This week a teenager from Lancashire was sent to prison for making sick and incredibly distasteful jokes on his facebook page concerning missing 5 year old April Jones and Madeline Macann. Matthew Woods, who is 19 years old, is said to have adapted the jokes from Sickapedia, a website which publishes sick jokes, and posted them ‘in a moment of drunken stupidity’. Woods pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: October 2012 (Page 4 of 5)
In an age of modern technology, a world of globalisation and with the spotlight firmly fixed on the Leveson Inquiry it is a simple mistake to forget the value of something written in 1890. I said simple, not forgivable. The current situation media law finds itself is similar to the position of financial regulation. Both are highly complex and rest upon a careful balancing act, making reform difficult in both areas. Continue reading
The Sun is far from alone in attacking other media organisations, but newspapers routinely calling for the censorship of other media is a paradoxical and extremely distasteful sight. It is one which casts a good deal of doubt on the sincerity of their demands before the Leveson Inquiry that press freedom must be protected above all else. Press freedom is but one aspect of media freedom in general, and if newspapers cannot see that there is the starkest of contradictions in calling for their own freedom (self-circumscribed though it is) to be defended whilst bawling for the censorship of other media, then the clock really has struck thirteen. Continue reading
Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust. It collects information automatically from the websites of British news outlets. Articles are indexed by journalist, based on the byline to the article. Keywords and statistics are automatically generated, and the site searches for any blogs or social bookmarking sites linking to each article. Continue reading
In the case of C v Holland ([2012] NZHC 2155), the New Zealand High Court has recognised, for the first time, the existence of a “privacy intrusion” tort – in a claim arising out the surreptitious filming of the plaintiff in the shower. The law of New Zealand had previously only recognised a privacy tort arising out of the publication of private information. Continue reading
Say you are a 15-year old girl. What would you do if you find a fake Facebook profile which contains a photograph of you, a slightly modified version of your name and other particulars which identified you, which discusses your physical appearance and weight in derogatory terms, and which includes scandalous sexual commentary about you? First, you’d contact Facebook, to have the fake profile taken down and to identify the IP address associated with it. Continue reading
In the Sun, 13 February 2012, the paper’s former political editor Trevor Kavanagh was given the best part of a page to protest that ‘this witch-hunt has put us behind ex-Soviet states on Press freedom’. The ‘witch-hunt’ in question was the arrest of five Sun journalists accused, as part of the seemingly endless fall-out from the phone hacking scandal, of bribing public officials, and the former eastern bloc countries were Poland, Estonia and Slovakia which, according to the World Press Freedom Index 2011-2012, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), all had better records on press freedom than the UK, which had dropped nine places to number 28 since the last such survey. Continue reading
We are now a week into the new legal term, and while it’s still party conference season for MPs, the Defamation Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Lords on Monday 9 October. A House of Lords Library Note has been published in advance of the second reading. A number of media law cases have already come before the courts this term. Continue reading
Last week, the South African Constitutional Court handed down a momentous ruling on freedom of speech. The case of Print Media South Africa v Minister of Home Affairs ([2012] ZACC 22) concerned the constitutionality of aspects of the Films and Publications Act, 1996 (the Act) following its amendment in 2009. Continue reading
At the time of their wedding over 12 months ago, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge requested that their privacy be respected, while they settled into marriage. Some sections of the media have now decided that the settling in period has ended with the publication of photographs of a topless Duchess published in magazines and newspapers across France, Italy, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark. Continue reading
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