LIBEL GLOBALISATION Bend it like Beckham: UK injunction sunk by Euro papers

Libel law remains a generally hidden form of press regulation; along with privacy laws and the ever growing powers of police and security forces to ignore the once sacred press/journalist right to protect the identity of their sources, the law courts play a significant role.





Publication of hacked David Beckham emails renders injunction worthless: the Sunday Times printed a front page story telling their readers they had a celebrity scandal they were injuncted (blocked: thats what a media injunction is, a ban on sharing, publishing or repeating information) from revealing. It turns out this was on David Beckham, and they were soon able to report it once the story was widely published in France and elsewhere; globalisation, and the sharing of global media content through twitter and others, often undermines UK court injunctions.

IPSO Princess, Press, Privacy: Mail breaches Code

Why the bikini photographs of Princess Beatrice fell foul of Ipso.

IPSO By George, royal privacy privilege harks back to Press Council

Are William and Kate right to pursue zero tolerance policy on privacy? http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/sep/16/are-william-and-kate-right-to-pursue-zero-tolerance-policy-on-privacy?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

WIDER ISSUES: Privacy

This is a topic I've frequently blogged on - use the tag cloud to find previous posts.

There are two ways to view the issue of privacy as it applies to media law and regulation:

1. There should be tougher, tighter restrictions on the media's ability to invade our privacy, as tabloid newspapers in particular persist in doing so on flimsy grounds
2. We urgently need to liberalise privacy law in favour of the media, as it is becoming increasingly difficult for UK media to publish information about the rich and powerful (those with access to expensive lawyers)

As ever, there are overlapping issues with digitisation:

• UK-only privacy regulation/law is made absurd by the easy access to global online resources
• As most of us permit websites and apps to track huge amounts of personal information about us, we increasingly undermine the argument that we have a right to privacy

There are cases from the press, TV and film that we can consider, but there is a further point we swiftly encounter, for example through the Max Mosley case:

• Media regulation of single industries makes no sense, and is ineffective, when there is so much cross-media ownership

Kate/Duchess nude pics: banned in UK

This is clearly going to be a useful case study, with lots of interesting articles already published, and much more yet to come.

Tory Party Chairman Grant Shapps has praised the restraint of the UK press (which refused to carry the pictures published by French and Italian mags/papers and widely circulating online), and has gone so far as to say this will be taken into account when the gov't responds to Leveson in a few months time. That is being interpreted as the strongest signal yet that self-regulation, amazingly, will be given yet another 'final' chance, albeit beefed up with the power to levy fines very likely to be added.

Politically, that poses a problem for Labour - if they condemn this as a cynical ploy to win press support for the Conservatives, or seek to characterise it as the Tories cosying up to their big business/millionaire donors and supporters, then they risk being opposed by the entire press in the next election, and the run-up to it. As we've seen several times before, both major parties have backed off introducing fundamental reform of press regulation due to electoral calculations.

Richard Desmond is seeking to position himself as an unlikely gentleman press proprietor: he part-owns the Irish Daily Star which did publish the pics ... and has threatened to close the paper as a result.

You can follow the developing story on this through several Guardian portals:
Privacy & the media
The Duchess of Cambridge
Richard Desmond
(plus Leveson, press regulation etc)

Here's one which might escape attention: an opinion piece by columnist Catherine Bennett, who argues that the royal role is defined by invasion of privacy, and considers the Duchess a grossly objectified woman. She argues that the Uk press' condemnation of the French/Italian publication of the photos is hypocritical when the same grandstanding UK papers are forensically examining Kate's body for signs of pregnancy.

Here's another one flagging up the hypocrisy of the likes of Desmond: fulminating over these pics whilst continuing the page 3 tradition and publishing red-carpet 'wardrobe malfunctions'...

Topless Kate photos enrage UK papers, but don't change their behaviour

The same titles that bemoan a French magazine for publishing long-lens photos of the Duchess of Cambridge continue to print page 3 girls, 'babes' and red-carpet wardrobe malfunctions

The Duchess of Cambridge: UK newspapers vocally support her right to privacy. Photograph: Tim Rooke/Rex Features

The British public is up in arms at a young woman's breasts being used to sell magazines. The Duchess of Cambridge's boobs should not be gawped at, commentators point out. Her privacy has been invaded in a shocking manner, everyone agrees. Even Richard Desmond – the former publisher of Asian Babes – says he is so furious the Irish Daily Star dared to use the photos he may shut his whole paper down.

So does this mean breasts will no longer take centre stage in a certain sort of newspaper, magazine or website? Well, not exactly. The UK Daily Star today has a poignant headline about the royal scandal – "Kate's smile hides the pain" – but still fills up page 3 with a picture of a topless 22-year-old. Online it has a whole section devoted to boobs or, at it calls it, babes.
The Sun, too, sees no hypocrisy in supporting the duke and duchess's bid to sue the photographer responsible for snapping Kate's chest in a Sun Says editorial – just a couple of pages after printing a picture of Kelly, 22, from Daventry with her own breasts exposed. Online the newspaper has a host of scantily clad women for readers to pore over, such as Georgia Salpa in a bikini, Maria Fowler "flashing her cleavage", and Kelly Brook posing for a new calender.
The People may not be printing pictures of Kate but they see no reason not to use photos of Helen Mirren, snapped by paparazzi on the beach in a bikini, to illustrate a story about the actor getting a facelift. Their centre spread feature is made up of images of former teenage sex worker Zahia Dehar in see-through lingerie.
The Mirror's website implies it is bored with printing pictures of Emma Watson's "sideboob" but does anyway – just as they published images last week showing part of her nipple, when her dress slipped. While on the front of their site they have a naked Jenny Thompson (who once slept with Wayne Rooney) covering her breasts and genitals with her hands.
The Daily Mail may be shocked at the treatment of Kate but its notorious website sidebar is crammed full of pictures drawing attention to celebrities' breasts – from Nicole Richie in a cleavage-exposing dress, to Halle Berry in a bikini and Amanda Bynes in a low cut top.
The message it seems, is clear – it's fine to print pictures of half naked women, as long as they are not heading for the throne.

...

Leveson hasnt changed press: Greenslade + privacy cases

Roy Greenslade rather caustically points to the papping of 2 TV journalists as indicating that the red-top press has very swiftly forgotten about Leveson and returned to type, pointing to the printing of the naked Prince Harry pictures as another example of this.

I usually agree with RG, but I'm not completely sure on these examples, Marr/Murnahgan/Harry - what do you think? Have the press once more ignored the PCC code or is there a genuine public interest defence?

• Monday 10 September 2012

• Bah, humbug! There's no public interest in sneaky pictures of TV journalists

  I often quote Tom Stoppard's line about the "casual cruelty" of newspapers. Sometimes though, it is far from casual as Dermot Murnaghan and Andrew Marr will testify today.
  They have suffered the embarrassment of being pictured - in the Sunday Mirror and The People - kissing women who are not their wives. And the Daily Mail's website has followed up by publishing both sets of pictures too. (No, I'm not going to link to any of it).
  Why have the pair been papped? Here's the public interest defence. These men, by virtue of appearing on television, are role models. They are married. According to the editors' code of practice, the public interest is served by "preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation."
  So Murnaghan and Marr - both of them journalists, incidentally - are "guilty" of misleading the public. Case proved. As for the invasion of their privacy by snatching sneak pictures, that's fine too because the men were snapped while in a public place where all the world could see them.
  The public has a right to know and all that. Editors may say they do it more in sorrow than in anger. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Bah, humbug!
  There are all sorts of questions to be asked about the nature of the tip-offs that led to the photographers stalking their prey. But I guess we can be sure it didn't involve phone hacking this time.
  But what's the point of my bellyaching about these gross invasions of privacy? The tabloids are reverting to type, so my complaints are not going to change anything.
  With the Prince Harry pictures and these two new examples, it is abundantly clear that the so-called Leveson effect is history. Celebrities are fair game again.
  Duck for cover, Hugh Grant. Watch out, Charlotte Church. Stay home, Steve Coogan. The paparazzi are back in play. The tabs are on your tails. And you can't all flee to Afghanistan.
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Jubilee/BJohnson: press reg better than TV

A brief post for now, with what I think could be a very useful point to help balance up the line of argument in your essays away from just 'PCC bad, OfCom good/strong'.
In a recent post (I'll add links later) I cited the case of Boris Johnson, recently re-elected Mayor of London: leaked documents appear to show his office bullying the BBC into not running material which would have harmed his reputation (and electoral chances). Could the 'free press' be bullied in this way? (okay, so they do it the other way round by bullying politicians!) The point is negated somewhat, though, by the nature of the BBC: partially self-regulated, partially regulated by OfCom.
A rather more controversial argument, but one thats been popping up all over the press in recent weeks: why are the BBC dropping their legal requirement to deliver balanced, unbiased news coverage when it comes to the Jubilee celebrations? They've screened a series of programmes which are simple celebrations of the monarch and the hereditary monarchical system (notably at a time when the coalition government has been discussing abolishing the remaining hereditary, inherited seats in the House of Lords), and could easily have been produced by the royal family's own media operations. Where's the enforcement of the BBC's constitution here? Is this being done as the BBC are vulnerable to government pressure (the BBC may self-regulate, but its the government that sets the license-fee level, and can at any time privatise the BBC or set limits on what the BBC can cover - eg, there have been discussions about banning the BBC from bidding for sports rights or overseas programmes).
Peter Wilby has repeatedly addressed this in the Guardian, but there have been a variety of articles elsewhere too - I'll add later

HISTORY: Press Council: Jempson+Powell 2012

I've not added sub-headings etc to this, but thought you'd want this asap, so you can access below
What we've been discussing is to try and match up 1 or more past eg with a current (ie PCC) eg within a single paragraph/major point
Here you can see clear points about general ineffecivesness, and accuracy/privacy more specifically...
Jempson and Powell 2012 on History of Weak Press Regulation

Royals/Press - new articles

There's plenty in the links list but here's a few recent articles of note:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/25/tabloid-tales-harry-eva-wiseman (how singleton Harry has replaced poor Jen [Aniston] as tabloid obsession)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2012/mar/01/royal-highnesses-naked-centrefold-cosmopolitan - Cosmo publishes pics of royal lookalikes
http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sunday-express-uses-photo-from-2007-for.html - The Desmond-owned S.Express adds a new line to its low-cost stack of Diana front pages; if those stories are over 10yrs old (but still regularly getting an airing on this newspaper), then this isn't bad: using a 5yr old pic of the nation's favourite Nazi-fancy dressing royal for this story, which typically seems to have very, very little credibility or substance. So much for the Editors Code Clause 1 on Accuracy.

Murdoch and monarchy

When Murdoch first arrived in Britain it was still largely the practice for newspaper owners to be Lords or minor aristocrats; seen as a crude, vulgar Australian, his appalled rivals gave him the nickname of 'the dirty digger'. This has relevance for this exam Q given the way he has systematically undermined another key pillar of Britishness.
If WW2, and the pride that the endeavours of the British Army (and airforce and navy) created, were key to the cementing of a common British identity in the last century, then so too was the popular support for the Royal Family. Seen (and certainly marketed as by the state) as a symbol of nationhood, the monarch and her family had achieved a hegemonic status as unquestionable icons of Britishness.
The Australian Murdoch brought with him an intense dislike for the privilege and elitism of monarchy, and personally loathed the idea that a British monarch was his head of state. This republicanism is one rare exception to Murdoch, and his paper's, thoroughly right-wing ideology (left-wingers are more commonly associated with hostility to monarchy).
As the Sarah Ferguson sting in his NoTW recently showed, Murdoch's papers are prepared to be brutally ruthless in their pursuit of sensational, paper-selling scoops, no matter how much damage this does to the whole system of monarchy. Before he came, anything like this would have been utterly unthinkable.