Today is the fourth 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 page views that month. That was the only post for January. The posting rate and visitor numbers have increased dramatically since then. In the last four years we have had a total of nearly 2,200 posts and 2 million page views.
We have an established readership all round the world with, according to the WordPress “Views by Country” list over the past two years, readers in no less than 208 countries. From nearly a million page views in the United Kingdom to 1 in each of Eritrea, Niger, Vatican City, the Cook Islands, Tonga and Palau.
The media law issues in January 2014 are not the all same as those we were thinking about at the date of our launch. At the start of 2010 the burning issue was libel reform – which continued to dominate for the rest of the year. In the first half of 2011 there was the “Super-Injunction spring”. In 2011 to 2012 there was phone hacking followed by the Leveson Inquiry – which reported in November 2012. The past year has been dominated by the Leveson Report and the debate about its implementation. And, in January 2014, we have seen the coming into force of the Defamation Act 2013 – which is the result of the campaigning we originally covered four years ago.
We have also sought to continue our coverage of general legal issues – case law from Britain, Europe and around the world and other issues such as social media and cyberbullying.
We would like to thank all our readers and contributors over the past 4 years. The top posts over this period have been from a number of outside authors – taking a range of different views on the issues. 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
In addition to our Home page, Table of Media Law Cases, and “About Inforrm“, the top twenty posts of the past four years have been as follows:
- Harassment and injunctions: Cheryl Cole – Natalie Peck
- “The cases of Vanessa Perroncel and John Terry – a curious legal affair” – Dominic Crossley
- Case Law: Von Hannover v Germany (No.2) – Unclear clarification and unappreciated margins – Kirsten Sjøvoll
- Case Law: ETK v News Group Newspapers “Privacy Injunctions and Children” – Edward Craven
- News: Tulisa “Sex Tape”, false privacy turns into true privacy
- Social Media: How many people use Twitter and what do we think about it?
- La Regina Nuda and Italian Privacy Law – Athalie Matthews and Giacomo Parmigiani
- Case Law: Růžový Panter, OS v Czech Republic: Anti-Corruption NGO defamation case, no violation of Article 10
- The MP and the “Super-Injunction” – rumour, myth and distortion (again)
- News: Hemming MP’s “super injunction victim” named as sex abuse fabricator
- The BBC, Lord McAlpine and Libel Law
- Anonymity, “Take That” and Reporting Privacy Injunctions
- Case Law: DFT v TFD – super injunctions, again – Mark Thomson
- Wayne Rooney’s Private Life and the Public Interest [Updated]
- Case Law: “Spiller v Joseph – the New Defence of Honest Comment” – Catherine Rhind
- Case Law: Iqbal v Dean Manson, harassment by letter – Edward Craven
- Defamation in Scotland – mostly quiet on the northern front?
- Strasbourg on Privacy and Reputation Part 3: “A balance between reputation and expression?”
- Case Law: Thornton v Telegraph Media Group, an offer of amends defence fails – Hugh Tomlinson QC [Updated]
- Opinion: “Supreme Court of Canada Recognizes Limited Right to Access Government Documents” Paul Schabas and Ryder Gilliland
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