Rush v Nationwide News … Cultural clash … Conflation of serious and trivial allegations … Complainants and the truth defence … Comment from media lawyer Graham Hryce ... more
Year: 2018
Rush v Nationwide News Pty Ltd
Most of the Daily Telegraph's defence in the Geoffrey Rush defamation case struck out by Federal Court judge ... Defences determined before the imputations are argued ... Justice Michael Wigney explores innocent explanation for Rush being in the STC female toilets ... more
Federal Court defamation filings on a roll
A new crop of judges will have to get up to speed on the conduct of defamation trials ... Last year there were a large number of filings in the NSW registry of the Federal Court ... Table of cases ... Problems posed by parallel jurisdictions ... more
Ex-Post legal drama
Spielberg’s movie The Post skated over the interesting legal story about the publication of the Pentagon Papers … Washington Post not bound by a restraining order that applied to the NYT … Contrary approach by Australian courts … Government embarrassment not sufficient to prevent publication … The horror of prior restraint … Precious details reprised … more
The long and distinguished history of the word ‘crony’
Pleadings ... Judge includes online video in Sydney Morning Herald news story in consideration of capacity issues ... Daily Telegraph beats off some imputations in former policeman's defamation case ... Significance of Facebook post linking to the article sued on ... more
Reporting the secret state
Government's proposed amendments to the new Commonwealth secrecy provisions ... Open-ended risk to journalists ... Uncertainty as to liability when reporting government information ... Flaws in the law ... Richard Ackland on crimes associated with "dealing" in government information ... more
No more reform, please
The UK government has announced there will be no new Leveson inquiry into press conduct ... Defamation costs regime under s.40 of the Crime and Courts Act to be repealed ... Press regulation in abeyance despite overwhelming community support for Leveson 2 ... Government appeasement of the publishers ... From Paul Magrath of the Transparency Project ... more
Atkinson Prakash Charan v Nationwide News (Costs Ruling)
Plaintiff should have been aware that Nationwide News had a strong case once the particulars of the truth defence were filed ... Indemnity costs awarded to newspaper for the entire length of the trial ... A highly unusual case ... Louise Hall reporting ... more
FOI and the WA Public Transport Authority
Test for exempt "personal information" under Freedom of Information Act ... Supreme Court reverses finding of Information Commission ... Identification of people in the footage ... Seven Network seeking tapes of level-crossing near-misses ... Louise Hall reporting ... more
Case note round-up
Interlocutory decisions in defamation ... ABC defends pleadings in affordable housing case ... Kambala's former principal gets partial discovery of school documents ... Qualified privilege for NT government department's advice to the minister ... WA charity directors not required for mediation ... Nick Bonyhady reports ... more
#MeSue
The #MeToo movement has generated its fair share of litigation as alleged perpetrators shape-up to meet their alleged victims in court ... Defamation ... Geoffrey Rush v Daily Telegraph ... Craig McLachlan v Fairfax and the ABC ... more
A crisis in reporting the courts
The Society of Editors in the UK recently hosted a seminar at the offices of the Telegraph Group in London about the decline in court reporting ... Paul Magrath, Alice Twaite and Judith Townend were there, representing the Transparency Project ... more