Libel, Slander, Calumny and Vilification
In common, I dare say, with many other Bloggers, we are e-mailed from time to time by ‘journalism students’. Usually we are as friendly and as helpful as possible. I did lose my cool with the third year student who e-mailed me with what he claimed was a first person account of something quite newsworthy. He had been unable to get the main stream media interested and was desperate to get the tale ‘published’ in time for his dissertation.
It was a good story, but so appallingly badly written and woolly that I was not surprised he had been ignored. I tactfully made a few suggestions. I got the copy back by return, incorporating a cut and paste job of my main suggestions but otherwise the same. I asked for corroborating evidence. I got back a file of details that took a couple of hours to go through, and once more e-mailed him with suggestions as to how he could incorporate the salient details.
Back came the copy with my suggestions ‘cut and pasted’ once more – even to the words ‘I suggest’! If it hadn’t been a good story I would have left him to it, but I persevered…I explained how to use spell check..(this was a third year student, remember?) he did, the American version! Groan!
In for a penny, in for a pound – I ended up rewriting the story entirely for him over the next three days; I e-mailed the final copy back to him for his approval. It would be appearing under his by-line, not mine after all. Silence. In fact silence for two whole days.
Then he e-mailed me to tell me – ‘how delighted he was’, the rewritten version had been accepted by The Daily XXXX, in fact they had paid him £500 for it, he was now a published journalist, wasn’t that cool? He said if I wanted to take the copy off their site, he would give me permission to put it on my blog…too, too, good of you, you little shitbag.
Cue much gnashing of teeth this end, and a firm vow to roast the next ‘journalism’ student I came across.
Welcome to my parlour little journalism spider. This arrived last night. It is genuine, I have checked out the name and the University – I am withholding both out of a misplaced sense of fair play…
Dear Editor,
Thanks for taking time to read my email. I am xxxxxxx xx, a journalism student from University of xxxxxxxxxxxx. I am emailing you because I am currently working on an assignment about libel. I want to find out is the fear of libel on cyberspace the beginning of caution. So hopefully you would kindly spend few minutes to answer the questions below. As the interview is not for public use and will not be published, it will only be used as an interview record for my assignment. So hopefully you would provide some of your information in the interview, which would help me a lot. Thank you so much!
1. Would you please provide me your real name, pseudonym, and what you usually write on your blog/articles?
Dear Muppet,
You have been able to e-mail me because you have been on my blog and onto my contact page. Therefore you already know my real name, my pseudonym, and ‘what I usually write on my blog’.
If I didn’t provide my real name and only wrote under a pseudonym, what makes you think I would want to reveal my real name to you, and for what purpose?
If you weren’t sufficiently interested to look and see for yourself ‘what I usually write’, what makes you think I would be interested in giving my time to help you with an assignment?
2. Have you or people you know who have faced any problems of being charged because you/they have made some libellous statement on your/their blog/articles? If yes, would you tell me some of the details of the case and how it ends up?
Now this, my little journalism spider, comes under the heading of research – if a blogger had been ‘charged’ (we are talking criminal libel here, or did you not know that there were different types of libel?) there would, for sure, be plenty of material for you to draw upon. Ah, I forgot, your assignment is due in 36 hours time, best try and get someone else to do the work for you eh?
3. What do you think about the law of libel on cyberspace? Will you think this law limits the freedom of speech or writing on the cyberspace which we have had for a long time? Why?
Glory be! We have had ‘libel’ as a legal tool since at least the time James I was on the throne – long, long before cyberspace was a twinkle in anyone’s eye. What on earth makes you think that cyberspace is a libel free zone? Libel is libel whether it is written on the Internet, scribbled on a postcard in the local sweetshop window, texted to your three bestest ever friends, or drawn on a scrap of paper and pinned to a tree in the local dog walking park. Freedom of speech has never included the freedom to make an untrue insinuation regarding another person to the detriment of their reputation.
4. Will you mind your word on the internet in order to avoid making any libellous statements? What will you choose between a juicy topic and abiding law? Why?
Dear Muppet,
I ‘mind my word’ on the Internet, by Text, when putting an ad in the local shop window, in fact whenever I ‘broadcast’ a statement in any published from, I also ‘mind my word’ when speaking aloud – or had you never heard of slander either?
Don’t you?
Why do you imagine there is a choice to be made between a ‘juicy topic’ and abiding by the law? There is no such thing as a topic that cannot be addressed without breaking the law. It is how you address the topic which dictates whether you are abiding by the law. Isn’t that what you are spending three years studying?
That is all for the questions. Hopefully you can answer all of them and email me back. I am waiting for your answers. If you have further questions about this assignment or interview please feel free to email me. I hope I can get your answer before the coming Tuesday morning. Thank you so much!
There you go, answers before your assignment is due on Tuesday morning! Good to see that ‘Journalism courses in Universities’ are still moulding journalists who believe that the Blogosphere is some sort of anarchic free for all where the laws of the land don’t apply. Someone should really tell you that bloggers don’t all have two heads and a tail, we are citizens just like everybody else, the law of the land applies to us – and some bloggers are journalists as well. I do hope you didn’t send this questionnaire to Charon QC or Jack of Kent…
Not only does the law of the land apply to us, and always has done, but we have to comply with it without the benefit of an army of sub-editors, legal beagles, and the bulging bank accountants of the main stream media – we are personally responsible for our blogs.
Anyone think this muppet is tailor made for a job with the BBC?
Edited to add: Whoops! Did no one notice? That should have been ‘bulging bank accounts’ – though no doubt the accountants are bulging as well!!!!!
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1
February 20, 2012 at 13:19 -
What the hell is this questionnaire written in? Some hitherto undiscovered form of pidgin english? What the hell are they teaching people in English classes these days?
Please tell me you actually sent these replies…..
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2
February 20, 2012 at 13:31 -
My Favourite
“3. What do you think about the law of libel on cyberspace? Will you think this law limits the freedom of speech…”Like a politician you failed to answer the question. This is quite clearly an attempt to tap into your little known ability to see into the future.
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3
February 20, 2012 at 13:57 -
Weren’t the Muppets on ITV?
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4
February 20, 2012 at 14:06 -
Yes, child!
Mehna Mehna! do do do do do!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_tupPBtWQ
Happy days….
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5
February 20, 2012 at 15:15 -
Great story Anna, I love your sense of humour on here!
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6
February 20, 2012 at 15:30 -
Jounalists? Their days are numbered!
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11
February 20, 2012 at 15:36 -
Blogging is the new wave.
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12
February 20, 2012 at 15:42 -
The cheeky sod! Anna, I think your replies are mild compared to what mine would have been – second time around as well. Surely, this has got to be a generically generated request to several ‘journalist/writer/bloggers’ in the expectation that, hopefully, one will bite… No wonder there is a general feeling that, in some spheres, a degree is not worth the paper it is printed on.
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13
February 20, 2012 at 16:04 -
bloggers don’t all have two heads and a tail
Well, the raccoon-shaped ones do have a tail, although only one head.
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14
February 20, 2012 at 17:16 -
You have greater patience than I. I’m not sure either would have elicited a response from me. let them do their own damned research and editing.
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16
February 20, 2012 at 17:53 -
Bring back the cadet reporter on the local news, who learned on the job, and the days, when the sub editor was allowed to roast the clumsy for the slightest error – it made for rapid learning. (Alas the subeditors general knowledge and English have declined in tandem.)
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17
February 20, 2012 at 20:31 -
All of which parallels the situation with student nurses and matrons. A history of excellent on-the-job training replaced by vacuous, academic clap-trap, leading to useless outcomes.
Maybe it’s time for a ‘Back To Basics’ campaign – ah, wait a minute, didn’t someone else try that term once ?
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18
February 20, 2012 at 19:21 -
I spot an opportunity for the “Raccoon School of Journalism”.
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19
February 20, 2012 at 19:35 -
Bit of a tangent but did you see one blogger picking up Jonny Spelman’s Facebook page?
Well our mysterious friend (yes, I reckon I know, but court orders and all) was asking for freebies from some sports supplement company (apple not falling far from the tree) via some public page of Facebook. What really struck me was the desperate English and awful spelling on display. One paper reported he was at some £30K a year school. Caroline, you might be better employed in court asking for your money back.
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20
February 20, 2012 at 20:28 -
Butt they teech foneticks thees daze – spelin is so owt ov date
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21
February 21, 2012 at 09:44 -
That was when children were taught to spell and write simple coherent sentences by teachers who had a two-year teacher training qualification rather than a degree in Sociology and the PGCE.
That went out of fashion with Ray Honeyford who was sacked for having the nerve to insist on teaching children the skills which would make them more employable.
As we see from Anna’s post, a university is prepared to take money from a student who should have been told their English is not good enough to be on the course in the first place, and that is before approaching their thinking which is hopelessly inadequate in their first language, let alone their second.
I wish Anna had named the university – it deserves to be prevented from carrying on as from September it may be able to get up to £27k per student for allowing totally unsuitable students to do a course.
That £27k (plus living expenses on top) is being fronted-up by the taxpayer and is irrecoverable as it is patently obvious that candidates such as the above will never, ever, earn more than £21k unless by some miracle they earn more than £21k a year. They will not make it in journalism.
We could be paying an unlimited number of £52k (or thereabouts) uncovered loans while the universities make out like bandits, having had the cap on student intake removed.
Vince Cable is expected to carry the can for this.
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22
February 21, 2012 at 11:14 -
Judging by the ‘xx’ of the student’s surname, I’m surmising that this is an overseas student who will have paid (or whose government will have paid) eye-watering tuition fees for a degree which is patently not fit for purpose. But after 17 years of teaching in UK universities and watching the sickening decline of standards and integrity, this is the logical outcome. In my experience, the individual concerned is quite likely to be a Chinese student studying at Nottingham. Or a ‘slanty-eyed cash cow’ as one drunken admissions tutor called them in my hearing three or four years ago.
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23
February 21, 2012 at 10:13 -
argh – nails down blackboard…stopitstopitstopit!
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24
February 21, 2012 at 00:35 -
Dear me.
Personally I am more disgusted – and concerned – about the first Muppet and his startling lack of either humility or decency.
How dare he have the temerity to pass off your work as his own – not to mention accept money for it.
I’ll bet he’s a real charmer.
Actually, I think that you should expose him.
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25
February 21, 2012 at 08:30 -
I think you’re right, she should. The little toad deserves nothing less.
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26
February 21, 2012 at 08:44 -
Fear not, Gentlemen, I shall.
But you see, I reckon he’s a budding Johann Hari in waiting. Expose him now and you’ve just nailed a teen-age misdemeanor.
I can wait until he’s got a big story. He’s very ambitious you see.
My day will come.
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31
February 21, 2012 at 10:06 -
I’m curious as to why you didn’t scupper the first muppet by contacting the mail and telling them you’d re-written the article and can half the money be forwarded please? Or alternatively can they print only what the muppet had written? Then contacted his Uni to ask them to re-do the lecture on plagiarism?
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32
February 21, 2012 at 11:15 -
Hmmm. Has Anna tracked down the locationof Johann Hari’s remedial journalism course?
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33
February 21, 2012 at 17:00 -
To the spam bin for them. They’ve been to the school, now they should be able smart enough to earn their own damn money.
Did the first candidate acknowledge you as a source? Even if he did, what he did was flagrant breach of copyright, known in the trade as ‘passing off’.
Here’s a suggestion; notify the publication he got paid by and threaten to sue. That should scupper the smarmy little toad for good.
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