Last week the New Statesman carried an article entitled ‘The Slapp trap: As media lawyers battle to keep Britain’s libel industry lucrative, hopes for reform are fading.’ It claims that Britain needs tougher anti-SLAPP laws. The article contains numerous errors and omissions, some more serious than others. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Tag: Paul Wragg (Page 1 of 4)
In June this year we posted about an upcoming conference celebrating 20 years of the misuse of private information tort. This conference, generously funded by Matrix Chambers and the Society of Legal Scholars will take place on 19 and 20 September 2024, at Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial St, London, E1 6LS. Continue reading
This post is written to promote an upcoming conference on Campbell v MGN Ltd on 19 and 20 September 2024 in London, funded by the Society of Legal Scholars and Matrix Chambers. Further details about the conference and how to register interest in participating are at the end of the post below. Continue reading
According to Thangam Debbonaire MP, Labour’s current shadow culture secretary, there is nothing more to be done about press regulation. When asked, recently, if a Labour government would revive Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, or do anything else to hold the press to account, she answered: “There is already media regulation, there is already the criminal and civil law. We don’t have plans to do anything, any new legislation in that area, no”. Continue reading
On 22 February 2024, it became law that the press must comply with the Information Commissioner’s Office’s journalism code of practice or else face sanctions for its breach. This event has gone unnoticed, largely, but for those of us interested in securing access for justice against press malpractice it represents a major development. For, in principle at least, victims now have a cost-effective means of securing that justice through independent press regulation, just as Lord Justice Leveson envisaged. Continue reading
One day, IPSO the glove puppet will tell the truth about An Industry Talking B******s about its commitment to high editorial standards. But not today. Today, IPSO will say its decision to hold The Sun accountable for ‘a serious breach of the Editor’s Code of Practice’ (Lord Faulk’s words) demonstrates that it is the tough regulator it has claimed to be since its inception in 2014; that it can force newspaper editors to publish prominent adverse adjudications ‘whether they like it or not.’ Today, IPSO will say, it has shown the Press Recognition Panel was wrong to claim it is nothing more than the trade’s complaints handling service. Continue reading
Back in March, exercising rare concern for those exploited by the super-rich, the government issued an ‘urgent call for evidence’ that promised, based upon ‘third party and anecdotal evidence’ [42], ‘quick and effective’ action against Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (“SLAPPs”). Continue reading
If IPSO is a tough regulator then why is it so soft on intrusions into grief and shock? – Paul Wragg
IPSO should be applauded for its phenomenal success in convincing gullible politicians that the press is ‘properly regulated’. IPSO’s chair, Lord Faulks, speaking in the House of Lords (he is a politician, after all) in December 2021 was happy enough to embellish further to say that not only are the press ‘properly regulated’ but also ‘accountable’. Continue reading
We need to do away with these libel laws, says Meirion Jones in The Guardian, because they only protect evildoers and they stop us, the press, from bringing them to justice. I can reveal, he continued, that The Sun could have brought Jimmy Savile to justice in 2008 but the threat of libel action meant that all the testimony they collected was wasted and so, since the chance of a scoop was gone, they did nothing with it… Continue reading
Freedom of speech is quite the enigma. Just ask Laura Murray. When Rachel Riley retweeted, with embellishments, Owen Jones’s comment that if you don’t want to be pelted with eggs, you shouldn’t be a Nazi, moments after Corbyn had himself been pelted, his stakeholder manager lambasted Riley. Not unreasonably, Murray took Riley to be both condoning violence toward politicians and to be labelling Corbyn a Nazi. Continue reading
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