Our Media Law lecture today was about the important cases that we have to know about and use as examples in the test at the end of the semester. Chris mentioned some of them e.g. the Chris Jefferies case and the Woodgate and Bowyer case. He then showed us a student journalism piece made by an MA student at the University of Westminister. It was riddled with legal problems and when Chris told us that she had FAKED an interview, I turned off from watching it because the video just didn't deserve my time. Sadly we had to watch the rest anyway and it wasn't much better than the first part!
Important Media Law cases
Here are some of the important cases covered either in my blog, Chris' notes or McNae's ELFJ.
Chris Jefferies (defamation and libel) - A very recent case and of great importance to journalists and media law. Chris Jefferies sued several newspaper after they made allegations about him and suggested that he killed Jo Yeates. They based this on what he did in his spare time like playing chess and reading poetry - hardly the sort of stuff that would suggest that he was a murderer!
The decision made that the newspapers libeled him was based on the three important points:
1. He had been identified
2. The content about him was published.
3. He was defamed.
As we know, defamation is caused if one of these four things has happened:
1. The statement(s) must have exposed Chris Jefferies to hatred, ridicule or contempt.
2. The statement(s) must have caused Chris Jefferies to be shunned and avoided.
3. The statement(s) must have discredited Chris Jefferies in his trade, profession or business.
4. The statement(s) must have lowered Chris Jefferies in the eyes of right thinking people.
Sadly for Jefferies, even though he successfully sued the newspapers, he will never be able to shake off the image of him portrayed by the media.
Woodgate and Bowyer (contempt of court) - The footballers Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer were on trial in 2003 for 'racially aggravated assault'. The Sunday Mirror published an article including an interview with the victim's family during the footballers trial. This led to a mistrial. The newspaper's editor Colin Myler was fined a mere £30,000 for contempt of sound. Obviously, the price Myler paid was a lot less than Bowyer and Woodgate would have paid...
Fred West - The all round sicko Fred West was convicted for raping and murdering young girls in the 70s and 80s. Newspapers didn't publish anything about him or publish interviews with his family and friends etc until after he was convicted. However, it is very likely that the interviews were carried out whilst he was on trial.
Bill Goodwin - The journalist Bill Goodwin leaked confidential information whilst reporting for The Engineer magazine and was ordered to disclose his source. He refused to do so and was fined, he kept refusing to disclose the source and kept getting fined. He then went to the senior law lords to get the ruling overturned, it was refused. He then went to the EU Court of Human Rights and won his case.
Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel v.s. Wall Street Journal case - The WSJ printed an article in 2005 that basically said that MALJ was financing terrorism. The allegations couldn't be proved, but the WSJ thought that the Reynolds defence would cover them - it didn't. However Lord Phillips didn't agree with the WSJ's defence.
TB 2011
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