The UK libel laws are so biased towards deep-pocketed litigants eager to block free speech that the UK was recently characterised as the defamation capital of the world.
The system must be changed. It leads to an over-cautiousness among in-house media lawyers and a prevailing timidity and kneejerk, mealy-mouthed self-censorship amongst UK media organisations, including both broadcasters and newspaper groups.
This is seriously constraining the freedom of the press and harming the credibility of both newspapers and broadcasters. To put it bluntly the situation has become so bad it is now nearly impossible to get proper investigative journalism published in this country, especially if you are a freelance correspondent. One consequence is that the best stories — and the best writing — is migrating to blogs and internet-only publications which, rightly or wrongly, don’t feel quite so constrained by the current regime.
I could give you countless examples where, despite an all pervasive stench of corruption and fraud, backed up by extensive paperwork, copper-bottomed sourcing, and other reliable supportive information, it has proved virtually impossible to get certain stories published in mainstream British newspapers.
Even after stories have been “stood up”, when there is incontrovertible evidence of, say, the abuse of public funds, the newspaper will often only publish articles only in emasculated form. They end up being so hedged with caveats, so shorn of the most relevant claims and the most hard-hitting quotes and incorporating so many disingenuous “responses” from the individuals or companies who are being accused of wrongdoing, that the published articles can end up being so feeble as to be virtually useless.
I therefore find it reassuring that Lord Lester’s libel and defamation reform bill is to go through parliament and that the coalition government has also promised to reform the libel laws. Lester’s private member’s bill intends to reduce the chilling effect on freedom of expression and recourse to self-censorship that results from the vagueness and uncertainty of the present law.
Here’s hoping for saner libel regime — and a bit more backbone from the UK media.
This blog was published on 13 June 2010