The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
The Barnaby Joyce saga has given a great boost to what might be called “shake-the-tree” journalism: you shake the tree by running a sensational story and see what falls out. The Daily Telegraph’s original public-interest case for publishing the first story of Joyce’s relationship with ex-staffer Vikki Campion was weak when weighed against the privacy intrusions on Joyce, his estranged wife, his daughters, and Campion. Continue reading
On 15 February 2018, a letter my lawyers sent three days ago, was the subject of extraordinary and sensational reporting. Most notably, the Daily Mail has given it the full treatment, describing it as a “chilling attack on press freedom” and referring to me not least as a “bitter deviant vengeful bully”. Continue reading
Last week, together with some of the leading U.S internet law lawyers and academics I attended a unique event at Santa Clara University Law School, California, where for the first time in the history of the internet tech companies’ legal leaders and policy experts gathered together for a day of panels on content moderation and removal. Continue reading
Ashley Highfield is CEO of Britain’s third-biggest regional and local newspaper group, Johnston Press, which owns about 200 titles. He has written a pleading letter to readers of those papers that is a monument to corporate distortion. Continue reading
In the case of Arthurs v News Group Newspapers Ltd ([2017] NICA 70) the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal upheld a decision to reject the Plaintiff’s application for interim relief based on claims for misuse of private information and breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998. Continue reading
No-one would deny that both the local and national press are facing problems. In the past decade more than 300 local newspapers have been closed, and two thirds of local authority areas and more than half of parliamentary constituencies no longer have a local daily newspaper covering their affairs. Continue reading
In Haaretz.com et al v Mitchell Goldhar (SCC case no. 37202), the Supreme Court of Canada is asked to decide whether the court in Ontario has jurisdiction to hear a defamation claim arising from an article widely published in Israel, but read online by a number of people in Canada. Continue reading
The Government has recently announced a review into the sustainability of the press. According to its summary of the review’s scope, ‘the UK has always benefited from a strong, well established and diverse press sector’, and the resultant Continue reading
Last week Rocky Horror Show actor Craig McLachlan issued defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media, the ABC and former co-star Christie Whelan Browne, one of the women who has accused McLachlan of sexual harassment. Continue reading
In early January 2018 four Indian Supreme Court Justices held a press conference in New Dehli to complain about the actions Chief Justice Dipak Misra. The public move came following a letter from the Justices presented to the Chief Justice four months earlier. Continue reading
© 2026 Inforrm's Blog
Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑