The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
For a media lawyer who has been battling “fake news” for his entire career – as well as robustly defending good investigatory journalism – there is a rich irony that the Culture Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons is belatedly to take an interest in fake news and is engaging in a public consultation. Continue reading
Information which was sent to international news agency Reuters was protected by a requirement of confidentiality because it was almost certainly taken from documents sent to potential professional investors by a major hedge fund management company, a High Court judge has held. Continue reading
In April 2016, we reported that an Ontario court had upheld a police production order requiring Vice Media Canada Inc. (“Vice”) to produce communications between reporter Ben Makuch and Farah Shirdon, a Canadian believed to be fighting for ISIS. Continue reading
In Part 1 of this post I argued that the mandatory conditions for the application of the “journalism exemption” in section 32 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“the DPA”) are strict and required careful case by case consideration. In this post I will consider some practical consequences of this analysis. Continue reading
In recent years there has been a new focus by media lawyers on the operation of the “statutory privacy” provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“the DPA”). The Leveson Report and the resulting ICO publication “Data Protection and Journalism: a guide for the media” (“the ICO Guide”) has reminded us that the media must comply with the provisions of the act. Most importantly, the Court of Appeal’s “deletion” of section 13(2) (see our post here) has meant that general damages for distress are now available in DPA claims without proof of financial loss. Continue reading
With Zelig-like serendipity I was in Stockholm when #lastnightinsweden went viral. While echoing the melancholic majesty of a classic ABBA song title, the hashtag #lastnightinsweden actually referred to yet another Donald Trump dump of alleged “fake news” on an increasingly exhausted world. 
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Storytelling is a key part of human culture. Where politics and power are concerned, stories become something not only to be told, but to be shaped and influenced – so that, in many cases, they are used to mislead or deceive. Continue reading
A study raising concerns about journalists’ ability to protect sources and whistleblowers was launched in the House of Lords last Wednesday. The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), in collaboration with the Guardian, has published the results of a research initiative into protecting journalists’ sources and whistleblowers in the current technological and legal environment. Continue reading
Donald Trump has declared war on anonymous sources and wants to ban their use by journalists. In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 24, he said: “You will see stories dry up like you have never seen before.” 
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One of the questions in the UK Parliament’s inquiry into “fake news” asks: “Have changes in the selling and placing of advertising encouraged the growth of fake news, for example by making it profitable to use fake news to attract more hits to websites, and thus more income from advertisers?” Continue reading
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