Journalisted, week ending 28 October 2012, James Bond, GDP and Gary Glitter

Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about. It is run by the Media Standards Trust. It collects information automatically from the websites of British news outlets. Articles are indexed by journalist, based on the byline to the article. Keywords and statistics are automatically generated, and the site searches for any blogs or social bookmarking sites linking to each article.

Why Leveson won’t opt for the Irish model of press regulation – and what the ‘Irish model’ actually means: Martin Moore

Saturday’s Times newspaper claimed it knew the answer to the million dollar question – what is Lord Justice Leveson going to recommend? The judge, the paper said, would reject pure self-regulation and go instead for a ‘system similar to the model operating in the Irish Republic’. Rather than clarifying exactly what this meant, the article then concentrated on why Lord Black and other members of the press might object to such a system.

Samsung v Apple: Publication orders – Dan Tench and Jack Gilbert

An interesting and potentially important corollary to the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case between  Samsung and Apple ([2012] EWCA Civ 1339) was the development of a new form of order requiring the publication by the losing party (in this case Apple) of a summary of the judgment.   Such publication orders, if developed, could have obvious and significant application in defamation and other actions to assist in the vindication of a party.

Law and Media Round Up – 29 October 2012

Frankie Boyle was successful in his libel claim against Mirror Group Newspapers, as Inforrm reported here. The jury found in Boyle’s favour on liability: they found that he had been libelled by an article which described him as a “racist comedian” and by a claim that he had been “forced to quit” the BBC show Mock the Week. On the first allegations, he was awarded damages of £50,400 and, on the second, damages of £4,250. He is to donate the award in damages to the charity Reprieve, the BBC reports.

Hacked Off: The question that stumps the Free Speech Network

Here’s a key excerpt from last Thursday’s debate at the launch of the so-called “Free Speech Network”, a new mouthpiece for newspaper proprietors and editors trying to avoid any meaningful outcome from the Leveson Inquiry. What they fear the most, the creation of a new independent regulator underpinned by statute, is now demanded by victims of press harassment and phone hacking, journalists, academic s and 77% of the general public.

Case Law, Strasbourg: Alkaya v. Turkey and Szima v. Hungary – Gabrielle Guillemin

Earlier this month, the Strasbourg Court handed down two interesting decisions involving freedom of expression. In Alkaya v Turkey (no. 42811/06, 9 October 2012)(in French only), the Court held that the disclosure of the home address of a Turkish actress (pictured) in a newspaper article was a violation of her right to private life under Article 8 ECHR.

Hacked Off: A Winning Cause

Beneath the pious headline, “OUR PRESS MUST REMAIN FREE”, Tim Luckhurst receives a generous puff for his new Leveson pamphlet in the Daily Telegraph’s Comment pages. Citing Winston Churchill and the US Constitution and illustrated by a spooky silhouette of a journalist being spied on by CCTV, Luckhurst starts promisingly enough, describing Hacked Off as having “the attributes of a winning cause”, a piece of flattery which is tempting to take out of context, though he swiftly moves on to damn us as “offensive to the principle of free speech”.

Case Law, Scotland: RAH v MH, an anonymous defamation judgment – Kerry Trewern

The recent decision of the Court of Session in Scotland in RAH v MH ([2012] CSOH 126) is unusual for two reasons.  First, it follows a proof (trial) in a defamation action; a rare beast in the Scottish courts.  Second, parties’ names in the judgment are anonymised.

State of Media Freedom in South Africa, Part 3, Threats to Media Freedom – Dario Milo

This is the third part  of a speech delivered on Press Freedom day, 19 October 2012 at Wits University.  The first part was posted on Wednesday 24 October 2012 and the second part on Thursday 25 October 2012.

The first threat I want to talk about is the use of apartheid era security legislation by members of the executive to stifle transparency and accountability. 

Hacked Off: 77% of the public can’t be wrong twice, can they?

There’s new evidence of a widening gulf between what the public wants to see following Leveson – and the preferred outcome of the newspapers themselves. A poll commissioned by the Carnegie Trust and the thinktank, Demos, has found that 77 per cent of the public want the PCC scrapped in favour of a new independent press regulator.