Mother Sues After Bebo Story Hits Press 305
slick_shoes notes a story out of England: a woman named Amanda Hudson is suing six national newspapers for defamation and breach of privacy after they ran stories based on her 15-year-old daughter's exaggerated claims about her party, published on her Bebo site. The party was held at the family's £4m villa in Spain, and the daughter's account claimed that jewelery had been stolen and furniture and a television set thrown into the swimming pool; in addition there were claims of sex and drug use. The mother says that this was all falsehood and exaggeration. A number of newspapers picked up claims and photos from Bebo and ran them nationally. From the article: "The case is expected to have far-reaching consequences for third parties who use or publish information from social networking sites. Lawyers say it could place a duty on all second-hand users to establish the truth of everything they want to republish from such sites."
I hope so (Score:4, Informative)
I hope that they succeed. It would is nice to know that when they actually claim it is news, it is not a piece of fiction more in line with Harlequin romance novels.
Since when was there a requirement for truth... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Editors? (Score:5, Informative)
To quote John Swinton [constitution.org]:
Assuming the mother is telling the truth (Score:5, Informative)
By US standards this case would likely be tossed out.
The first story I found from the Daily Mail [dailymail.co.uk] included getting a response from the mother, quotes from other party goers, etc
Just because the mother denies (possibly criminal, depending on how hitting her daughter occurred and what the laws are regarding serving minors alcohol over there) the report doesn't mean it was defamation or they didn't do their jobs. Maybe the quotes were made up, and maybe the pictures from the girl's blog didn't show what they seemed to (teenagers paired up in bed, passed out drunk girls, young men/teenagers carrying beer around) but we shouldn't assume that.
According to wiki in the UK
The US uses a somewhat similar standard. If you've got claims by the daughter, quotes from friends of the mother, and from party goers (and these are not fabricated) then to me "due care" has probably been taken.
Re:Editors? (Score:4, Informative)
You are 100% correct. I worked for a newspaper once and my editor would constantly hammer into us that we had to "quote, quote, quote!" If somebody said something, we were to write it as "somebody said something".
Anything not attributed as a quote is viewed as fact in the news, so quoting is of utmost importance when reporting anything that has not been proven to have occurred; if not for accuracy's sake, at least for liability protection. People will sue, and win, over the smallest details that were reported as fact when they were not verified as such.
As a side point, any journalist who uses an online post as a source without further research is nothing short of a shoddy reporter.
Re:Assuming the mother is telling the truth (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Editors? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah you just made that up (Score:3, Informative)
Its patently false. There are places that the limit is ridiculous (UK its 5 w/ a parent), less strict (many places in Europe its 16) or identical to the US. Other places, alcohol can only be purchased or consumed at certain times, or not at all.
A brief history of Lala Land... (Score:4, Informative)
Friends of the printers (to cut a long story short) often sent lengthy letters to each other, reporting on topical events (it was before the internet) especially wars. These letters were often printed verbatim hence the origin of the word 'correspondent'.
These reports were incredibly popular and garnered readership. Edward Mallet took the highly original step of editing them to fit the space between the ads, and the Daily Courant was born in the 1700's. Often these letters were reports of reports of reports - a bit like the internet!
Gradually this developed into an art form and it wasn't long before reporters were despatched to write the letters themselves. War, conflict, crime and punishment and scandal soon became the daily diet of millions of readers. Then Hollywood was invented and so was the world of entertainment. Gradually readers started to prefer entertainment to 'news' - and who wouldn't? I present exhibit one 'The Sun' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun/ [wikipedia.org] , which holds the world record for the highest readership of a single edition in the English language. This is closely followed by that masterpiece of twee entertainment published by DC Thomson 'The Sunday.Post' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Post/ [wikipedia.org] including the immortal humour of 'Oor Wullie' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oor_Wullie/ [wikipedia.org] Oor_Wullie and 'The Broons' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broons/ [wikipedia.org]
So it shouldn't really surprise anyone that people like to be entertained and since the entertainment industry is the economic dynamo of the developed nations, we shouldn't really be surprised by the sudden revelation that newspapers are in the 'infotainment' business.
None of this is at all new, Evelyn Waugh, in 1938, lampooned the whole industry to hilarious effect in 'Scoop' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_(novel)/ [wikipedia.org]. The simple tests for 'news' is; "What is the origin of this report?" and: "Who benefits from it?" and the three eternal questions any journalist would ask any famous figure if they caught them in the elevator are: "How bad is it? Will it get any worse? And what are you going to do about". A healthy attitude of scepticism is an essential attri..
We interrupt this broadcast to bring you ** breaking news** direct from Lynwood, California where Paris Hilton has just been released from prison having served four days of a 40 day sentence... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton/ [wikipedia.org]
Bias Disclaimer: I used to be a member of the NUJ and I used to teach this subject.