McAlpine story: Defamation and the dangers of identification

The Telegraph's Neil Midgeley on defamation and the dangers of identification in the internet age.

An interesting week for libel law

It's a good week for anyone interested in libel law.

The Joint committee on the Draft Libel Reform bill will publish its report at midnight.

We're also expecting the Supreme Court ruling on the use of the Reynolds defence in the Flood v Times Newspapers case.

I'll be interested to see what the Draft Libel Reform Bill committee has to say on how the law should deal with user-generated content on reader forums.

It will also be useful to see whether it has any proposals to offer on whether organisations should have to demonstrate 'substantial' harm in order to be able to bring a libel case.

Well, I'm excited anyway...

Think before you publish: Legal dangers in social media and web publishing

"Think before you publish - especially on social media..." is one of the mantras I repeat in media law sessions I run.

But today I briefly fell in to the trap myself. A couple of journalists Tweeted and and RT'd an apparent libel by juxtaposition ie a headline on a story that could have been thought to refer to an unrelated picture of someone alongside it. If read together it's possible they could have suggested a defamatory meaning about the person in the photo.

I RT'd it too, agreeing in my Tweet that it could indeed be a juxtaposition which might imply that an innocent person was guilty of wrongdoing. Luckily @jonhew immediately reminded me that any RTs could also constitute re-publication of a libel. Blushing, I deleted the RT straight away and checked no-one else had RT'd me.

This was followed by a good Twitter conversation with others about the fact that at least we had put it in context, rather than republishing potentially defamatory material as fact.

But a good reminder anyway. "Think before you publish -  especially on social media..."

Lesson learnt.

I consoled myself with the fact that at least I didn't do as the Mail did and jump the gun on the verdict in the Amanda Knox trial .

And it was a good excuse to revisit this post on basic subbing tips by Peter Sands.

By the way, in a state of paranoia, before publishing this post I also checked that I was okay to use the Twitter symbol.

Media law resources for journalists

I've had a few chats with media law lecturers on journalism degrees and postgraduate qualifications recently. I'm pleased to hear that a number of them recommend the book Law for Journalists by Frances Quinn.

It's a useful and acessible law reference book for new and existing journalists. I use it when I'm running media law sessions for magazine and web publishers - I think it gives good old McNae's a run for its money.

Here are a few of the media law resources I use:
British and Irish Legal Information Institute
Inforrm blog
Jack of Kent
Judiciary of England and Wales
Law Commission
Media Guardian
Meeja Law
Out-law.com
Press Complaints Commission
Press complaints (the unofficial site)
Press Gazette

Any others you'd like to add?