Category Archives: libel

Press Gazette: European court rejects time limit for online libel claim

Posted on by
Reply
Bad news for newspaper web archives: "The Times has failed in its bid to challenge an obscure 160-year-old legal precedent that allows people to sue newspapers for online libel without any time limit. ... The court said it had ruled on the facts of this case alone and would not 'consider in detail the broader chilling effect allegedly created by the application of the internet publication rule'."

The New York Review of Books: A Chill on ‘The Guardian’

Posted on by
Reply
Alan Rusbridger: "Tesco may not have set out to chill debate about its affairs through the use of legal actions in Britain and elsewhere, but there is little doubt that the effect of major corporations resorting to highly aggressive and expensive lawsuits will be to discourage investigations of complex financial affairs at the very moment when most readers might expect more and better coverage of them."

Guardian: MPs demand reform of libel laws

Posted on by
Reply
"The justice minister, Bridget Prentice, said she would consider the introduction into statute law of the relatively recent court-made rules on qualified privilege – the so-called Reynolds principles – which give media organisations a public interest defence when they make serious allegations against an individual. She also announced a public consultation would be held in the new year on defamation and the internet""

TheyWorkForYou: Westminster Hall debate 17 December

Posted on by
Reply
Denis MacShane: "The practice of libel tourism as it is known—the willingness of British courts to allow wealthy foreigners who do not live here to attack publications that have no connection with Britain—is now an international scandal. It shames Britain and makes a mockery of the idea that Britain is a protector of core democratic freedoms."

Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog: BNP members list leak gathers pace online – to link or not to link?

Posted on by
Reply
"The UK’s national newspaper websites aren’t linking [to the leaked BNP membership list] either, though Mail Online posts both a screengrab of the list and pictures of alleged members and individual articles are being posted about ‘members’, their identies and any action taken by employers."

Guardian: Editorial: Libel battles can make and break reputations, but only rarely do they bear on questions of life and death

Posted on by
Reply
"Libel battles can make and break reputations, but only rarely do they bear on questions of life and death. The legal case against the Guardian which Matthias Rath abandoned this week is an exception. The vitamin campaigner - who has long proffered his pills as a panacea in defiance of all evidence - objected to remarks our columnist Ben Goldacre made about his South African activities."