What was the point of Levison?

The recent distortion of the truth by some elements of the British printed press leaves us wondering whether there are actually any curbs in place.
When a child fostering story becomes headline news based upon fake news, there is clearly still something fundamentally wrong with the law regarding press freedoms and responsibilities. That some papers should have actually photoshopped a picture to suggest that the foster person was a muslim wearing a hijab was a disgraceful distortion of the truth.
It remains to be seen what sanctions if any are brought against the offending newspapers but, the fact that they felt able to to do this in the first place speaks volumes about the perceived threat to their freedom to distort the news.