The Inforrm blog is taking a summer break for a few weeks. We thank all our readers and contributors who have supported us over the past year. The blog has now had nearly 2.5 million page views since February 2010. We now have 1,270 followers for the blog and 2,470 followers of our twitter feed (@inforrm).
We have had 2,622 posts from dozens of contributors. Over the past four years we have sought to cover the full range of media and law issues – from the “libel reform” debate, through “super injunction spring” and phone hacking firestorm” into issue of media regulation and the impact of the Defamation Act 2013.
In our Summer Break 2011 post we suggested that privacy was the topic of the first few months of 2011 – ending with the report of Lord Neuberger’s Committee on Super-Injunctions – “Super-Injunctions, Anonymised Injunctions and Open Justice” (discussed in a post at the time) and then the extraordinary period of “May Madness“. We went on to deal with the extraordinary speed with which phone hacking broke out of its broadsheet ghetto and came to dominate the news agenda and the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry.
In our Summer Break 2012 post we reported that the Leveson Inquiry had dominated the agenda for the previous 12 months, noting that after “super-injunction spring” there was a dramatic decline in privacy injunctions.
The August 2013 we noted that the previous 12 months had been dominated by the “”War of Leveson’s Report” – with 135 posts in the “Leveson Inquiry” category over this period – and the passing into law of the Defamation Act 2013.
The past twelve months, the dominant story on Inforrm was the Phone Hacking Trial – with over 170 posts being tagged “Old Bailey Trial“. The trial lasted more than 120 days and resulted in the conviction of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, former News Editors Neville Thurlbeck, Greg Miskiw and James Weatherup and private detective Glenn Mulcaire. Rebekah Brooks and Stuart Kuttner (along with Charlie Brooks, Mark Hanna and Cheryl Carter) were acquitted. The jury could not agree on charges against Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman. In addition, there have been stories about the formation of the Leveson defying regulator, IPSO and its Leveson compliant rival IMPRESS. There also been a number of posts about the remarkable decision of the European Court of Justice in the Google Spain case and the fall out from it.
All these and many other media and law stories have been extensively covered on Inforrm over the past year.
The top ten posts of the past 12 months were from a wide range of different authors with a focus on social media and Strasbourg case law. They were as follows:
- Social Media: How many people use Twitter and what do we think about it?
- Case Law, Strasbourg: Delfi AS v Estonia: Court Strikes Serious Blow to Free Speech Online – Gabrielle Guillemin
- Think before you tweet. Will Old Holborn ever learn? – Rhory Robertson and Tom Double
- Case Law, Strasbourg: Von Hannover v Germany (No.3), Glossing over Privacy – Alexia Bedat
- Case Law, Strasboug: Von Hannover v Germany (No.2) – Unclear clarification and unappreciated margins – Kirsten Sjøvoll
- Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks agreed £200,000 deal with Max Clifford to settle hacking lawsuit – Martin Hickman
- Privacy and Defamation, Strasbourg blurs the boundaries – Hugh Tomlinson QC
- Phone Hacking, So they think it’s all over – Julian Petley
- It’s grim down under: Australia, Murdoch and political control – Granville Williams
- The Perils of “Revenge Porn” – Alex Cochrane
Finally, we remind readers that we welcome posts on media and legal issues from outside contributors. The purpose of the blog is provide a forum for discussion of the issues and we welcome all points of view and from all countries. If you are interested in contributing please contact Inforrm at our email address:inforrmeditorial@googlemail.com.
We will be returning to regular posting in the second half of September. In the meantime, we wish everyone a relaxing summer break.
have a cool break.