The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
The Trump offensive – in both senses of the word – against the media continues unabated. The already fraught relationship now appears to have taken a more sinister turn with the news that six journalists who were arrested while covering anti-Trump protests in Washington during the inauguration have been charged with felony rioting and could face lengthy jail terms. Continue reading
Sometimes, even after all these years of press lies and hypocrisy, the shamelessness of the big British newspaper companies can still take the breath away. Last week lawyers for the Murdoch, Mirror and Mail papers complained to the Supreme Court that costs in some media cases amounted to a ‘legal casino’ in which the bills could be so high that there was a ‘chilling effect’ on journalism. As a result, they argued, freedom of expression was endangered. Continue reading
There was a three day media law hearing in the Supreme Court this week, with the Daily Mail, the Times and Mirror Group using the Human Rights Act to challenge conditional fee agreements. These newspapers have refused to join a recognised regulator and are now asking the court to remove the only other “access to justice” route available to ordinary litigants. Continue reading
One of the decisions that Theresa May must make in the next few weeks will define her as a prime minister – and it is not about Brexit. The fateful choice before her is between, on the one hand, standing up to the corporate national newspapers and becoming a political leader in her own right, and on the other, accepting that, for as long as they allow her to remain in Downing Street, she must be their doormat. Continue reading
My new book Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law: Mind the Gap has recently been published by Hart, and will be launched on Tuesday 31 January with Chris Marsden (Sussex) and Orla Lynskey (LSE). More info about the launch and RSVP via this link. Continue reading
The ubiquity of social media platforms and their significance in disseminating information (true or false) to potentially wide groups of people was highly unlikely to have been in the minds of the European legislators when they agreed, in 2000, the e-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC) (ECD). Continue reading
The BBC Trust recently upheld a complaint against the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, ruling that one of her early reports on Jeremy Corbyn breached accuracy and impartiality guidelines. Continue reading
Journalists would have anticipated the first press conference of the Trump presidency with some trepidation. Not only had his briefing at Trump Tower as president-elect been something of a shambles as Trump excoriated some journalists and ignored others, but the whole election campaign had been traumatic for many. Continue reading
The Supreme Court is currently hearing three joined appeals brought by media organisations challenging the Convention compatibility of the recoverability of conditional fee agreement (CFA) success fees/uplift and after the event (ATE) insurance premiums (“additional liabilities”) in libel and privacy claims. Continue reading
The purpose of this update is to correct, clarify and comment on media reports of family court cases, to explain and comment on published Judgments of family cases and to highlight other transparency news. Continue reading
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