Gagging media and democracy

This refers to the article, “Not to gag the media” (Oct. 28). Governments do try to gag the media on one pretext or the other. In the UK, also such efforts were made after the hacking scandal. But fortunately, better sense prevailed and the media escaped gag.   Not only print media, but the internet is also facing curbs in the forms of law, especially the social networking sites.
Free media is vital for democracy and the growth of a nation. Can we forget how the UK government destroyed servers of a prominent newspaper when it was publishing reports on surveillance of the US's National Security Agency (NSA)? Even in the USA, the media has faced visits from the security agencies. The print media is already regulated in the form of a plethora of laws, then why should the government make further efforts to strangle it?