The Supreme Court gave several judgments on First Amendment matters last term, and these are helpfully rounded up by the ABA Journal here. While no significant decisions in this area have been handed down since our last round up, the Court is, as the ABA article suggests, showing a clear interest in cases with First Amendment implications. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Year: 2011 (Page 6 of 54)
Monday marked “a minor landmark for open justice,” claimed blogging barrister Adam Wagner, on the UK Human Rights blog. “For the first time, a public inquiry is being shown live over the internet”. As Wagner pointed out, the Chilcott Inquiry was also broadcast live (and tweeted about) but unlike Leveson it was not a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005. Continue reading
The Leveson Inquiry proper began yesterday, 14 November 2011 with an opening statement from Lord Justice Leveson and from Counsel to the Inquiry, Robert Jay QC. The hearing can be watched online. Lord Justice Leveson repeated that he considered “freedom of expression and freedom of the press to be fundamental to our democracy“. But he went on to say that this freedom “must be exercised with the rights of others in mind.” He said that the press provided Continue reading
On Tuesday 8 November 2011 a French criminal court fined News Group Newspapers €10,000 for infringing the “intimacy of the private life” of Max Mosley. In its judgment 17th Chamber of the Tribunal Correctionnel de Paris acquitted News Group of defamation. In addition to the fine, News Group was ordered to pay €7,000 damages and €15,000 costs to Mr Mosley. The claim arose out of the “News of the World’s” notorious March 2008 front page article entitled “F1 Boss has sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers”. Continue reading
Formal hearings in the Leveson Inquiry will begin today, Monday 14 November 2011, in the Royal Courts of Justice. The first session will hear opening submissions by Robert Jay QC, on behalf of the Inquiry, and Core Participant representatives. Proceedings will be recorded for broadcast and a live stream is also expected to be made available via the Leveson Inquiry website. The Inquiry relaunched its website this week. An FAQ about proceedings can be found at this link. Continue reading
The disclosure that “News of the World” private investigator Derek Webb followed 153 individuals on behalf of the newspaper has added another dimension to the “phone hacking saga”. In a post yesterday, we discussed the potential legal wrongs committed by Mr Webb in gathering information by “secret surveillance”. A number of other aspects of the story are worthy of comment. Continue reading
In his 1989 MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh, just a few months after launching his four Sky channels, Rupert Murdoch launched an astonishingly ignorant attack on British television journalism. Having warned about the evils of “less than independent, neutered journalism” from broadcasters which are subject to regulatory scrutiny, he then turned the real-life evidence of British broadcasting upside down: “I cannot imagine a British Watergate, or a British Irangate, being pursued by the BBC or ITV with the vigour that the US networks did.” Continue reading
The BBC revealed last week that the News of the World had engaged ex-policeman Derek Webb engage in covert surveillance of more than 100 individuals. From 2003 through to 2011 Mr Webb worked for the newspaper following celebrities, royals, politicians and others, sometimes for days, or weeks at a time. Continue reading
James Murdoch has claimed that former News of the World editor Colin Myler and News International’s former Legal Affairs Manager Tom Crone gave “misleading” and “inconsistent” evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on the phone hacking scandal. The comments were made yesterday as he gave evidence to the Committee for the second time. Continue reading
Tonight, Alan Rusbridger gives the annual Orwell Lecture, entitled “Hacking away at the truth”. In the lecture, he reflects on the broad lessons for British society arising from the phone hacking scandal as well as expressing several reasons to be optimistic about the Leveson Inquiry. He also sets out five proposals for press regulation, including for the first time proposing a “one-stop-shop” mediation service for libel and privacy cases as an alternative to the courts. Continue reading
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