We will have a weekly round up later in the week covering some of the stories of the last two months and we will have a separate round up of research articles published over the summer.
The judgments handed down in courts England and abroad over the summer included:
- O’Brien v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2016] NSWSC 1289, McCallum J dismissed a libel action against “Media Watch” programme, defences of fair comment and contextual truth made out.
- Zall v Zall 2016 BCSC 1730, Duncan J awarded damages of Can$125,000 to a father whose daughter had falsely accused him of being a paedophile in an internet post
- Fleming v Advertisers News [2016] SASCFC 109, the Full Court of South Australia dismissed the appeal of a Anglican priest against the dismissal of his libel claim.
- Middleton v Persons Unknown [2016] EWHC 2354 (QB), Whipple J continued an injunction to restrain the publication of stolen photographs. There were comments on the 5RB site and on RightsInfo.
Other media and law developments included
- On 1 September 2016, Melania Trump issued libel proceedings in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County Maryland, against the New York based US publisher of MailOnline, Mail Media Inc, and a US blogger named Webster Griffin Tarpley. We had a post about this.
- On 4 September 2016 the Sunday Mirror ran an exclusive concerning Labour MP Keith Vaz. The headline “Labour MP Keith Vaz and the Prostitutes at His Flat”. He subsequently resigned as Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. We had a post about the “public interest” issues raised by this story.
- On 27 September 2016, the Daily Telegraph published a “sting” on the England football manager, Sam Allardyce, who subsequently resigned. We had posts about this by John Jewell and Brian Cathcart.
The most popular Inforrm posts of the summer covered a variety of themes:
- Brexit and the Tragic Downfall of British Media – Steven Barnett
- Case Law: Simpson v MGN, Court of Appeal creates a new distinction between “defamatory meaning” and “sting” – Jonathan Coad
- Case Law, Belgium: Olivier G v Le Soir. “Right to be forgotten” requires anonymisation of online newspaper archive – Hugh Tomlinson QC
- Daily Mail: “Child killer’s £2m legal aid” Two million things wrong with this headline – Lucy Reed
- Keith Vaz, an outbreak of morality? Pull the other one – Brian Cathcart
- 10 ways in which the Telegraph’s Fraser Nelson gets it wrong about Allardyce, Leveson and the Press – Brian Cathcart
- Keith Vaz, the Sunday Mirror and the Public Interest: must politicians live by different standards?
- Decline of the English Sex Scandal: why you can never get a good sex scandal these days (with apologies to George Orwell) – Charlotte Harris
- News: Melania Trump’s US Libel Action against MailOnline, what are its prospects of success?
- Book Review: “Online Law for Journalists” by Cleland Thom – Kirsten Sjøvoll
- The Daily Mirror Sues a Source From Whom It Stole a Story – Jonathan Coad
So, welcome back to our readers. As usual, we would like to encourage contributions to debates in all areas of media related law. Please contact us at inforrmeditorial@gmail.comif you are interested in contributing.