UK: Lawyers cave on ‘Kafkaesque’ reporting ban
Oct 13
Explosive revelations that a private law firm had gagged one of Britain’s leading newspapers from reporting on parliament have been resolved tonight, with the firm in question ending its attempts to suppress a story.
Law firm Carter-Ruck, which has a reputation for suing the media on behalf of powerful clients, had taken legal action to prevent the Guardian from reporting on a question tabled by an MP in Parliament. News of the unprecedented suppression of the story spread across the internet at a rapid pace this afternoon. It was widely seen as an attack on freedom of speech, by preventing the press from undertaking their duty of reporting on parliamentary proceedings.
Minutes ago, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger reported on social networking site Twitter that law firm Carter-Ruck, which specialises in suing the media, had “caved in” after the Guardian indicated that it would go to court to have the ban lifted. The Guardian now reports that the question was – as speculated on several websites and blogs – about a scandal involving the illegal dumping of toxic waste by multinational company Trafigura.
Prior to the lifting of the injunction, the Guardian had been subjected to extraordinary restrictions – the newspaper was prevented from saying who tabled the question, which minister answered the question, what the question was about, where the question could be found, why the paper was prevented from reporting on the question, the name of Carter-Ruck’s client, and what the nature of the proceedings initiated by Carter-Ruck was.
Rusbridger described Carter-Ruck’s unprecedented intervention as another step on the way to a “Kafkaesque” reporting environment where the fundamental freedoms of the press were being jeopardised. Both “trafigura” and “carterruck” became trending topics on Twitter today, as rumours spread like wildfire across blogs and social media.
Media Spy discussion and backgrounder: International Journalism and Media
Cyril Washbrook October 13th 2009