The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
So there you have it. We spend a whole year discussing press ethics and then, for the sake of a peek at Prince Harry’s bum, half the world seems ready to say that the editor of the Sun can make up his own ethics.
No, this is not about the freedom of the press. Nor is it about print versus internet. And it is not about the public’s ‘right’ to see pictures of Harry’s bum either. It is about mob rule and the right of large newspaper corporations to do whatever they like. Continue reading
Some commentators have recently brought up the perennial question of when speech becomes constitutionally unprotected blackmail. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the thorniest conceptual questions in all of jurisprudence. (Our own Jim Lindgren has written oft-cited articles on it, and blogged on it as well.) It’s sometimes called the Blackmail Paradox, and here’s how it goes: Continue reading
More than anyone else, it seems, the Daily Mail is furious about Harry. The Express, in an editorial on the prince’s adventures in Las Vegas, concludes: ‘Good luck to him.’ A Mirror writer observes: ‘. . . these pictures have just made me like him even more.’ The Sun’s leader carried a headline making a joke out of the prince’s game of strip billiards: ‘Cue laughter.’ But the Mail is at Defcon 1 on the indignation scale, devoting its first five pages to the story and leading with the headline ‘Palace fury at Harry naked Photos’. Continue reading
In May 2012, in response to rising concerns about the impact of cyber-bullying on young people, the responsible Minister asked the New Zealand Law Commission to fast-track the part of the project dealing with the adequacy of the sanctions and remedies for dealing with harmful digital communications. On 15 August 2012 the Law Commission set out its final recommendations a Ministerial Briefing Paper, Harmful Digital Communications: The adequacy of the current sanctions and remedies [pdf]. This was accompanied by a draft bill [pdf]. Continue reading
The internet has, today, been buzzing with stories about Prince Harry “cavorting naked” in his hotel suite in Las Vegas. It is said that the photographs are available on US celebrity websites – but the British press have rightly held back from publishing even “edited highlights”. Continue reading
One of the possibilities being considered by Lord Justice Leveson as he writes the Report for Part 1 of his Inquiry is whether there should be compulsory regulation of the print media. One widely discussed possibility is a statutory framework which would require any publisher with turnover or readership above a set threshold to join a “regulatory body”: compulsory regulation for large publishers. Continue reading
The Hacked Off campaign, now entering its third phase, is recruiting for four positions, each to work with its new Director from its Westminster offices. The Director will be Brian Cathcart, one of Hacked Off’s founders, a former Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday and Professor of Journalism at Kingston University. The next phase of the campaign is due to begin in September and there is a tight deadline for applications – 5pm on Monday, August 27. Continue reading
As Adam Wagner’s post on Inforrm reported, the Senior Presiding Judge and the Senior President of Tribunals has issued new guidance [PDF] to all courts and tribunal judicial office holders in England and Wales (copied at the end of this post). Continue reading
The legal blogosphere has recently been aflame with the news, first published on a magistrate’s blog, that the Senior Presiding Judge has sent new guidance [pdf] to judges banning them from blogging in their judicial capacity. The Senior President Judge has also threatened disciplinary action unless they remove existing content which breaches the new rules. Continue reading
On Friday 17 August 2012 the High Court in Belfast ordered Facebook to identify anonymous account holders anonymous posters responsible for abusive messages about a Belfast company and three of its employees. Mr Justice Weatherup also made an order anonymising the claimants on the basis that identification would only draw more public attention to them.
The Judge was told that the series of abusive messages attacking the Northern Ireland company had been posted on Facebook over several months, by people using pseudonyms. The claimants had been unable to find out who was sending the messages. Continue reading
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