Tuesdays lecture on Media Law delved deeper into the world of defamation and left me with this point in mind - know your defences. In a libel case our defences as journalists are justification, fair comment and qualified privilege; of which the latter is divided into two: statutory and common law.
Below is a useful link to a piece which takes you through the definitions of statutory qualified privilege and common law qualified privilege:
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-of-free-expression/defamation/qualified-privilege.html#top
Interestingly the site also makes reference to the Reynold's case, stating the 10 point test.
Throughout the piece the phrase 'fair and accurate account' frequently appears. To me this appears to be the core of journalism; its fine to argue a point, as long as you are balanced and have a strong hold of the facts.
The other thing I took away from this weeks lecture was the idea of the Innocence Project. Although its highly doubtful we would ever find a victim of false conviction, the project sounds very interesting and I look forward to hearing more about it.
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