In my middle 20's, as well as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, All the President’s Men was one of my favourite films, and books.

It relates the almost incredible story of Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein acted out by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. With the help of informant 'Deepthroat' they slowly but surely unravelled and deduced that the Watergate break in scandal went all the way to the top and resulted in Richard Milhous Nixon, a former lawyer, becoming the only US President to resign.

Probably one of the top investigative journalism coups of the 20th Century. I saw the film more than once and was transfixed as the darkened underground car park encounters eventually led to the penny (dime?) dropping for Woodward.

But that’s four decades ago and things have moved on. The 'News' is 24/7 now, footage from phones can come instantly from almost anywhere in the world.

Where has journalism got to? Do we have the Press we deserve?

On and off over its eight months of sitting, I dipped into the constantly televised (Lord Justice Sir Brian) Leveson (QC) Inquiry.

Dozens of the 'great and the good' appeared: the PM and his predecessors, John Prescott, David Blunkett, stars of stage and screen, Hugh Grant, Abi Titmuss, Ulrika Jonnson, Madeleine McCann’s parents, Max Clifford, sportsmen and women, senior police officers, academics and editors, Rebekah Brooks, the Murdochs of New International and our own Jack Straw.

The PM had set up the inquiry. It’s said to have cost several millions. I hear its three times the length of War and Peace.

It killed the News of the World. The main cruel injustice was that meted out to the anguished parents of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler and the hacking of her voicemail by News of the World reporters. But as well as hacking we heard of blagging and pinging!

Now the report is out and will be debated long and hard.

But in and around all this we’ve had new scandals. They include Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith, the Newsnight and BBC leadership scandal and Hillsborough. I felt that the BBC loved the reporting of the Sky/News International difficulties and vice versa. And don’t forget all the Wiki and Twitter episodes.

But what does all this mean to you and me, the ordinary man and woman?

It all seems to be happening down in London amongst a set of people about whom we don’t really know so much.

We have a special bunch of ‘papers (I omit the preface news deliberately), the 'red tops' that shock and titillate us with salacious and prurient 'uncoverings or disclosures' of 'celebrities'.

I have bought and read them, I’ve stopped it now.

Do their 'stories' really matter? Do those dancing and jungle TV 'reality' programmes, Jeremy Kyle et al really move the human race on to new levels? Probably yes, but plumbing new despairing depths.

So now we have a debate about legal or voluntary measures to regulate the Press, to curb their worst excesses.

Can Government, in its totality, dare to legislate against an unbridled press and media when we know that a persuasive or hostile press, indeed arguably one mass circulation red top, can bring a political party to its electoral knees.

What do you think? Have the media over stepped the mark? Where is the mark and who should to arbitrate on where the line is, if it’s been crossed and what should be done about it?

Or have we the Press we deserve?