The move to bring Northern Ireland into line with England and Wales on the controversial issue of defamation has just taken an important step forward at the Assembly.

Mike Nesbitt's private members bill had its second reading this week and has now passed to the committee stage.

But MLAs can't agree on to what extent adopting the 2013 Act here makes sense in a fast-moving digital world.

And opinion is further divided on whether or not the current situation means journalists are put off

investigating the activities of powerful individuals and organisations

in case it results in subsequent defamation action being taken against them.

The libel lawyer Paul Tweed and the journalist Sam McBride take very

different positions on the issue and we'll hear from both of them in just a moment. But first,

let's talk to the man who's made the issue something of a personal crusade, the former journalist

and now Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt. Mike, welcome to Red Lines. Thank you very much, Mark.

This can be a bit technical and a bit dry, so let's make it easy for people. You've got 60

seconds to sell your big idea. Why do we need legislative reform in this area? Well, defamation

is about balancing to qualified rights, the right to freedom of expression and the right to protect

your reputation. And the place where reputations are trashed, not in a daily or even hourly

basis, but kind of second by second somewhere in the world, is on the internet. Our laws of

defamation predate the introduction of the World Wide Web. So there is an open and shut

case for a deep dive review, which we've already had. And the conclusions of the author of that

review, working on behalf of the Northern Ireland Executive, was that we should reform,

where we don't have agreement is how we should reform. And that's part of the debate

that we have had in my second reading, which has put it through to the committee who will

deconstruct my bill, clause by clause. I've likened it to a building made out of Lego.

They'll examine brick by brick as they take it apart and then it will

...