Media Law lecture notes - 19/10/10

In the lecture today we briefly recapped on what the three defences against libel are:

1. Justification - is it true and more importantly can you prove it?
2. Fair Comment - is it simply the someones opinion and not presented as fact?
3. Privilege

The lecture primarily focused on the third defence. There are two types of privilege - statutory and qualified.

If a person has statutory privilege it means they are exempt from any libel laws and are effectively allowed to say whatever they want. The Queen is a prime example of a person who possesses statutory privilege. Members of parliament also have statutory privilege, as it is viewed that they are in theory the voice of the people and so should be allowed to say whatever they need/want to express.

Journalists have a qualified privilege. This means that they are able to report on certain events without being subject to libel laws. For example, it means that they are able to report on a story once it has been through the court. This privilege is given as journalists are thought to act as the eyes and ears for the general public and it would be ludicrous to expect every member of the public to attend court cases, so instead they are able to obtain the facts through the media.

A recent example of when a journalist can report a story under a qualified privilege is the case of the murder of shopkeeper Gurmail Singh, 63.

Muawaz Khalid, 20, and Nabeel Shafi, 18, guilty of murder on the 21st of October 2010. Sky news online reported on this case (link to article below)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20101021/tuk-two-men-found-guilty-of-shopkeeper-m-45dbed5.html

If Khalid and Shafi had not been found guilty when sky news released this article, then the journalist who wrote it could have been sued for libel. This is because until the men were found guilty, a journalist would not have been able to print anything stating that they had been the murderers as this would have been defamitory to the men.

If this had happened before the verdict then the journalist would not be able to make a defence for libel because they would not have been able to prove it true beyond reasonable doubt, they would no have been able to pass it off as fair comment, and they could not have used privilege because it had not been judged in court yet.

However, because they were found guilty in a court of law it meant that the journalist was able to use their qualified privilege and print the fact that the men had been found guilty. The journalist would have been able to print details of the case before the verdict using qualified privilege as long as they made it clear that the case was still ongoing.

The issue of qualified privilege was at the forefront of a case in which The Sunday Times newspaper was sued for libel by Albert Reynolds. The judge in this case devised a 10 point test which he claimed, if followed, would allow any journalist to be completely sure as to the situations in which their qualified privilege can be a defence.

The link below shows the official document written by the judge in which the ten point test is outlined:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldjudgmt/jd991028/rey01.htm

The 10 points to consider are:

1. The seriousness of the allegation.
2. The nature of the information.
3. The source of information.
4. The steps taken to verify information.
5. The status of the information.
6. The urgency of the matter.
7. Comment sought from claimant.
8. The claimants response.
9. The tone of the article.
10. Timing.

If all of the above 10 points are considered then the journalist will be "safe".