In a post on today’s UK Human Rights Blog Adam Wagner looks at the recent press coverage of Wayne Rooney, William Hague and the News of the World phone hacking saga from the human rights perspective. There are, of course, common themes running through all three stories – in particular those of press responsibility and public interest. We have discussed these issues in previous posts in relation to William Hague and, most recently, Wayne Rooney. The UK Human Rights Blog is right to consider the three stories together and to say that they all involve the question of the “balance” between two “qualified Convention rights” – the right to freedom of expression in Article 10 and the right to respect for private life in Article 8. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: September 2010 (Page 4 of 4)
In this regular feature we draw attention to the last week’s law and media news and next week’s upcoming events. If readers have any news or events which they would like to draw attention to please add them by way of comments on this post.
News
The media story of the week was the revived News of the World phone hacking saga. This was the result of a quality piece of investigative journalism in the New York Times, initially published in the paper and now in the Magazine under the title “Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond“. The original story was reported in the Press Gazette. Continue reading
The News of the World and the Sunday Mirror have today both published what are described as “Exclusives” concerning England footballer Wayne Rooney and Jennifer Thompson, a 21 year old “hooker”. It is said that Mr Rooney had sex with Ms Thompson 7 occasions over 4 months and chased her with sex texts whilst his wife Coleen was pregnant. The News of the World has details about the sexual encounters – Ms Thompson giving an account of what is said to have taken place in their hotel room. These stories give rise to a number of issues of interest to readers of this Blog. Continue reading
On 10 August 2010 President Obama has signed the so-called “SPEECH Act” into law. This prohibits federal courts from recognizing or enforcing foreign libel judgments in the U.S. that are not “First Amendment compliant”. In addition foreign defamation judgments are unenforceable against the providers of interactive computers services, such as the hosts message boards and blogs, if inconsistent with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which protects against liability for content provided by others). 28 USC § 1402(c). The text of the statute appears here. This wholly unnecessary piece of legislation has – predictably – been given a universal and uncritical welcome by the media and by most bloggers (see, for example, the usually excellent Unruly of Law). Continue reading
This is a Media Law Update covering the past month prepared by the Legal Information Team at Matrix Chambers, which they have kindly agreed to make available to readers of Inforrm.
Latest Cases
BBC v HarperCollins, 1 September 2010, Morgan J (ChD). Application for an interim injunction to restrain the publication of a book concerning the “Stig” refused. Judgment to be given at a later date. See the news stories on the BBC in The Guardian. Continue reading
On 1 September 2010 the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, issued a remarkable personal statement “in response to press and internet speculation over the last 10 days“. The purpose of the statement was, in the words of the Guardian’s front page story to “deny Gay affair rumours” involving a 25 year old special adviser, Christopher Myers. The adviser also resigned as a result of the pressure of these “untrue and malicious allegations”. Continue reading
A constant theme of the recent press discussion of “sportsman’s privacy injunctions” has been the suggestion that judges have created a privacy law by stealth and that this raises serious questions about democratic accountability. I have already commented on some of the issues arising from this coverage but it is worth looking at the background to the development of the modern law of privacy in order properly to evaluate the charge of “development by stealth”. This involves considering the development of the law of confidence by the common and the approach of successive Governments towards privacy, including during the passage of the Human Rights Act. Continue reading
Recent Judgments
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