Category Archives: comment

How should privacy injunctions be reported?

Posted on September 6, 2012 by

The recommended procedure and law around privacy injunctions “isn’t quite fit for purpose” according to Gideon Benaim, a partner at Michael Simkins LLP (formerly of Schillings), writing in the Guardian today. Comments seem to be closed on the piece so … Continue reading →

Posted in comment, freedom of expression, human rights, journalism, leveson inquiry, media ethics, media law, press freedom, privacy, public interest, super injunctions | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Damian Carney: Media Accountability after the Phone Hacking Inquiry

Posted on August 30, 2012 by

Dr Damian Carney proposes the setting up of a new regulatory body for the press providing strong remedies for complainants, better internal controls on ethics and complaints – and enough independence from government and industry to appease the general public … Continue reading →

Posted in academic research, comment, defamation, guest post, journalism, leveson inquiry, media ethics, media law, phone hacking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

An elephant in courtroom 73? Social media, regulation and the law

Posted on August 10, 2012 by

Lord Justice Leveson’s enormous task is to examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media, with a special emphasis on the “press”. This is because it was serious concerns about the behaviour of UK national newspapers that instigated the … Continue reading →

Posted in blogging, comment, contempt of court, courts, data protection, defamation, freedom of expression, human rights, journalism, leveson inquiry, media ethics, media law, media regulation, social media, social networking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Full Fact: “Open justice in this century must mean more than merely being able to walk into the courtroom”

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

Full Fact is a non-profit fact-checking organisation based in the UK, which has given oral and written evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Part of its submission on ‘The internet and the Inquiry’ [PDF] concerns access to judicial information, which Full … Continue reading →

Posted in comment, courts, data, digital open justice, leveson inquiry, media ethics, media law, media law resources | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

MediaAct: a new platform and network for media accountability?

Posted on July 30, 2012 by

On Friday and Saturday (27-28 July) I joined a group of European media bloggers in Bristol for a seminar organised by MediaWise, the EU MediaAct project at UWE and the NUJ New Media Industrial Council. MediaAcT is a European research … Continue reading →

Posted in academic research, blogging, comment, events, freedom of expression, human rights, social media | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Barry Turner: Media criminality – a failure of law, not regulation

Posted on June 7, 2012 by

This guest post by Barry Turner, senior lecturer in media law at the Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism at Nottingham Trent University, is a response to this post by Daniel Bennett: ‘After Leveson – a State of the News Media report … Continue reading →

Posted in comment, leveson inquiry, media ethics, media law, phone hacking, police, public interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

After Leveson? A ‘State of the News Media’ report for the UK

Posted on May 31, 2012 by

By Daniel Bennett With each day of Leveson evidence new stones are overturned, exposing the wider systemic and cultural problems that contributed to the phone-hacking scandal. The ‘post-Leveson’ question becomes ever more pressing, as identified at yesterday’s University of Westminster conference, … Continue reading →

Posted in academic research, comment, journalism, leveson inquiry, media ethics, phone hacking | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cross-post: Press ‘omerta’ – How newspapers’ failure to report the phone hacking scandal exposed the limitations of media accountability

Posted on February 9, 2012 by

Cross-posted on the Media Standards Trust blog, by Daniel Bennett and Judith Townend “[Nick] Davies’s work…has gained no traction at all in the rest of Fleet Street, which operates under a system of omerta so strict that it would secure … Continue reading →

Posted in academic research, comment, journalism, media ethics, phone hacking | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scandal! Tabloid editor wasn’t thinking about selling newspapers

Posted on January 9, 2012 by

As a former rather than incumbent editor of the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie obviously felt he could afford to take quite a cavalier approach to his Leveson evidence (perhaps playing to what he said is his “punchy”, “sort of anti-establishment” character). … Continue reading →

Posted in blogging, comment, journalism, leveson inquiry, media ethics, newspapers | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The role of the “public mood”

Posted on January 3, 2012 by

In my research I keep bumping up against the confusingly thorny – if woolly – issue of the “public interest”, a concept at the heart of media debates, the Leveson Inquiry and recent privacy and libel cases. There is surprisingly … Continue reading →

Posted in academic research, comment, journalism, media ethics, media law, phone hacking, public interest | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment