Today is the second birthday of the Inforrm blog – which began operation on 22 January 2010. Our first post “Welcome to Inforrm” attracted 2 visitors in January 2010 and the site had a total of 7 pages views that month. That was the only post for the month. The posting rate and visitor numbers have increased dramatically since the early days. In our first two years we have had a total of 980 posts and 800,000 page views. We have an established readership all round the world.
The media law landscape in 2012 is completely different from that which we contemplated at the date of our launch. At the start of 2010 the issues were all about libel reform and the issue continued to dominate debates for the rest of the year. In the first half of 2011 we had “Super-Injunction spring”. Then there was phone hacking.
We had consistently reported phone hacking developments since January 2010. This was covered in our weekly round ups and some specific posts (see for example, Henry Fox’s February 2010 post “Case Law: Gray and Coogan v News Group and Mulcaire, phone hacking disclosure order“). The situation changed dramatically after the Milly Dowler phone hacking revelations – on 5 July 2011 (the subsequent debate about “deletions” has sometimes obscured the admitted fact of hacking of the missing schoolgirl’s voicemails).
The Hacked Off campaign was launched on 8 July 2011 – and demonstrated itself the most successful campaign in political history as the inquiry was announced by the Prime Minister the same day. The “News of the World” had its last issue the next Sunday. The following week the appointment of Lord Justice Leveson was announced. This story – and in particular the evidence to the Inquiry – has dominated the media and law news (and the blog) ever since. We have rounded up the evidence given to the Inquiry in Weeks 1 and 2, Weeks 3 and 4, Week 5, Week 6 and Week 7.
The number of libel cases continues to decline (see our post on defamation trials in 2011) and there have been no media privacy injunctions since the Leveson Inquiry began its work. The hottest topic for 2012 seems likely to be “media regulation”. We had a series of posts by Hugh Tomlinson QC dealing with the various options “Media Regulation: A Radical New Proposal, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3” – along with contributions from, among others, “adjudication advocate” Alastair Brett (see “A sabre-toothed PCC for complaints and libel actions” and “No presents this Christmas for the Press!”).
We would like to thank all our readers and contributors over the past 2 years. Our intention continues to be to serve as a “forum” for debating issues and we would encourage readers to offer contributions on any issue concerning media responsibility, media law and the other topics which we have been writing about. Contact us at inforrmeditorial@gmail.com
Our top ten posts of the past two years were as follows:
Harassment and injunctions: Cheryl Cole – Natalie Peck
Case Law: ETK v News Group Newspapers “Privacy Injunctions and Children” – Edward Craven
“The cases of Vanessa Perroncel and John Terry – a curious legal affair” – Dominic Crossley
The MP and the “Super-Injunction” – rumour, myth and distortion (again)
News: Hemming MP’s “super injunction victim” named as sex abuse fabricator
Wayne Rooney’s Private Life and the Public Interest [Updated]
Anonymity, “Take That” and Reporting Privacy Injunctions
Keep up the good work. No doubt INFORRM is the best of its kind. Not surprisingly, I use it for my teaching and research regularly. Many thanks.
Many thanks for your kind words
Congratulations. It’s invaluable.