More than a week after the police arrived at the front door of the Telegraph Columnist Allison Pearson about a tweet she wrote in 2023, the debate rages. Was this a threat to free speech and an example of police overreach? Or was it a legitimate investigation into the publication of content likely to have concrete consequences?

In November 2023, Pearson posted a photo of police officers posing next to two men of color holding the flag of a Pakistani political party. This photo has no connection with the protests that followed the October 7 attacks and with Israel’s response. In one caption, she called the men “Jew haters.” The tweet was later deleted.

On November 10 this year, officers from Essex Police arrived at Pearson’s home to ask if she would voluntarily attend an interview. Pearson, outraged, wrote that she was being investigated for a “non-criminal hate incident.” Essex Police said there was body camera footage which showed officers described it not as a “non-criminal” issue but as a potential offense of inciting racial hatred online . Essex Police complained to the Independent Press Standards Organization about Pearson’s allegations.

Boris Johnson called the police visit “appalling”, Elon Musk called it “deeply sinister”, the Spectator “dystopian”. They are right: we must not let the police knock on journalists’ doors to question what they have written. To overcome the widespread distrust of politics, media, police and other institutions that provide such fertile ground for populism, we need journalism to be able to fly free.

But was Allison Pearson’s “Jew-hating” tweet really journalism? Objectivity may not be expected from a commentator, but truth and accuracy remain paramount. Pearson’s tweet contained neither. At Telegraph his opinion would have been read by an editor, sub-editors, and lawyers, who would hopefully have spotted the inaccuracy. If published, a correction could have been printed later, or the article could have been referred to the regulator.

Spitting ill-informed words on social media is a very different hobby. The complainant (who was not in the photo) told the Tutor: “Every time an influential person makes negative comments about people of color, as a person of color I see an increase in racist abuse towards me and the days following this tweet are no different.”

Keir Starmer walked a tightrope, saying police should “focus on what matters most to their communities”. In many areas, the investigation of a burglary or car theft may be “the big one.” Yet if your child is the victim of Islamophobic or anti-Semitic abuse on the way to school, I’m pretty sure that’s what matters most.