Confidential sources
Irish Supreme Court protects source confidentiality
Thursday, August 20th, 2009The Irish Supreme Court has allowed two journalists to refuse to answer questions that would have made them disclose their sources. Trinity College senior lecturer and blogger Dr Eion O’Dell welcomes the decision, but thinks it falls short of recognising a full-blown journalists’ privilege.
Media law tsunami in Canada
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009A wave of important media law cases is hitting the Canadian Supreme Court. One’s on qualified privilege and I’ve discussed it here. The others include cases on confidential sources and bail hearing publication bans.
I’m inclined to think that the guidance on free speech issues from the Canadian SC tends to be the most thoughtful, useful […]
Campbell in the soup?
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009You’ve probably heard that the police have asked the judge in the Waiouru Army medals case to order John Campbell and Ingrid Leary to answer questions that may disclose the identity of their source. (That source being, of course, one of the thieves, with whom Campbell famously performed his Clayton’s interview.)
The journalists have promised not to […]
Police raid TV3
Friday, February 22nd, 2008It’s being reported that police are executing a search warrant in TV3’s premises.
As I’ve noted, given the case law, I’m not surprised that the police were able to obtain a warrant. An important factor for a judge in deciding whether to grant the warrant is the cogency of the evidence. Here it seems likely that TV3 have information about the identity of a confessed criminal. (NB It […]