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Archive for May, 2009

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Northern Exposé

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

From the third season of Northern Exposure: Maurice Minnifield (local magnate and Cicely’s newspaper proprietor): You give ’em what they want. That’s the role of journalism. Joel Fleishman: No, Maurice, that’s the role of professional wrestling.

Pannick time!

Friday, May 29th, 2009

David Pannick QC agrees with me (though there may be some chance that he does not read this blog and reached his conclusion independently) that the rules about interviewing jurors are too harsh.

Queer censorship rules

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Noticed that you can’t find Queer as Folk at your local video shop? Actually, you can’t find any of these titles either. As Andrew Armitage explains, it’s because it’s too expensive to get them classified. Even if they’ve been on TV. Even if you could order them through Amazon.com. Even if they’ve been in the […]

Your booze leader

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

The Guardian is reporting that media workers are the biggest lushs in England.

Media law tsunami in Canada

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

A 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, […]

Veitch material un-juncted

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

Not surprisingly, it seems that Tony Veitch has withdrawn his injunction proceedings. That still leaves interesting questions about the police’s unusual willingness to release so much information here.

Veitch injunction

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Who would have guessed it? (Not me). The injunction barring the media from publishing the information released by the police under the Official Information Act, seems to be based on breach of confidence. The Veitch team (headed up by heavyweight litigator Jack Hodder SC) argued that Veitch was not consulted on the release; he had […]

Nouveau niche

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Those interviewed in Ruth Laugesen’s Listener feature about the future of mainstream journalism in New Zealand were bullish. But between the lines, I think three extracts tell a striking story about the journalism we can expect in another decade: [Martin Simons, APN group publishing chief executive]: “Margins are still very healthy. Perhaps in years to […]

Times held in contempt for interviewing jurors

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

The Times of London has been convicted of contempt for quoting the foreman of a jury criticising the result of a baby death case. (It was a 10-2 majority verdict; he was in the minority). His point: the jury was overwhelmed by expert evidence, which at the end of the day could only be speculative. He said: […]

Campbell in the soup?

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

You’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 […]

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