Alan Rusbridger - Reflections on Press Freedom, British Library

It sounded like something out of a (slightly unimaginative) Hollywood thriller, but the GCHQ spooks in the Guardian's basement in July 2013 supervising the paper's staff destroying laptop hard drives were all too real.

Just 18 months prior to that Spooks-like episode, Robert Jay QC had been grilling Fleet Street's finest about their involvement in, amongst other things, phone hacking, an issue which would lead to the conviction of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (though not Rebekah Brooks). 

Simultaneously, these two huge stories have made press freedom one of the issues of the decade: whether it be newspapers snooping into private lives or governments snooping into newspapers. 

Who better, then, to speak on the subject but that bespectacled, tousle-haired defender of freedoms (or attacker, depending on who you read) Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger? 

Expect wit and insight from a man with unmatchable firsthand experience. The  editor, and his paper, won praise from many, including large swathes of the public and the Pulitzer Prize committee for their work on the Snowden hacking revelations that have exposed the extent of government snooping. 

On Fleet Street his name is not quite as revered thanks to the paper's role in the phone hacking enquiry that has threatened (as they see it) national newspapers' freedom to investigate and pursue stories without undue fear of prosecution. 

At the British Library Rusbridger will be giving his own take on press freedom: not one to miss.