Britain's libel laws are killing investigative journalism

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Britain's libel laws are killing investigative journalism

(snip)

However, in this case, the evidence was so strong (right down to senior people referring off the record to this individual as "the worst person we have ever hired"), I felt totally confident that we were safe.

I was wrong. Really, really quite wrong.

We received not only a libel writ from this individual, but also a list of pretty insane demands - which essentially added up to us republishing the article blaming everyone but him and flagging up a number of awards he had won. He also sent us a warning that in the United Arab Emirates, where he is based, slandering individuals of his status is a crime. A crime punishable by 2 years imprisonment and probably, we joked in the office, several hundred lashes.

Well, apart from the fact that Dubai was off my list of holiday destinations, we didn't have much to worry about. Because the story was absolutely true. 100% true. We had tons of interviews on tape. We had told the truth about someone. He could take it to court, and we would almost certainly win.

But there's the problem. To successfully defend my article, I would probably have had to have put my career on hold for a couple of years, and it will cost me (or my publisher) perhaps £25,000, I am advised, because if he lost, it would be almost impossible for a UK court to coerce my costs from him. And if I lost, then it will cost me roughly £500,000. Fighting and winning is bad enough; fighting and losing would be disastrous, even for a major publisher. It's not just the publisher who could get sued either - because of the state of our libel laws, our distributors, our internet host, everyone even connected to us or the toxic-but-true article could be sued.

So, my employer, faced with this quandary, and the not-at-all-concerning prospect of lashings in a public square, decided to shut down the magazine, moving back to dry, uncontroversial surveys, and fire me. He sat me down in his office, told me he respected me as a journalist - respected me so much, in fact that he wants me to keep writing for his publishing firm - but said that libel scared him far too much to take risks.

More: http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2009/10/britains-libel-laws-are-killing-investigative-journalism.html

The article in question is available via wikileaks http://88.80.16.63/leak/censored-dla-piper-story.pdf