With the BBC’s Charter due to expire at the end of next year, and the coalition reluctant to start the consultation ball rolling so close to May’s general election, it was entirely appropriate that the Culture, Media and Sport select committee should produce its own report to influence the process. Read the rest of this entry »
Case Law, Strasbourg: Guseva v Bulgaria, More freedom of information under Article 10 (with dissents) – Hugh Tomlinson QC
28 02 2015
In the case of Guseva v Bulgaria (Judgment of 17 February 2015) a Chamber of the Court of Human Rights has again recognised an Article 10 right to access to information and found a violation where a public authority had failed to provide public interest information despite court orders. There were, however, two dissenting judgments on this issue, including one from the UK judge. Read the rest of this entry »
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Categories : Freedom of Information, Human Rights
Case Law: Traveller Movement v Ofcom, The Big Fat Gypsy Judicial Review – Jim Duffy
27 02 2015
In the case of Traveller Movement v Ofcom ([2015] EWHC 406 (Admin)) one of the nation’s great televisual fascinations became the unlikely subject of an Administrative Court judgment that demonstrates the limits of common law standards of fairness, as well as the lightness of touch applied by the courts when reviewing the decision-making of the media regulator. Read the rest of this entry »
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Categories : Legal
Sun Four Trial: Soldier’s wife tells court she didn’t realise £4,000 cash payment was from the Sun
27 02 2015
A woman accused of conspiring in the provision of unauthorised information to The Sun by a serving soldier for payment has told a court she never read the paper because “sport and lady parts is not my thing”. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Claire Hardy, Operation Elveden, Sun Four Trial
Categories : Journalism, Legal
Case Law, Australia: Moran v Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd, CSI Lismore: German backpacker’s efforts to prevent publication of book all in vain – Justin Castelan
27 02 2015
In early 2005, the plaintiff, a German National with a working visa in Australia, was travelling along the east coast of Australia in a campervan with his German girlfriend of 6 and a half years, Simone Strobel. By the time they got to Lismore, they had been joined by the plaintiff’s sister, Katrin and another friend from their village in Germany called Jens. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Defamation Watch, Justin Castelan
Categories : Australia, Libel
Sun Four Trial: Former Sandhurst Instructor blames News International for “sellling out” sources and “lower people”
26 02 2015
A former soldier, on trial on allegations of misconduct, called the actions of News International management “criminal” and claimed they had “sold out the lower people”. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: News International, Operation Elveden, Sun Four Trial
Categories : Journalism, Legal
Lessons from Oborne: clickbait, commerce and newsroom culture – Angela Phillips
26 02 2015
When Peter Oborne resigned from the Telegraph last week, his parting outpouring of rage at the paper’s ‘fraud upon its readers’ for failing to properly report the HSBC scandal was wrong in only one discernable respect: the rot had set in before 2010 when he arrived as chief political commentator and long before the advent of Jason Seiken as editor-in-chief in 2013. Indeed it set in shortly after the newspaper was taken over by the Barclay brothers in 2004. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Angela Phillips, Daily Telegraph, Media Reform Coalition, Peter Oborne
Categories : Journalism, Media
The Prince, his mistress and his lovechild: a feminist perspective on Couderc and Hachette Filipacchi Associés v. France – Nani Jansen
25 02 2015
Male celebrity has affair with woman. Woman shares story with public. Woman’s version of events gets shut down by the courts. The end. It is an all too familiar story that seems to repeat itself over and over again. When it comes to information disclosing the infidelity of powerful men, national courts have often been more than helpful in expeditiously securing the silence of the women involved in such affairs, accrediting more weight to the man’s claims of privacy, than the woman’s right to tell the tale of what was ultimately her affair as well. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, Prince Albert of Monaco
Categories : Freedom of expression, Human Rights, Privacy
Sun Four Trial: Soldier tells court he could not believe the Sun “would be encouraging people to commit a crime”
25 02 2015
A debt ridden army officer was encouraged by an advert to sell information to The Sun a court was told yesterday. John Hardy, who is on trial for committing misconduct in a public office, admitted selling the newspaper information on Princes Harry and William while he was an instructor at Sandhurst. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Misconduct in Public Office, Operation Elveden, Sun Four Trial
Categories : Journalism, Legal
Case Law, Canada: Weaver v Corcoran, Reader postings are not defamatory but newspapers must remove and retract defamatory articles – Ryder Gilliland
24 02 2015
The recent decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Weaver v. Corcoran, 2015 BCSC 165 makes noteworthy and novel findings as pertains to online defamation and remedies for defamation. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Online Posting, Ryder Gilliland
Categories : Canada, Libel
