arguments today,” Rusbridger said.

Kemp’s paper revisits the events and arguments of 1695 and asks what referring to early modern history might mean for the news media and press freedom today.

Presented by Macquarie University’s Centre for Media History, in association with

the department of modern history, politics and international relations, the address is at 1pm on October 23 (Room 127, W6A).