Chelmsford case gives the law a bad name ... Appeal upheld ... Errors at trial ... Unpalatable outcome ... Reasonableness proves elusive ... Back it goes ... Lessons to be learned ... Comment from Graham Hryce ... more
Category: Seminars, interviews & commentary
Trollitics
Who really benefits from the Troll Bill, and why? ... Transferring liability ... Avenues of defence open to media companies as subordinate publishers of third-party comments ... Innocent dissemination ... High Court's Voller decision does not require a radical change to the law of defamation ... Graffitied walls ... Analysis and commentary ... more
Hugh Tomlinson QC
Leading UK media and information barrister tells the Gazette about his best cases, phone hacking, the Leveson inquiry and the failure to achieve meaningful regulatory reform of the press ... Privacy versus defamation ... more
Defamation law judges’ panel
Panel of leading defamation jurists ... Scrutiny of costs, anti-trolling legislation, defamation law reforms ... Decline in juries ... Serious harm threshold ... Public interest defence ... Courts Editor Stephen Murray reports ... more
Nick McKenzie
Investigative journalist Nick McKenzie answers questions from the Gazette ... Informants and their reliability ... Working with defamation lawyers ... Defending journalism in court ... Disinclination to roll-over ... Complexity and the Federal Court ... Optimism about journalism and its future ... more
Hamish Thomson
Guardian Australia in-house lawyer Hamish Thomson talks to the Gazette ... Long career in London ... Where's an Australian equivalent to Article 10? ... Traps for journalists ... The call for clarity ... Online reader comments post-Voller ... more
Lisa Davies
Sydney Morning Herald editor Lisa Davies resigns ... Here she answers the Gazette's questions about changes at the paper during her time at the helm ... The future of print ... Big defamation cases ... The challenge of big tech ... And daily life in the editor's chair ... more
Judges v The Internet
The High Court's failure to grasp the changing pace of online communications ... Court rulings wedded to outdated interpretation of "publication" ... Voller ... Defteros and Gutnick ... Threat to the utility of the search engine ... Tech platforms remain in their own orbit ... Commentary from Richard Ackland ... more
Matthew Lewis
Sydney barrister Matthew Lewis takes our questions as he wings to England and Wales ... Authentic rarebit beckons ... Working from Doughty St ... The virtual world ... Reservations about the new public interest defence ... Time will tell ... more
Voller considerations
Liability for publication ... Invitation to comment gives rise to an intention to publish ... High Court casts doubt on Supreme Court dicta on innocent dissemination ... Limitation of liability underway ... A role for concerns notices and serious harm test ... Professor David Rolph comments ... more
A comparative study of court information
Study from the University of Sussex ... The quality of justice systems in three common law countries ... Transparency, innovation and independence ... The impact of federal, state and territory jurisdictional and resource differences in Australia ... Access to information ... Inconsistencies ... Suppression orders ... Anna Kretowicz reports ... more
Defamation and the media: fresh data
Updated dataset ... Graphs and charts tracking defamation claims for the 12 years to the end of 2020 ... Leading judges and their performances ... Major categories of plaintiffs ... Media wins and losses ... Exploding damages ... Federal Court assumes favourite forum status ... Janek Drevikovsky draws on the Gazette's case reports for this analysis ... more