Tom Shields: "Sadly, many contributions on the message boards are reminiscent of those letters written in capital letters with green and purple ink. In the old days, journalists had the option of consigning these missives to the bin."

Stephen Glover on the Editorial Intelligence survey on columnist influence: "[T]his is a somewhat incestuous exercise, with like-minded people drawn from a narrow circle, patting one another on the back." Amen.

"What can you do if a patient conducts a scurrilous campaign [against a doctor] on the Internet, calling into question your skills as a doctor? Barristers Michael Salter and Chris Bryden advise."

Alex Hawkes of Accountacy Age has been covering the Guardian-Tesco libel case from another perspective…

Maddy libel. A view from Canada: "Grovelling front-page apologies are nothing new to British journalism."

"The editors of the Daily Express and Daily Star should resign. So should the editors of the Sunday Express and Daily Star on Sunday. They won’t, of course."

Express apologises to the parents of Madeleine McCann: "Please note that, for legal reasons, we have disabled reader comments on this article."

"The peculiar case of the Icelandic bank who brought a libel suit against a Danish tabloid in London was finally settled today."

"An underground market for the new unauthorised Tom Cruise biography has sprung up on auction site eBay, with Australian buyers willing to pay a significant premium for the book."

John Naughton recalls a column he wrote (for Press Gazette) about having lunch with Robert Maxwell: "Maxwell was a gifted psychopath who spoke 11 languages." miror

A important case with major implications for US journalists sued under English libel law is working its way through the US courts, but few people are paying any attention to it…

"New York [state]’s highest court decided Thursday a state law can’t help a Manhattan author block a libel verdict brought against her in [the High Court in] London by a Saudi billionaire over her book ‘Funding Evil’"

Morrissey blogs on that interview: "I grew up a chanting believer in the New Musical Express. Last week however, I was the victim of the magazine’s agenda to cook up a sensational story"

"There are 10 cases listed in the legal diary of the High Court involving Associated Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd. — the Irish offshoot of Lord Rothermere’s British media empire."