The Sun's associate editor Trevor Kavanagh has lashed out at what he calls a 'witch hunt' after the latest round of arrests at the newspaper.
In the absence of a rush of other people stepping forward to defend The Sun, you can hardly blame a seasoned campaigner like Kavanagh for fighting to protect his and his colleagues' livelihoods.
And Kavanagh has certainly pulled no punches, criticising both the police and seemingly his own bosses, though his line of argument occasionally strays into slightly sensational territory, including the suggestion that a large-scale terrorist attrocity may be more likely because police are busy bothering a bunch of journalists:
In one raid, two officers revealed they had been pulled off an elite 11-man anti-terror squad trying to protect the Olympics from a mass suicide attack.
The notion that alleged corruption within the media doesn't really warrant proper investigation is something of a theme in Kavanagh's piece:
Instead of being called in for questioning, 30 journalists have been needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked.
Given much of the investigation to date has relied upon paper trails and the contents of notebooks, surely Kavanagh can think of one good reason why a heads-up from the police could be seen as slightly counter-productive.
There is also some hypocrisy in Kavanagh's piece. He complains that "wives and children have been humiliated as...officers...sift through intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents".
You'd only have to swap the "officers" for "journalists" or "private investigators" in that statement and we could be back in the Leveson Inquiry. Similarly, Kavanagh says of his arrested colleagues:
It is important that we do not jump to conclusions. Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted.
He is right, of course, but the public reaction to that sentence, on Twitter in particular has been both predictable and justified:
And then there is this statement from Kavanagh:
Why should questions about police procedures be handled solely by the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is notoriously reluctant to rule against police?
Again he is right. Kavanagh's criticism of self regulation is absolutely spot on but he couldn't have crafted a better metaphor for the failings of the Press Complaints Commission if he had actually been trying.
But enough of such nitpicking. One of the elements of Kavanagh's piece causing the most discussion in the media, is his barely concealed criticism of News International's own management and standards committee (MSC).
"It is absolutely right the company co-operates with police on inquiries ranging from phone and computer hacking to illegal payments...It is also important our parent company, News Corp, protects its reputation in the United States and the interests of its shareholders. But some of the greatest legends in Fleet Street have been held...for simply doing their jobs as journalists on behalf of the company."
If much of Kavanagh's argument reads as rather obviously self-serving, this passage is a little more brave and considered. With Murdoch flying in to the UK this week, Kavanagh appears to be drawing the battlelines of civil war, challenging Murdoch to show his staff - rather than his shareholders -the same kind of loyalty and fighting spirit that Kavanagh's piece, for all its shortcomings, certainly embodies.
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