It rarely takes long, in arguments about free speech, before someone refers to John Milton or John Stuart Mill. Most of us remember one particularly strong defence of free speech made in both Milton’s Areopagatica and Mill’s On Liberty. Any attempt to censor, suppress or constrain free speech, Milton and Mill argue, denies people access to the truth. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: December 2013 (Page 2 of 5)
Maria Miller, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has attacked Hacked Off in Parliament. She did not mince her words. In her view we are ‘quite a destructive force’, ‘deeply unhelpful’ and we ‘created a great deal of bad will’. Continue reading
Day 31: One of the News of the World’s most senior executives had not even realised phone hacking was possible before the arrest of the paper’s royal editor seven years ago, the hacking trial heard today. Continue reading
In what circumstances is it possible for the EU to introduce a directive which limits the exercise of fundamental rights guaranteed by the EU Charter? This is just one of the many questions of constitutional significance which the Court is asked to address in Joined Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12. Continue reading
In 2012 the Irish Courts found themselves tangled in a jurisdictional web. The case of Coleman v MGN ([2012] IESC 20) started out somewhat like this: Mr Coleman woke up one day in 2003, only to discover that his face was portrayed in the Daily Mirror (UK) next to an article about hooligans and drunkards. Distraught by the implications of the publication, he sought damages inter alia for defamation, negligence and breach of contract. Continue reading
By rejecting the Royal Charter, the majority of the British press has done exactly the opposite of what it claims it wants to achieve: keep politicians out of press regulation… On November 8, 2013, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) announced that it was sending an “unprecedented top-level press-freedom mission to the United Kingdom“. Continue reading
This was Week 7 of the phone hacking trial of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and (now) five others at the Old Bailey. The jury were discharged from entering a verdict against the eighth defendant former NOTW news editor Ian Edmondson after the judge ruled that he was “currently unfit”. Continue reading
In response to my brief on media ownership limits, Rob Kenny helpfully moves the discussion forward by questioning some of the claims and detail in that brief. Before offering my response in kind, it is important to make clear Rob’s interest as a member of the Communications Chambers, which includes News Corporation among their list of clients, particularly as much of his arguments are made with a focus on Rupert Murdoch’s news assets. Continue reading
The Old Bailey “phone hacking” trial is about to begin its eighth week. There are now seven defendants facing a total of seven charges. The trial receives intermittent coverage in most newspapers but continues to receive excellent coverage online. The purpose of this post is to update our earlier post on the available online trial coverage.
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Last week Justin Schlosberg (of Birkbeck, University of London and the Media Reform Coalition) and I debated media plurality issues at an LSE event. We agreed (I think) on the objectives of media plurality, but had very different views on the merits and form of regulatory intervention. Continue reading
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