Dead tree columnist prejudices public’s perception of bloggers?
Allison Morris made a number of contributions to this morning’s Irish News. As well as the front page article about the alleged security breach when a police officer’s personal mobile fell into the hands of dissident republicans (and its contents were subsequently passed to the Irish News), she also writes a curious opinion piece on page 19.
Trapped behind a paywall, it only seems fair that her column gets a wider reading.
Rambling online twits prejudice trials at will
Kicking off with premiership footballer Joey Barton who “risked making legal history as the first person to be charged with contempt of court in relation to a comment posted on Twitter” Allison Morris moves on to mention the “Guardian newspaper journalist who tweeted the name of a juror during the Harry Redknapp tax-evasion trial”.
A modern thirst for instant information means we can no longer wait more than five seconds for news updates, even if it means a dilution in quality – the vast majority of tweets being irrelevant snippets of useless information.
For the record, Allison tweets and like many of us contributes “irrelevant snippets of useless information”.
The column’s laugh out loud moment comes when she tackles Eamonn Mallie.
The indefatigable journalists Eamonn Mallie holds the unchallenged title of king of Twitter in Northern Ireland. Last week he tweeted 140 characters that included the words ‘discombobulating’ and ‘deleterious’. Just reading it pushed other useful information from my head. I can no longer remember my Pin number as a result.
However at this point the pendulum swings without warning from Twitter users to bloggers.
Bloggers or ‘citizen journalists’ as some like to be known are a mixed bunch, their writing ranging in quality from humorous and informative to crazy and dangerous. There are, unfortunately, people who believe that a high-speed wireless connection coupled with too much time on their hands makes their rambling thoughts and conspiracy theories somehow relevant.
People with no legal or libel training regularly pass off misinformation as fact, prejudicing trials and defaming others at will, while the rest of us set out to write and publish correctly, subject to the laws of the land.
I’ve had one blogger, a person I’d never heard of in my life, email me a list of questions in relation to some half-baked tin-foil hat conspiracy theory they’d cooked up, giving me a ‘deadline’ to respond or else they would publish.
[Ed - Anyone’s ears burning? Can think of a couple of candidates!]
Meanwhile back in the real world I hit the delete button and carried on working for a living.
I don’t see the local evidence to support Allison’s claim that bloggers “regularly pass off misinformation as fact, prejudicing trials and defaming others at will”. My experience is that libel and defamation most often occur in the comments under blogs – an ever-present risk on Slugger – but rarely in the actual posts written by the bloggers.
It takes time to write a blog post. The act of having to form and edit a series of sentences allows your brain to mull over the content. Just because people don’t have formal legal or libel training doesn’t preclude them from understanding the concepts and applying them to what they write. Shuffling words around a screen – much like Allison Morris’ daily occupation – means that there is an interval in which to have second thoughts and to ponder the wisdom of putting your name to what you’ve written.
Still, all this doesn’t prevent badly written and ill thought out blog posts from being published online. But then, formal legal and libel training doesn’t always help the newspaper editorial chain from spotting libellous content. At least a blog post can be corrected as soon as a mistake is spotted. It takes longer for newspapers to put right their wrongs.
Allison’s column then reverts back to social networking, asking how a juror could be prevented from “checking out an accused’s Facebook profile” or how a witness could be prevented from “tweeting details of a crime … in direct breach of due process”.
She finishes:
As the use of platforms such as Twitter becomes the norm, can the flow of information be monitored to prevent the derailing of legal cases or in this information-driven society is it already too late to prevent the twits from taking over?
Some interesting issues raised about the contemporaneous and throw-away nature of modern communications as well as some less justified jibes at bloggers. Though as a humorous/informative/crazy/dangerous* blogger, I’m not sure I’m qualified to respond. (* delete as applicable)
And just in case Allison ever Googles herself, I should also mention her fear:
I’m sure that somewhere out there in cyberspace a blog accusing me of eating small babies for breakfast exists but I just can’t be bothered wading through pages of verbal excrement in order to find it.
Topic: Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
Certainly Alan-in-Belfast has a similar thought to me.
Guided by little more than common sense and occasional job related appearances in a witness box, I would always err on the side of caution.
As a general rule the Media is more powerful than MOST of the people who claim to be offended by the Media.
As a general rule the Blogger the converted bedroom is less powerful than the people or Organisations who claim to be offended.
As we know McDonalds has a fairly aggressive policy to anyone who offends it.
I actually think in my case that knowing “something” about the Law is actually worse than knowing “nothing at all”.
If there is a real point of contention…..that journalists believe they are being held to a higher standard than bloggers, then that would be a difficulty.
Is it really fair to say that Joey Barton was judged in a different way to a Blogger? I honestly dont know and frankly I would not even speculate as Id see that as potentially defaming to the Attorney General.
Likwise I would not say that Barton damaged the prospects of a fair trial…..as in the light of a decision that he did not……it would possibly be defamatory.
Again I emphasise that Id have to err on the side of caution…….not merely because I know too little but because the consequences of getting it wrong would be catastrophic.
Ultimately the Sun and Daily Mirror faced fines in respect of Mr Jeffries (others paid out settlements) but were there any real consequences ..loss of job, income, property?
As Alan-in-Belfast points out an irate departmental press officer wont blacklist a newspaper but will possibly take a sledgehammer to squash a nut (sic) like me.
One, if no one reads your blog, then there’s no point in sueing you.
Two, if a lot of people do read you, damage can be curtailed by a prompt take down.
Three, big media are easier targets precisely because they have resources and the means to settle.
Four, in my experience most papers do generally err on the side of caution in most cases. Cases that get settled are often settled because it’s considered too expensive to pursue it to court, even where there’s a good chance of winning.
Five no one is above the law. Not even Guido actually believes that.
Mick -
> One, if no one reads your blog, then there’s no point in sueing you …
Except that if it’s not taken down, they can claim that anyone searching Google may be mislead by the search result and thus seek damages for that?
More generally, casually casting 140 characters into the stream of twitter is often less thought out than a longer facebook update, and certainly distinct from the kind of thought process that goes into crafting a couple of paragraphs of thought (or more) in a blog post.
Tweeting may be referred to as micro-blogging, but it’s a different beast, with a different risk. Lumping Barton in with bloggers is like lumping a cyclists in with motorocycling road racers … different sports, varying risks.
FJH – Barton, for what he said, only escaped the wrath of the AG because John Terry’s case is to be heard in a magistrates court – therefore no jury. AND judges are deemed – in the eyes of the law – and less likely to be swayed by things written.
WIth Leveson will takes the deeds of the minority ie the Sun/Times/Guardian and apply them to everyone – ie BT/Irish News/News Letter
And Alan – think your analogy is slightly off – lumping twitter in with bloggers is like lumping cyclists in with the likes of Cavandish – not much difference.
There is a problem that the law has yet to get its head around and that is what angers journos!
I think what youre saying is that Joey Barton committed no offence.