If they were writing well-thought out factual articles then they would have nothing to fear from Carter Ruck and the McCanns, unless of course by "well thought out" you mean articles which imply that the McCanns hid their child's body and started a bogus fund. Newspapers have uncovered many miscarriages of justice and fraudulent behaviours in the last 20 years, one paper managed to bring the whole of the House of Commons into disrepute, so I think you rather underestimate them, or at least tar them all with the same brush.
We are talking different things here.
Serious journalist who have access to the police ( as we have seen from Levison enquiry) to put out stories sometimes to assist the police to draw suspects out- if you will. They may have privy to information which they cannot reveal for whatever reasons Usually to allow a fair trial if one was to take place.
The papers did question the behaviour of the McCanns -they got sued settled out of court and since then started to agree with everything they said... going back to not printing anything in case they jeopardise a court case comes to mind.
Ms Hokins is not, and does not claim to be a serious investigative journalist, she is a populist social commentator she was prevented from 'chatting' about them for some reason. I sure she was well aware of the Carter Ruck thing, the Sun would be also. Kelvin got to say it anyway! As did Ms Osborn. and now people who didn't know any other thesis know it now!
