Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:59:58 -0500

From: Geoff Mclay

Subject: Jameel

Interesting the clear subtext to the hearing in the second Lange hearing in NZ Court of Appeal was that as NZ did not have Tabloids (or at least solvent ones) that we did not need to worry. Anyone who has been following the unfortunate recent exposition of the politics of personal destruction in NZ, might consider the Court to have been more hopeful in this regard.

But if John is right is Jameel really a change in the law in the way that New York Times for instance hailed it in this morning's paper, and the way that The Times website lauds it. The standard in US where courts are both not allowed to say that the media was negligent but can't avoid at looking at whether they were negligent in proving reckless disregard is problematic enough.

Geoff

-----Original Message-----
From: John Murphy
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:10 PM
To: Geoff Mclay
Subject: RE: ODG: Jameel

Geoff raises a good question about who should be the judge of responsible journalism. My own view is that we should definitely NOT go down the Bolam track, but instead allow the courts to take an objective approach (as I think Lord Hoffmann intimated at [54]).

Given the way the tabloids outnumber and outsell the broadsheets (at least in England) it would be crazy to allow the journalists to set the standard.

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